Shite in Miniature II

[bunglebus]

  On 22/11/2023 at 10:12, flat4alfa said:

Somewhere on here the Dinky catalogues are posted, including the trade catalogues...

I've never seen blue or orange civvies with cast wheels, just plastic Speedwheels

Which is why I assumed the Police one I had was the launch one.  But it's clear now due to A.S. SLEUTHING that it is not the case

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It's weird as I only see the blue one with cast wheels - yours is the only one I'd seen with the later type until I went on eBay last night. Orange was definitely the last colour as I'm sure you know

[Datsuncog]

  On 22/11/2023 at 10:58, bunglebus said:

It's weird as I only see the blue one with cast wheels - yours is the only one I'd seen with the later type until I went on eBay last night. Orange was definitely the last colour as I'm sure you know

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Seems to be a bit of overlap - my fucked-with childhood blue version had the nylon speedwheels...

Yes, I know I shouldn't have been let near the paint pens...

But I hadn't realised this was an unusual version - most of the blue examples that have passed through my hands since have had the (nicer) cast wheels.

Wish I'd paid closer attention to the NOS orange ones in the model shop where I worked - there were dozens of the last-of-the-line Italian made ones abandoned on the far corner of a shelf, in plain brown cardboard boxes with no window or branding or anything.

[danthecapriman]

  On 22/11/2023 at 10:58, bunglebus said:

It's weird as I only see the blue one with cast wheels - yours is the only one I'd seen with the later type until I went on eBay last night. Orange was definitely the last colour as I'm sure you know

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Just had a look, I’ve got two blue ones. 
One of them has plastic wheels, no casting defects, does have wing badges.

The other (the one I’ve stripped) no idea about original wheels as they’d gone but I’d assume they were the shitty plastic ones as someone had good sense to replace them! But, it does have a very very faint hint of the casting damage to the front wing. It’s straight but there’s a tiny mark/void into the waist height trim line. Nothing else though. And, it doesn’t have wing badges. 
 

Here’s a pic to prove it’s blue-ness! 
It’d been Humbrol’d red straight over the factory blue.

No wing badges, you can see the slight damage to the trim line.

 

Maybe there were multiple moulds/dies?? One got damaged and palmed off to Italy? Or could Dinky have tried to alter the tooling to remove the wing badges and accidentally damaged the wing part in the process?

[flat4alfa]

  On 22/11/2023 at 11:16, danthecapriman said:

Or could Dinky have tried to alter the tooling to remove the wing badges and accidentally damaged the wing part in the process?

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Yes that's was what I was trying to say over the page

That void into the waist height trim line would be proud on the die.  So I assume the removal of the wing badge was by using some filling material.  The die would be steel, couldn't use many typical fill materials due to the temperatures involved at casting, so the adjustment was I assume welded in and a mess was made tidying it all up?

[danthecapriman]

  On 22/11/2023 at 11:27, flat4alfa said:

Yes that's was what I was trying to say over the page

That void into the waist height trim line would be proud on the die.  So I assume the removal of the wing badge was by using some filling material.  The die would be steel, couldn't use many typical fill materials due to the temperatures involved at casting, so the adjustment was I assume welded in and a mess was made tidying it all up?

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So, in theory the tooling was damaged partway through the blue model’s production period. 
The police version doesn’t seem to have the issue on any of them? So that must have been first produced, then blue with cast wheels & wing badges, then blue plastic wheels & wing badges, then blue plastic wheels & no wing badges with casting flaw, then beige??, finally orange from Italy?

But, it’s still weird how @Split_Pin orange car doesn’t have the casting flaw!

[danthecapriman]

  On 22/11/2023 at 11:38, danthecapriman said:

So, in theory the tooling was damaged partway through the blue model’s production period. 
The police version doesn’t seem to have the issue on any of them? So that must have been first produced, then blue with cast wheels & wing badges, then blue plastic wheels & wing badges, then blue plastic wheels & no wing badges with casting flaw, then beige??, finally orange from Italy?

But, it’s still weird how @Split_Pin orange car doesn’t have the casting flaw!

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Actually, the beige car couldn’t be that late, as some do have cast wheels, without wing badges. Maybe the colours overlapped with each other for a while?

Im still thinking there was more than one set of tooling tbh, one slightly different to the other. 
Could they have made one tooling for the first police version, and another for the civvy version. Then altered the police tooling to make civvy versions which then got damaged and punted off to Italy?

[bunglebus]

The police one does have the fault, but it's hidden by the stripe. You can see the front wing is proud of the trim line still.

[flat4alfa]

  On 21/11/2023 at 17:57, bunglebus said:

Police is harder to see due to the sticker but I can see it's just as bad

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^

[Tenmil Socket]

  On 22/11/2023 at 07:23, Split_Pin said:

Chaps, were there ever any orange Dinky 265s made at Binns Road? Because my orange example says 'Made in England' and it doesn't have any of the above mentioned casting defects.

It could be a repaint, as the baseplate has been crudely glued on, but even under the arches and hidden bits is orange.

What does everyone think:

 

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I'm thinking that's a re-paint. The bumpers appear to have had a touch of black paint and is that orange on the wheel?

[flat4alfa]

First seen in the 1977 Dinky Catalogue, as a touch-in, blue with white interior

In the 1977 Trade Catalogue, blue with red interior:

No Police version in Catalogue until 1978:

Dinky 1978-7 by Rich Secker, on Flickr

Dinky 1978-9 by Rich Secker, on Flickr

1978 Trade catalogue:

1979 Catalogue:

Then we saw THE ORANGE for the first time on the 1979 Trade leaflet, showing its casting damage clearly. 

No BEIGE seen in a catalogue or leaflet.

[Split_Pin]

  On 22/11/2023 at 11:51, Tenmil Socket said:

I'm thinking that's a re-paint. The bumpers appear to have had a touch of black paint and is that orange on the wheel?

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The glass and tailgate window have also been glued back on so overall, my long- held belief that its a repaint holds true!

It's a shame as the quality of the repaint is good, although it's quite thin.

[danthecapriman]

  On 22/11/2023 at 12:11, flat4alfa said:

First seen in the 1977 Dinky Catalogue, as a touch-in

In the 1977 Trade Catalogue, blue with red interior:

No Police version in Catalogue until 1978:

Dinky 1978-7 by Rich Secker, on Flickr

Dinky 1978-9 by Rich Secker, on Flickr

1978 Trade catalogue:

1979 Catalogue:

Then we saw THE ORANGE for the first time on the 1979 Trade leaflet, showing its casting damage clearly. 

No BEIGE seen.

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Hold the fuckin phone!

What am I seeing here. There’s a Granada!? What happened to that!? It looks pretty good too. Was it cancelled or something?

[eddyramrod]

I believe that's exactly what happened, yes.

[sierraman]

  On 22/11/2023 at 12:58, danthecapriman said:

Hold the fuckin phone!

What am I seeing here. There’s a Granada!? What happened to that!? It looks pretty good too. Was it cancelled or something?

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A few samples were made and it was round about the time they went bust. Sometimes they come up at Vectis, at the point they went bust I’m assuming some got pilfered when the factory closed. They were in the process of launching a space age range at the time as well. @Datsuncog will probably know more but there seemed to be a lot of NOS Dinkies from that era knocking around in the mid 90’s. Presumably sold off en masse by the liquidators. 

[flat4alfa]

Yes there has been Dinky Granada discussion on here, will do a search.

I also have a copy of a magazine with it on front cover and photos inside

[bunglebus]

Resin prototype and pre-production versions

Transit was looking pretty funky too

The Jag XJC also appears in several different colours as well as the stillborn Steed version everyone loves to recreate. As it was we only got the white Big Cat as far as I know. The catalogues also reveal several different alterations to the casting prior to production 

[flat4alfa]

Dinky  Ford Granada Mk2 resin prototype in silver first seen in 1978 Catalogue (but not in Trade Catalogue), page shown above.  Then repeated in 1979 Catalogue, page shown above.

Then alongside a red 'Fire Chief' car missing glazing, die-cast, with black interior, on the 1979 Dinky Trade Leaflet:

Front cover and inside story in this magazine shows gold die-cast with glazing, red interior

Alongside a RED Jaguar

[bunglebus]

Big arches, no boot spoiler

Vents in bootlit

Steed version that never made it to production 

Maybe the vents are actually fuel fillers, from the Broadspeed race car anyway

Yep

[flat4alfa]

First seen 1977 Catalogue as a heavy touch-in

Boot lid fuel fillers and in Leyland colours on next page

1978 Trade Catalogue boot lid filler body with the release colours

From Toy Car Wars (Giles Chapman)

[bunglebus]

So they were planning a Broadspeed and an Avengers version, that would explain some of the casting differences.  Shame.

[danthecapriman]

  On 22/11/2023 at 14:26, flat4alfa said:

Dinky  Ford Granada Mk2 resin prototype in silver first seen in 1978 Catalogue (but not in Trade Catalogue), page shown above.  Then repeated in 1979 Catalogue, page shown above.

Then alongside a red 'Fire Chief' car missing glazing, die-cast, with black interior, on the 1979 Dinky Trade Leaflet:

Front cover and inside story in this magazine shows gold die-cast with glazing, red interior

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What a shame it didn’t get released. It’s actually a shame they managed to release those weird little convoy trucks instead! They should have done the Granada first!

[bunglebus]

Anyhow. I got myself a bit of an oddity via eBay

I think I read somewhere that the original Budgie moulds were used to create a number of newer versions at some point but I'd never seen one. 

[sierraman]

As I understand it the announcement they’d close was pretty terse, I expect it was ‘get your coat and clear your locker’ at 1pm. The machines would have gone silent, stock piled up unsold then the liquidators would have come in and things would have sat for years while the mess was unpicked. It’s a bit like the Arabic Corgis you see on eBay, probably the result of a deal gone bad and they’ll have sat in a bonded warehouse for umpteen years until someone buys the stock. 

[flat4alfa]

  On 22/11/2023 at 15:03, bunglebus said:

I think I read somewhere that the original Budgie moulds were used to create a number of newer versions at some point but I'd never seen one. 

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Yes Promod in Stafford acquired some of the Budgie tooling.

https://promod-diecast.com/product-category/promod-originals-from-budgie-toy-castings/

They no longer produce the VW Pickup, probably wore it out

[bunglebus]

I've got a couple of the little ones too

 

[flat4alfa]

  On 22/11/2023 at 14:32, bunglebus said:

Steed version that never made it to production 

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Thing is, they must have produced a short bulk run, to have distributed like this

A pre-prod wouldn't be sent out to clients like this?  It would be packed in a sturdy box alongside the other 'new to range' examples to lay out on a table together

https://www.vectis.co.uk/593-lot-645162-dinky-pre-production-the-avengers-john-steed-s-jaguar?el=645162

[flat4alfa]

So there were at least two resin Granadas in silver

2003, silver with small nick in the front side window, air bubble at top of same door, bodged rear arch; sold for £410  https://www.vectis.co.uk/207-lot-216681

2008, air bubble in that window, tidy rear arch, headlamp detail; sold for £260  https://www.vectis.co.uk/38-lot-25902

2015, the same one with the nick in the front side window resurfaced and sold for £180 (disastrous investment!)  https://www.vectis.co.uk/544-lot-589645-dinky-pre-production-ford-granada-mk-ii-resin-prototype

So out there is also the diecast:

Unpainted, red interior, with glazing

Unpainted, white interior, with glazing

Red Fire Chief diecast without glazing

Gold diecast with glazing.

 

SEVEN (7) GRANADAS TO LOOSE SLEEP OVER

[Split_Pin]

I glad they released the Princess, just a shame it had the later wheels and no opening features. It was well-proportioned though and I can't recall any other manufacturer making a model of it until Vanguards and Oxford.

[flat4alfa]

  On 22/11/2023 at 16:57, Split_Pin said:

I glad they released the Princess, just a shame it had the later wheels and no opening features. It was well-proportioned though and I can't recall any other manufacturer making a model of it until Vanguards and Oxford.

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Ah but there was pre-production Princesses with opening features easily lost features: their roof light bar!

See what I mean about a specific box for pre-productions to be carried about?  Not a shrink-wrapping on card, from the factory

[Datsuncog]

  On 22/11/2023 at 15:02, danthecapriman said:

It’s actually a shame they managed to release those weird little convoy trucks instead! They should have done the Granada first!

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At a guess, Dinky probably hoped the weird little Convoy range would be a runaway success with the kiddies, generate plenty of profit (one basic generic casting spun out into five different models using various plastic backs, plus colour/ livery variations), and enable them to tool up for the more complex and expensive Granada to be launched.

Didn't happen.

Chezbois,com summarises it pretty well:

  Quote

These trucks were made from 1977 to 1980. They are not modelled on any real truck but are a cheap de-specced toy designed to create volume sales in a declining market, Corgi tried some similar tricks with the same lack of success.

There were a range of trucks offered including a skip truck, Fire, Royal Mail and a number of famous name businesses - Harrods, Pickfords etc. None of them memorable or of any value.

Convoy Series Truck 103106 (chezbois.com)

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Guessing that the Corgi reference is in relation to the Cubs range, which I have a sneaking affection for - or possibly the much earlier Corgi Qualitoys sub-brand that never really took off (Turbine Trucks...)

I've zero affection for the Convoy range, mind - one of those things I'm sad to say I wouldn't even rescue from a 50p tub.