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Shite in Miniature II


Split_Pin

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1 hour ago, Sudsprint said:

Found a photo if me in 1967, some interweb detective work and Ebay came up trumps (with apologies for the poor turn of phrase).

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Doris has had one of those for years

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These days she finds it all a bit tight though

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That's not a phrase she uses very often, sadly

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Providence took me up to the attic earlier, where lives the Big Box of Cars. The last rummage I had is documented here .

Not much time to play, so I stuck my hand in and scooped up a random assortment of 1:64s.

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The Golf came from a primary school bring and buy sale . Would have been 5p or something. It's always been a bit of a favourite of mine, although the shape seems a bit off. It's not as well captured as the Majorette equivalent and it misses that model's opening tailgate (and crossed tennis raquets. Hey, why tennis raquets? Why not golf clubs? Hmm). No suspension, either! In fact I'm not really sure why I like it so much. It just feels like a quality item, I guess.

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Looking at it now, though, I'm troubled that I never previously spotted that our upwardly mobile 1976 Golf buyer had fitted the private numberplate FLT878...

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...but evidently had yet to replace the front plate, which remains JBV349R. EDIT: Split_pin and DC documented the same observation upthread.

My example only has a few faint traces of where the former bodyside GOLF graphic would have been. Not sure if I'm pleased or saddened by that.

 

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I was always inexplicably attached to this here Renault 11, too. Partly, I guess, for the TURBO script in correct Renault typeface. Partly for its clear headlights. And partly for how resolutely normal it was. If memory serves, it came as a "bonus" car in a pack with several laser-wheeled examples in. Pretty sure it came from Tescos Colchester (Highwoods) as a result of pester power as a nine or ten year old.

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And finally, for this particular visit to the box, is a Norev Talbot Horizon that I've had for years but have absolutely no idea how it turned up in my custody. It's short of a right-hand rear wheel, the rear suspension has collapsed and it has severe ride-height issues at the front end, too, and I'm not entirely convinced by its proportions — it seems rather long of bonnet. It's a lovely crisp casting, though, so there's that.

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Tri-ang Magicar example photos found on t'interweb: 

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Battery-powered, proudly announcing the Wrenn motor in the advertising; which had a specific design feature of the motor cutting-out automatically, when the car was physically stopped from moving.

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Notice the slot track pin, moving the steering arm.

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The horse was in this set to encourage the child to stop the car in an typical emergency.

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I decided to get my models out of their boxes last night to put them on display. I started with as close as possible to the current fleet, there are some variations with spec. and colour, also some saloons substituting estates but this was as close as I could get:

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The finished display:

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Back from the Oxide paint flash overs "you scuff em we paint em".

Loosely held together with bluetack for now. I'll get some better pictures when it's daytime and fully together.

Also the interior looked ok until the blue window tints make the interior look too blue.

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3 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Cars have been frozen solid for almost a week so can't do any work on them. I therefore decided to get my old German 1/43s out that still have their boxes.

Och aye! Good vid!

I have the BMW e30 cabrio but not the coupe. I didn't realise the coupe looked as crude on the front!

I also have the exact same Opel Ascona/Cavalier but no box.

You are correct about the Gama/Schuco Vauxhall range. It is a bit strange.

The Vectra Bs came as hatch, saloon and estate. I have all body styles (here at mine I certainly have the hatch and estate.

For the hatch, I had a different box and a plinth:

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I think I might have another hatch (in Green I seem to remember) somwhere as I had a big collection of model cars but mostly now packed away at Ma_Sterling's in Birmingham where the saloon might be too.

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Back to IDEAL Motorific, from back a page

Two here

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Because the selling point was having interchangeable chassis (bodies were sold separately too), the body scaling had to vary and keep within the standard wheelbase.  Take these two, the Triumph TR3 works out to be approx 1:33 and the Plymouth Barracuda to 1:40.

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The later, blue chassis has a slot track pin that turns the steering as well, as what Ideal did later was sell slot sets similar to Matchbox Motorway in that you just sat and watched until the battery died.  The earlier, black chassis does not - you set the steering to what you wanted it to be.  [Ignore the slot track pickup brushes, it's been -ahem- 'converted']

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Likewise, ignore the wiring, as it runs to the pickup brushes underneath.  Normally, you would flick a switch underside and it would run the motor, seen on the black chassis.  Each car was individually battery-powered by two AA cells (HP7 to luddites like me).   Notice also the design is very similar to the Tri-ang Magicar chassis (shown up the page); I wonder if there ever was a patent squabble?

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Hadn't noticed until now, but the the wing detail strips aren't paint ....it's wire, wrapped over and tacked home at each end !  Labour intensive.

Sorry for going on a bit.

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Some more showing off from my 1/18 collection.  Surprisingly I only have three Cadillacs...

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L-R: 1963, from Scarface; 1959; and 1955, the car Elvis bought for his mother.  I'm always up for a Cadillac!

And now, two of the same casting!

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1974 Dodge Monacos: the Bluesmobile and Nevada Highway Patrol.  I know there are other liveries on this casting and I would like to find some.

Now two that aren't quite the same casting...

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Pontiac Firebird Trans Ams.  The black 79/80 stands for the car in Smokey And The Bandit 2, and the white one is a 1973 model so I have both ends of the production run.  I would quite like to find a gold one from 1974-77, to be Jim Rockford's car.

And finally, two of the same casting again.

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1991 Chevy Caprice, in Chicago and New York liveries.  Again, I know there are several other liveries available on this model and would like to expand my collection.

The Caprice and the Dodge are the only castings I have in duplicate at this scale.

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On 20/01/2021 at 9:47 PM, flat4alfa said:

Don't know.  Not been to a supermarket since Dec 20

Anyone else?

I called into Tesco on the way home today.No single Matchbox cars,although the price label was still on the shelf.

The only Matchbox cars there were about 573 of the Top Gun 5 packs 😂

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5 hours ago, eddyramrod said:

Some more showing off from my 1/18 collection.  Surprisingly I only have three Cadillacs...

Oooh, mucho jealously. I'd love to have more 1/18 yank stuff; I have a smattering, including;

This Pontiac Le Mans SJ 428 by ERTL:

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This '65 Corvette Sting Ray by Maisto:

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And, rather smaller and less glamorous, this Pontiac Fiero by YatMing:

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There are others, but I've not yet pointed a camera at them properly.

One I DO like rather a lot, though, and also by Yat Ming, is my Studebaker Golden Hawk, about which I ill-advisedly made a video once upon a time.

The 1/18 collection, largely attic-bound, numbers something like 120, all there for such a time as I can play with them again.

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1 hour ago, 155V6 said:

I called into Tesco on the way home today.No single Matchbox cars,although the price label was still on the shelf.

The only Matchbox cars there were about 573 of the Top Gun 5 packs 😂

Just been into Tesco Ipswich.  20 or so Matchbox, last year's.  Overflowing box of Hot Wheels, all of which I've seen before, lots of 5 packs of both brands, 10 packs of Matchbox with the red/yellow VW T3 and lots of monster trucks including three of the sought-after Beetle. Bought nothing

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56 minutes ago, eddyramrod said:

120!!!!!  That's a collection!  

It's a problem. As it was for many, my introduction to the scale was via a Bburago E-Type (I unwrapped two of them during Christmas 1989, wisely elected to keep one boxed and untouched, but extensively played with – and basically destroyed – the other). It was love at first sight.

Never previously had I been exposed to anything so accurately representative of the car it was based on. Brilliantly, the same Christmas I had received the Collins Gem book of Sports Cars, which had the same E-Type, in the same colour in its pages. I spent a lot of that day asking my grandfather to tell me what the different bits were and what they did. It was on that day that I learnt what SU carburettors look like and how they work.

Two problems with 1/18s, though. They take up too much flipping space for one thing; I'd love to have some of mine displayed, but I have absolutely nowhere to do so. The other problem is price. I've gathered a lot of mine over the last five years or so by chucking opportunistic last-minute bids on eBay. Bargains are increasingly rare, though. If something's genuinely worth having, it tends to end up going for a price that reflects that. But there's also a massive amount of low-end stuff absolutely saturating the market – nice as it is, the Bburago 1993 Dodge Viper is the 1/18 scale equivalent of LLEDO/Days Gone, and is frequently priced on the basis of "that's collectable, that is".

My favourites are the forgotten gems. There are quite a few 1/18s that are far, far better than their price (or the reputation of their maker ) suggests. The Corvette pictured above – I bought it for £8 (plus postage, admittedly), yet it looks like this under the bonnet:

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Also models that people don't know the existence of. Among those I include the Ford StreetKa and Peugeot 206CC (the latter with working roof), both by Welly. They're rare, but not sought after, and as such even paupers like me can afford them.

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I sold/gave away the Bburago Corniche collection as 1/22 was too much.  A multiple 1/18 collection scares me...   I mean, they look fantastic but they're only 18 steps away from 1/1 and I can't go there again, it nearly broke me and the wife and neighbours were having kittens over it all

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I'm another one given to the last minute bid in the hope of a bargain.  Often without success, as I so often bemoan on these very pages.  There's an awful lot of ambitious pricing going on.  And yet, a Viper or Ferrari can be picked up for next to nothing (my kind of price, lol; shame they're not the droids I'm looking for!).

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