danthecapriman

Great to see the Benz out on the road again. Good to see winter gone too!!

It’s such a solid distinguished looking old thing. Enjoy the spring and summer.

Got myself a mk2 Escort, but decided to go for the cheaper Maxichamps version instead of the usual Vanguard’s.

Looks good to my eye. If I was to be critical I’d say the grill and headlights are slightly too far forward giving the the front a flush appearance but overall a good effort I think. 
It’s nice to find one that’s not an RS or Mexico or yet another rally car.

3 minutes ago, AndyW201 said:

Got home to a parcel from Ana's Hot Wheels site, who I use occasionally to get the stuff I can't find in the shit shops round here. 

First off, a couple of Matchbox mainlines,

I must be about the only person in the country who couldn't find this one in the shops when it came out, but now I've got one. Already got the yellow and metallic blue ones, but I'm still on the hunt for the Target-exclusive Onyx green version, after narrowly missing out on it a couple of times ...

The MR2 looks good in metallic blue,

A very sparkly metallic blue!

Bunglebus beat me to it with showing one of these, but I'm loving the Moving Parts Beemer CSL, like I did the original Superfast one I had as a kid.

I like the new Moving Parts packaging, but FFS Mattel, would it kill you to have tuck-in flaps on the ends of the boxes rather than gluing the bastards down? I wanted to have this one out but it was impossible to get the glued down flap open without damaging it,

Still, it's out now, and it's a lovely thing.

Nice detailing for the size,

Bonnet opens like on the real thing, lift the front first, and slide forward slightly, then open,

To reveal some lovely under bonnet detail. In all, a little belter!

And a few HW Premiums which, again, I didn't stand a cat in hells chance of getting anywhere else,

Sierra Cossie looks great, apart from that bloody locating pillar,

Finally got the flat-front Escort MK2, again, a nice wee thing.

Very close to the livery of Björn Waldegård'1977 British Airways-liveried car, one of my fave liveries.

But getting this one was the highlight though, I really wanted it at the time, then kind of forgotten about it until it came up on the sales site,

Yep, it's a bit '90s Max Power with the body mods, etc, but it's a bloody Purple Corrado, so that's good enough for me.

Another little stunner!

That BMW is lovely!

Ive never seen the Corrado before though. I had no idea they made it!

That is awesome! Well bought that man👍

Goes to show what a decent climate does for cars. Hopefully it’ll not rust into the ground in this wet cold salty shit hole!

Back when I got my Capri in 2001 all these old Ford’s were at that point of being deeply unpopular. I got loads of shit off my peers for having it. How the tables have turned! Which is a blessing and a curse in some ways.

14 minutes ago, Tenmil Socket said:

The Jetsons

Here they are on a trip out in their Caddy!

15 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

I've got a nice late version with just the blanket

A tattier early one with patient

And a Superfast with patient 

(and many others in various states!)

I’ll be honest. I didn’t even realise they came with a patient or a blanket until I saw @ETCHY one! I have got a Dinky Cadillac ambulance with the figure and stretcher.

I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those with the patient and blanket still with it. Nice find.

48 minutes ago, FakeConcern said:

Yes plz to the Maestro @bunglebus

I saw one of these at the toy fair last week, was £2 ish I think, I thought it looked a bit shit so didn't bother...

I’ve never liked that Dinky Caddy either. It looks terrible! The top half is completely out of proportion to the bottom half. 
In a way it sort of looks like one of those futuristic bubble top concept cars from the 50’s!

While waiting for glue to dry on the MAN I’ve been putting the ex 007 partwork Ford Econoline Club Wagon back together.

Just got a few bits to touch in by hand - door handles etc then make a pair of tail lights as they broke getting them out. 
Im pretty pleased with this one! 
I wouldn’t mind finding another and doing it as the panel van version with less chrome.

I’m slowly getting the MAN 6x4 done.

Cab is getting there. I need to keep offering it up to the chassis at the moment though so I’ll wait before painting it.

 
Chassis needed shortening to become a tractor unit, so some sections were removed from the middle then rejoined.

Looks about right mocked up with the trailer now.

The original chassis for this was a 6x6 but a 6x4 is more appropriate for a tractor unit. So, I removed the front driven axle and suspension (one plastic moulding) and made a new replacement from plastic section. 
I did do this in a more ‘scale’ appearance but the weight of the cast metal chassis and cab was bending the plastic so I had to beef it up! All works though!

 
Next I needed a 5th wheel coupling. 
I stole one from another IXO truck to use as a template, at least then I know the trailer pin will fit! Then cut out the parts from plastic card. It actually does tilt slightly as it should too once the trailer goes on.

 
Starting to look better now.

Still a bit to do. 
Fuel tank needs making smaller, air tanks need refitting, hoses behind cab making, rear wheel mud gaurds, painting… probably a load of other stuff too!

8 minutes ago, eddyramrod said:

That is glorious, and precisely opposite to my dad's Zephyr 4 that he bought new (DWM 95C): navy with pale blue interior.  TBH I think these look beautiful in almost any colour scheme.

Definitely. It’s one of those cars that just can’t look bad in any colour. Even ratty matte black doesn’t look bad.

2 minutes ago, ETCHY said:

Some people really are utter wankers, I do wonder how folk are happy to be like that.

+1

It’s absolutely pathetic childish behaviour being like that. What a bitter little wanker!

If you don’t want the item to go for 99p on eBay… then don’t start it at 99p!?! Not difficult really.

47 minutes ago, Vantman said:

I have had 4 wheel tanker chassis shortened and 4 wheel car transporter chassis stretched,done by local engineering companies,no paperwork involved apart from the invoice!

When I left school my first job was with Sparshatt & son coach builders in Havant. We used to alter the length of brand new trucks. 
I don’t remember ever doing big conversions like adding axles or anything but we definitely would alter length. 
They usually came in as new chassis cabs direct from the manufacturer then got built up into whatever the customer wanted. 
One of the biggest rolling contracts they had was with John Lewis. We’d get a few new Mercedes rigid chassis cabs delivered a week for building into box delivery trucks with a tail lift. They’d come into the workshop and the first job was removing the light bar from the back, measure up and slice off a few feet of chassis. 
 

The other favourite was removals trucks. Usually they came in as used trucks so there was always a variety of lengths involved depending what their previous use was. There was quite often an amount of demolition involved in them getting them ready for the new body. Then they usually got a chassis stretch to maximise the space in the back. 
Someone in the office did all the paperwork though so I’ve no idea how or what was involved with all that, but the customer would usually turn up after the vehicle was finished and drive them away.

21 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

It still happens quite a lot. I've seen a good number of tractor units, particularly ex Stobart Scanias, made into 6x2 or 8x2 rigids. That involves not only a chassis stretch but usually moving the lift axle to the rear (most tractor units are midlifts but almost all rigids are tag axle) and in the case of eight-wheelers adding another steer axle.

This one for instance was a Stobart 6x2 unit (PO66 UHU, Isabelle Skye), not that you'd recognise it as such now.

 

That does seem rather a lot of work! But someone must have still declared it cost effective.

The other day I found a photo on Flickr of an MAN tractor unit and it’d been converted from a 4x2 into 6x2 but the info under the pic says that some MAN technician’s had to come over from Germany to inspect the work. It didn’t say why, but maybe it was part of the conversion and registration process? 
All it said was the technician’s were happy it was ‘as good as a factory built one’.

48 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

thats interesting! whats the rules and regulations when it comes to that, I was under the general impression that literally cutting and shutting a vehicle in such a manner, would be a fast track to a Q plate...

 

im glad to hear you have managed to land some work I hope it works out well for you   do you think they might object to you smuggling some cars around in the back for the forum still?

 

 

It used to happen reasonably often years ago. Obviously buying a truck of any sort is a big investment so buying a second or third hand vehicle then modifying it to suit your needs can be more cost effective. 
It can be as big a job as a full chassis stretch or even just adding an axle to a chassis to turn a 4x2 into a 6x2 or 6x4 etc etc.

When the truck companies in Malta used to buy up lots of older British trucks and ship them home to Malta lots of them were converted on arrival. Tractor units became tippers etc etc. 

2 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

sensory overload

Nice!

But, I raise you…

Full CF house!!

Here’s something I didn’t know existed.

The Dinky casting for the Ford D series, I knew about the early type with early grill and opening doors and of course the late type with non opening doors and late style grill.

But I found this.

Early grill, non opening doors. In that same yellowish green the last version of the Johnson road sweeper comes in. I didn’t realise they did these like this. Almost an intermediate version of the D series.

Brilliant stuff @FakeConcern that Mini pickup looks absolutely fantastic. Definitely looks like something that could  have been what Corgi made. 
I wonder why they didn’t?

Hope you feel better soon btw.

As promised, the old Corgi A60 is painted!

I still couldn’t decide on colours. I very nearly painted it maroon with white stripe, but having tested the paint colour first I wasn’t convinced. 
But, to be honest the colour scheme corgi used was nice. It was just the L plates and roof wheel thingy that bothered me so I decided in the end, if it ain’t broke… or whatever!

So,

Lada Adriatic blue with a gloss white stripe. The blue will tone down a bit once it dries. 
The stripe was a bastard to mask up well. A combination of fairly rough casting edges along what would be bright trims on the real car and this particular car has some pretty heavy chips and dings in the same place so the tape was hard to cut where they were. But, it’s a toy that’s been played with over the past half century plus so what do you expect!

The good thing is though I can disguise the wavy edges between blue & white by painting in the bright trim which Corgi didn’t do. That’ll have to wait a few days though as the blue needs to harden off.

There is a bit of a ding/damage to the boot lid too which I didn’t fix, and a slight - very slight! - bend to the roof… but it’s an old toy!

Not sure if I’ll find a replacement front solid axle for this or just glue the original steering wheels in the straight position. 
Obviously the steering mechanism won’t be getting refitted so the steering wheels will just flop around independently of each other if I don’t glue them.

I still think Corgi missed a trick not releasing this model later, maybe by altering the tooling to remove the L plates and fill the hole in the roof, and punt it out in various colour combo’s but what’s done is done I guess! We’ll never know!

18 minutes ago, FakeConcern said:

I had wondered what happened to this and was going to ask, but you beat me to it!

It’s actually in white primer now with the base painted, but I couldn’t make my mind up about colour(s) so it’s been sat on the bench in the shed for ages!

I will make my mind up tomorrow and paint it. No excuses!

22 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

Forgot to flag this up when it arrived last week.

The rather delayed March 2024 release from Corgi Model Club - the #236 Austin A60 Cambridge Driving School Car.

I've been looking forward to this one.

A chod-tastic choice of subject matter, and really well executed.

Also a fine reminder of the days when a prospective driver was let loose in one of these vast understeering boats with huge overhangs fore and aft, rather than a nice compact Micra with power steering.

The steerable wheels are, of course, the main feature - but it's also a lovely rendering of some prime BMC grey porridge.

Hard to know whether the design impetus was to model a driving school car, or whether it was to create a miniature Cambridge, but the steering was added at a later stage of design for fear it'd be too dull for kiddy tastes otherwise.

The L plates front and back are highly visible, anyway - and the casting was never modified or used for any other Corgi release. 

The student and instructor figures inside add a further dash of realism.

While, inside the box, are replicas of some educational matter:

There y'go - a highly abridged 'Junior Highway Code', plus some handy European language vocab.

Still, pretty exciting stuff. It's kinda nice that Corgi continued this theme through the '70s with the Corgi Driving School VW Beetle (including cones), and into the 1980s with the 1/36 scale Triumph Acclaim/ Honda Ballade proclaiming the same.

Box looks enticing, too.

And the usual facts and figures info card.

At least these cards are easy enough to store, rather than the floppy A4 sized leaflets masquerading as a magazine which accompanied similar partworks sold through newsagents.

But stay!

I happen to have a moderately knackered original here too.

In terms of colour and detail, it's a good match.

Just the underside colouration is a bit different.

Marvellous. Love it.

That’s lovely. Really well done when compared to an original.

That A60 was one of my biggest frustrations as a youngster though! I wanted a standard car not one with the big red thing on top and those cast in L plates really were a let down as they were impossible to get rid of without grinding the thing down. 
Im sure that would have sold well as a standard car too if Corgi would have done it.

Reminds me, I’ve still not finished my original one I’m converting into what Corgi should have done…

43 minutes ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Yes the Hidden treasures are not treasures at all. They are a good source for spares for other versions and then you can make them look more scrap than they already are.

The Allegro I had had less brown on it. I guess it was hand painted in the factory.

The weathered Land Rover is the same, with the dirt being inconsistent

I always thought the Marina was one of the better attempts with the coat hanger aerial and the dirty windscreen.

There are a couple of versions of the Transit

The Austin A30 Van is pants with the rust effect being were there is no actual seam.

The Sunbeam has a primered rear wing and what looks like a coated new wing. The roof rip is rubbish.

Reliant Supervan is waiting to be painted yellow like the one from Peckham. Extra points for Tax in Post on the screen.

Minor Pick Up with pealing red oxide primer

And finally the worst of the lot, the Minor Saloon resto that's half under a cover and guarded by a cat.

If you want an even cheaper source of parts then the Boy Racer series can usually pick up cheaply, and all the parts are shiney already.

 

Vanguards and Corgi have tried just about every angle over the years to sell some diecast, but these two series were scrapping the bottom of the barrel for me.

Funnily enough, my thoughts on both those series’s is the same! They are a bit shit really!

But, on the other hand they can provide a slightly cheaper way to bag a Vanguard’s model to use as repaint material, which was pretty much my intention with the Allegro. 
I wonder if the rust paint would wipe off with a dab of thinners on some tissue? Maybe I’ll test it on this one before I strip all the paint.

Wasnt there a hidden treasures Granada mk1 too?

Just now, Split_Pin said:

The Allegro would look better with just a bit of weathering and a yellow wing!

The base model is nice, but the rust effect looks like someone just dipped a brush in brown paint and slapped it on rough. Not the best finish at all, but maybe that’s why they go cheaper?

Maybe a candidate for a repaint in future though. Possibly into blue like my grandads old one.

Allegro was with a Consul taxi in poverty stricken citizen spec.

Short MOT on this lil’ bastard but I’m assured it’s a good rig that drives like a train!😄

These Vanguards hidden treasures versions seem less expensive than the normal releases for some reason. Although to be fair, some of the rust paint looks a bit pants!