Shite in Miniature II

[Datsuncog]

Nope, I didn't.

Well, it's been a turbulent couple of weeks.

This splashed down just when the £5 Mattel 5-packs dropped at Tesco, and I didn't know which direction to devote my energies.

But a very large box arrived from across the water, with some very lovely things within...

I'm an absolute swine for these Corgi Majors trucks, and I've been looking out for one of these Ford H-Series rigs for a while now.

Unsurprisingly, this is part of the reason why a big box was needed!

I did have most of a trailer at one point in the past, but not the matching truck - so I sold that on a few years back.

This one's clearly seen some action in its time, but is largely complete and will make a nice companion for the car transporter version I turned up at the market a few weeks ago.

Delighted with this!

From one of Corgi's biggest models to one of their smallest, then...

A very lovely Austin Mini in plain red, with just a few in-period stickers and Humbrol embellishments added by a previous owner.

Generally these show up with the A-pillars cracked or entirely missing, so one that's structurally perfect is unusual.

The floor seems to have been... undersealed?

Most peculiar. The outer surface of the wheels have also been dabbed in black - and these may be relatively easy to clean up and take back to their original finish.

But there's also something quite charming about this one just as it is, so I may leave it undisturbed.

I'm not normally much of a one for farming models, but this Lesney King Size Fordson Super Major is one I'll make an exception for.

There's a bit of the usual hub shrinkage here, but a drop of glue should keep things rolling.

It's simpler than the equivalent Corgi and Dinky offerings in its construction, with no steering or suspension, but nonetheless an appealing little toy.

And, to utilise that tow hook...

A couple of trailers - a Dinky flat version, and a Lone Star conveyor lifter

The Lone Star is actually in very good shape, and although the rubber belt has hardened a little over its 60-odd years, it still functions with some gentle encouragement and goes up and down on its 'hydraulic' rams.

Some recent-ish Hot Wheels will likely be joining the others in the toybox:

Mattel have been using some of these hot rod castings for a long time now.

I'm also interested in comparing the Mercury Cougar with the Matchbox version from around the same time.

Mazda RX7 is quite nice too.

Then there's the Matchbox - beginning with these early 70s releases.

I keep buying these Ford D-Series gritters and then selling them - so I intend to hang on to this one!

Setra coach is one that's generally eluded me for a long time - not that they're rare, but more that whenever I see one there's generally something I want even more alongside it.

The Superfast Miura is nicer than the one I currently have, so is an upgrade of sorts.

The Security Van is one I owned as a kid, though unwisely I managed to remove the plastic roof with a hammer and screwdriver (I think I wanted to see what was inside?) and it was never quite the same again...

The Rolamatics Badger in cola-cube metallic brown is one I generally disdained as 'made-up', but I've come round to these a lot more in recent years. This one is very tidy; most seem to suffer from terrible axle shonk but this is rolling well - and the little scanner on the roof's still spinning around too.

The Bomag road roller is another I never had, and will go with my other construction toys that I've been quietly acquiring in recent months.

I've always liked the long-running Mercury police car, and this is one of its later outings at the tail-end of the Lesney years (though it would reappear later still in the Roadblasters range under Universal, plus as a relatively uncommon Halley's Comet commemorative special release).

The Holden HX Ute is one of my all-time favourite Matchbox castings, and it'll not surprise you that I've a few of these now. This red version is very clean with the sticker intact, and may even receive a pair of motorbikes to go on the back for display purposes...

I had the military Jeep as a kid too, probably from a jumble sale, but it was missing its windshield as well as the cannon to the rear. This one's missing its weapons but does have the windshield, so I'm pleased.

The Volvo FL lorry was one which excited me quite a lot as a kid, as it seemed very modern and detailed plus it was big. I'm not sure if I have any of my childhood examples remaining, but if not this'll be a good one to fill the gaps.

The silver-grey Pontiac Firebird has good paint, though some mild crush damage to the windscreen surround that I've mostly straightened out, and a missing glazing unit. 

The black version alongside was a bonus car thrown in by Dan, and I'm 99% sure it originally came from me via the market! I think it's an ex-Frosties promo with the 'tiger stripes' removed, and may yield a glazing unit for the silver car...

The Mack CH500 tractor unit is another one I used to have from new, and I remember being surprised to find it boxed individually as part of the mainline range, rather than in a Convoy pack with a trailer - I now know (through dedicated study of catalogues) that Matchbox packaged most of their truck units as regular mainlines, such as the Kenworth Aerocab and Peterbilt, but somehow this had passed me over at the time.

The Land Rover Ninety is another of my favourite '80s releases - I received a blue and white version one Christmas, and was super excited as I didn't know this casting existed at the time. It seemed very true-to-life, in terms of colour and detailing, and it lived on my model railway for a long time - but unfortunately the white plastic roof went yellow from the sunlight.

I've recently acquired a replacement blue version, and this red variant will make a nice companion piece.

The Chevrolet El Camino is a much more recent casting, dating from the early 2000s I believe. Compared to recent releases it looks a little blocky in its proportions, but it was good to see this modelled.

I believe this casting still gets wheeled out from time to time - most recently in the Coffee Cruisers IV 5-Pack set, wearing black paint and quite nice silver detail tampos.

Moving across into Mettoy products now...

A pair of Husky-era Guy bulk tippers, one carrying coal and the other hauling... cobbles? Potatoes?

I've often been a bit lukewarm towards Husky commercials, but these were too good to miss.

Likewise these two quarry tippers. I actually thought these were two versions of the same casting, but really they're totally different - the red and grey Husky with the remains of a plough is an Aveling Barford, while the (mildly incongruous) Whizzwheels is a Terex R-35, and the castings of both bodies and tippers have no commonality.

Sometimes it's good to clear up these misunderstandings.

As a kid, I owned the battered shell of one of these Whizzwheels S3 Land Rovers, but what became of the base or wheels is beyond me. It became a staple of my 'toy scrapyard'.

The metallic green on the right was the civilian example, while the matt green I believe originally came with a clip-on plastic rear section and military ambulance stickers.

I've never owned a BVRT Vita-Min before; when I was younger I saw them but simply assumed that Corgi's effort at modelling a Mini was somehow even worse than the Matchbox attempt, and shunned them accordingly.

I was embarrassingly old before I twigged it was specifically modelled on the heavily modified Minisprint conversion, and that was why the body lines looked nothing like a 'real Mini'.

Oops. This one has had some paint done, so I'll try to clean this up a little!

I've had a few examples of the Whizzwheels Le Mans Sprite pass through my hands before, but not in such good shape as this one.

I owned a fair few pale blue Renault R5 Turbos from the BP petrol promotion in the mid-1980s, but never had the dark blue Elf version.

At these low, low prices I couldn't resist.

The tipper also intrigued me - I remember having a cement mixer using this same chassis unit when I was very young, but the black glazing, lack of interior and seemingly generic casting led me to classify it as a low-grade toy, and so it never really featured in my play settings.

I only found out quite recently that it was based on a real GMC commercial vehicle (I think?), and wasn't a generic. So apologies are due (though if Corgi had troubled themselves to state that on the base, I may have felt differently).

The tipping mechanism's actually quite good, with a heavy diecast flap at the back so it's heavy enough to pivot and remain vertical; I sort of like this. 

Finishing up, there's this Minix Vauxhall Viva HA:

I used to be mad into Minix; I had quite a few at one point, including rarer releases like the Simca 1301 and Morris Landcrab.

A red Viva was one of the first things I ever bought off eBay, some twenty-odd years ago. I think I paid £5 for it, plus postage - and sent him a cheque in the post to pay for this.

Yup kids, the days before e-commerce was a thing.

When it arrived, the back bumper had an end corner missing, which the seller had unaccountably not mentioned in their description of it as 'excellent' and 'mint'.

Lots of lessons were learned.

I moved them all on a while back, but got a tug at the heartstrings when I saw this one looking a new home.

And hey, it is excellent.

Bit of a wildcard to finish with...

Normally I'm not much into biplanes, or indeed planes in general, but this little Nieuport 101-3 appealed for some reason.

I don't know who it's made by but I don't think it's very old; it's just cheaply made, using diecast and tinplate components that are assembled fairly crudely.

The paper stickers are falling off, and it could definitely benefit from a trip around the sink, but I kinda like it.

And that's kinda that...

Oh, except for the knackered white metal Rover P6 which I forgot about and found at the bottom of the box a few days later, and haven't yet photographed!

All thanks to @danthecapriman for yet another exceeding fine selection at very moderate prices!

Which reminds me, I must really get some of my surplus stuff photographed and offered up here...

And so the great game of pass-the-tat-parcel continues...

Happy Easter, kids.

[danthecapriman]

40 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

Nope, I didn't.

Well, it's been a turbulent couple of weeks.

This splashed down just when the £5 Mattel 5-packs dropped at Tesco, and I didn't know which direction to devote my energies.

But a very large box arrived from across the water, with some very lovely things within...

I'm an absolute swine for these Corgi Majors trucks, and I've been looking out for one of these Ford H-Series rigs for a while now.

Unsurprisingly, this is part of the reason why a big box was needed!

I did have most of a trailer at one point in the past, but not the matching truck - so I sold that on a few years back.

This one's clearly seen some action in its time, but is largely complete and will make a nice companion for the car transporter version I turned up at the market a few weeks ago.

Delighted with this!

From one of Corgi's biggest models to one of their smallest, then...

A very lovely Austin Mini in plain red, with just a few in-period stickers and Humbrol embellishments added by a previous owner.

Generally these show up with the A-pillars cracked or entirely missing, so one that's structurally perfect is unusual.

The floor seems to have been... undersealed?

Most peculiar. The outer surface of the wheels have also been dabbed in black - and these may be relatively easy to clean up and take back to their original finish.

But there's also something quite charming about this one just as it is, so I may leave it undisturbed.

I'm not normally much of a one for farming models, but this Lesney King Size Fordson Super Major is one I'll make an exception for.

There's a bit of the usual hub shrinkage here, but a drop of glue should keep things rolling.

It's simpler than the equivalent Corgi and Dinky offerings in its construction, with no steering or suspension, but nonetheless an appealing little toy.

And, to utilise that tow hook...

A couple of trailers - a Dinky flat version, and a Lone Star conveyor lifter

The Lone Star is actually in very good shape, and although the rubber belt has hardened a little over its 60-odd years, it still functions with some gentle encouragement and goes up and down on its 'hydraulic' rams.

Some recent-ish Hot Wheels will likely be joining the others in the toybox:

Mattel have been using some of these hot rod castings for a long time now.

I'm also interested in comparing the Mercury Cougar with the Matchbox version from around the same time.

Mazda RX7 is quite nice too.

Then there's the Matchbox - beginning with these early 70s releases.

I keep buying these Ford D-Series gritters and then selling them - so I intend to hang on to this one!

Setra coach is one that's generally eluded me for a long time - not that they're rare, but more that whenever I see one there's generally something I want even more alongside it.

The Superfast Miura is nicer than the one I currently have, so is an upgrade of sorts.

The Security Van is one I owned as a kid, though unwisely I managed to remove the plastic roof with a hammer and screwdriver (I think I wanted to see what was inside?) and it was never quite the same again...

The Rolamatics Badger in cola-cube metallic brown is one I generally disdained as 'made-up', but I've come round to these a lot more in recent years. This one is very tidy; most seem to suffer from terrible axle shonk but this is rolling well.

The Bomag road roller is another I never had, and will go with my other construction toys that I've been quietly acquiring in recent months.

I've always liked the long-running Mercury police car, and this is one of its later outings at the tail-end of the Lesney years (though it would reappear later still in the Roadblasters range under Universal, plus as a relatively uncommon Halley's Comet commemorative special release).

The Holden HX Ute is one of my all-time favourite Matchbox castings, and it'll not surprise you that I've a few of these now. This red version is very clean with the sticker intact, and may even receive a pair of motorbikes to go on the back for display purposes...

I had the military Jeep as a kid too, probably from a jumble sale, but it was missing its windshield as well as the cannon to the rear. This one's missing its weapons but does have the windshield, so I'm pleased.

The Volvo FL lorry was one which excited me quite a lot as a kid, as it seemed very modern and detailed plus it was big. I'm not sure if I have any of my childhood examples remaining, but if not this'll be a good one to fill the gaps.

The silver-grey Pontiac Firebird has good paint, though some mild crush damage to the windscreen surround that I've mostly straightened out, and a missing glazing unit. 

The black version alongside was a bonus car thrown in by Dan, and I'm 99% sure it originally came from me via the market! I think it's an ex-Frosties promo with the 'tiger stripes' removed, and may yield a glazing unit for the silver car...

The Mack CH500 tractor unit is another one I used to have from new, and I remember being surprised to find it individually as part of the mainline range rather than in a Convoy pack with a trailer - Matchbox sold most of their trucks as separate mainlines, such as the Kenworth Aero and Peterbilt, but somehow this had passed me over.

The Land Rover Ninety is another of my favourite '80s releases - I received a blue and white version one Christmas, and was super excited as I didn't know this casting existed at the time. It seemed very true-to-life, in terms of colour and detailing, and it lived on my model railway for a long time - but unfortunately the white plastic roof went yellow from the sunlight.

I've recently acquired a replacement blue version, and this red variant will make a nice companion piece.

The Chevrolet El Camino is a much more recent casting, dating from the early 2000s I believe. Compared to recent releases it looks a little blocky in its proportions, but it was good to see this modelled. I believe this casting still gets wheeled out from time to time, most recently in the Coffee Cruisers IV 5-Pack set wearing black paint and quite nice silver detail tampos.

Moving across into Mettoy products now...

A pair of Husky-era Guy bulk tippers, one carrying coal and the other hauling... cobbles? Potatoes?

I've often been a bit lukewarm towards Husky commercials, but these were too good to miss.

Likewise these two quarry tippers. I actually thought these were two versions of the same casting, but really they're totally different - the red and grey Husky with the remains of a plough is an Aveling Barford, while the (mildly incongruous) Whizzwheels is a Terex R-35, and the castings of both bodies and tippers have no commonality.

Sometimes it's good to clear up these misunderstandings.

As a kid, I owned the battered shell of one of these Whizzwheels S3 Land Rovers, but what became of the base or wheels is beyond me. It became a staple of my 'toy scrapyard'.

The metallic green on the right was the civilian example, while the matt green I believe originally came with a clip-on plastic rear section and military ambulance stickers.

I've never owned a BVRT Vita-Min before; when I was younger I saw them but simply assumed that the Corgi effort at modelling a Mini was even worse than the Matchbox effort, and shunned them accordingly.

I was embarrassingly old before I twigged it was specifically modelled on the heavily modified Minisprint conversion, and that was why the body lines looked nothing like a 'real Mini'.

Oops. This one has had some paint done, so I'll try to clean this up a little!

I've had a few examples of the Whizzwheels Le Mans Sprite pass through my hands before, but not in such good shape as this one.

I owned a fair few pale blue Renault R5 Turbos from the BP petrol promotion in the mid-1980s, but never had the dark blue Elf version.

At these low, low prices I couldn't resist.

The tipper also intrigued me - I remember having a cement mixer using this same chassis unit when I was very young, but the black glazing, lack of interior and seemingly generic casting led me to classify it as a low-grade toy, and so it never really featured in my play settings.

I only found out quite recently that it was based on a real GMC commercial vehicle (I think?), and wasn't a generic. So apologies are due (though if Corgi had troubled themselves to state that on the base, I may have felt differently).

The tipping mechanism's actually quite good; I sort of like this.

Finishing up, there's this Minix Vauxhall Viva HA:

I used to be mad into Minix; I had quite a few at one point, including rarer releases like the Simca 1301 and Morris Landcrab.

A red Viva was one of the first things I ever bought off eBay, some twenty-odd years ago. I think I paid £5 for it, plus postage - and sent him a cheque in the post to pay for this.

Yup kids, the days before e-commerce was a thing.

When it arrived, the back bumper had an end corner missing, which the seller had unaccountably not mentioned in their description of it as 'excellent' and 'mint'.

Lots of lessons were learned.

I moved them all on a while back, but got a tug at the heartstrings when I saw this one looking a new home 

Bit of a wildcard to finish with...

Normally I'm not much into biplanes, or indeed planes in general, but this little Nieuport 101-3 appealed for some reason.

I don't know who it's made by but I don't think it's very old; it's just cheaply made, using diecast and tinplate components that are assembled fairly crudely.

The paper stickers are falling off, and it could definitely benefit from a trip around the sink, but I kinda like it.

And that's kinda that...

Oh, except for the knackered white metal Rover P6 which I forgot about and found at the bottom of the box a few days later, and haven't yet photographed!

All thanks to @danthecapriman for yet another exceeding fine selection at very moderate prices!

Which reminds me, I must really get some of my surplus stuff photographed and offered up here...

And so the great game of pass-the-tat-parcel continues...

Happy Easter, kids.

Glad you like them!

That black Pontiac is indeed the one you got me from the market. My plan was, as you said, to put the glazing into the nice grey car, too many projects and moving houses etc etc. I’ll be interested to see it if you do swap it over. 

[Tenmil Socket]

King Of Road, OKAY!

[sierraman]

Been to car boot. Nothing much to report apart from a Laser Wheels and a 70’s Boss Mustang for my nephew. Opening bonnet so a novelty in this day and age! 

[eddyramrod]

3 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Which reminds me, I must really get some of my surplus stuff photographed and offered up here...

Yes you really must!  Bagsy the A40 and Opel Diplomat at the very least!

[bunglebus]

33 minutes ago, eddyramrod said:

Yes you really must!  Bagsy the A40 and Opel Diplomat at the very least!

You are flat4alfa and I claim my five pounds

[MiniMinorMk3]

4 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

From one of Corgi's biggest models to one of their smallest, then...

A very lovely Austin Mini in plain red, with just a few in-period stickers and Humbrol embellishments added by a previous owner

Generally these show up with the A-pillars cracked or entirely missing, so one that's structurally perfect is unusual.

Not that unusual to find old Corgis with good screen pillars. 

Here's all my unboxed early Corgi Minis, not a broken screen pillar to be seen.

There's play worn and repaints among them.

Rally cars too.

Lots and lots of little Minis...

some with extra decals too.

With chips or shiney paint...

they all look quite quaint.

Here's a gang of old Austins and Morris'

Some repaints with Minilite atempts.

and then a couple with white and black wheels.

The repaints were found as a lot at Vectis and were fairly cheap.

 

4 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

 

I've never owned a BVRT Vita-Min before; when I was younger I saw them but simply assumed that Corgi's effort at modelling a Mini was somehow even worse than the Matchbox attempt, and shunned them accordingly.

Here's my Vita-Min. This is not the one I had as a 7 year old, it was found many years latter. 

It's been out the bubble

and has no number sticker on the side.

The Vita-Min was always one of my favourite cars. I have a copy of the Hot Car issue that featured it

and when I got wind that it was going to appear at Shelsley Walsh in 2013...

4 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

I was embarrassingly old before I twigged it was specifically modelled on the heavily modified Minisprint conversion, and that was why the body lines looked nothing like a 'real Mini'.

Oops. This one has had some paint done, so I'll try to clean this up a little!

 

I had to go and see it. I have a load of pics of it on a hard drive, but also shot some video that day. The car had come over from France that day.

 

[andy18s]

Ahem 205 please ahem.....

[sutty2006]

1975 matchbox Lesney 

 

2 quid from charity shop 👌

 

 

[bunglebus]

47 minutes ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

has no number sticker on the side.

I think they're all like that

I think I went too big on the wheels here, never been a fan of Minilites but I've got some with rubber tyres I might try

 

[eddyramrod]

8 hours ago, eddyramrod said:

Well I've emptied the rinse bucket this morning and now I've got five raw shells on the windowsill drying off.  Might even get primer on some of them this afternoon!

As I was saying....

Some of these above did indeed get primed...

...And that's as far as two of them can go for the moment, until I lay hands on the correct colours.

[stuboy]

Paid 50p for this, shame its missing a bit 

[bunglebus]

You need this bit!

 

[Datsuncog]

7 hours ago, eddyramrod said:

Yes you really must!  Bagsy the A40 and Opel Diplomat at the very least!

Duly noted!

6 hours ago, andy18s said:

Ahem 205 please ahem.....

Also noted...

Still some more boxes to sift through, and I'll get everyone a heads-up before going live with the sales.

[bunglebus]

Didn't bother dragging ourselves out of bed too early today, but had a mooch around the boot sale

[eddyramrod]

Nice haul!

[sierraman]

Pop up camper I think that is?

[FakeConcern]

12 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Duly noted!

Also noted...

Still some more boxes to sift through, and I'll get everyone a heads-up before going live with the sales.

I didn't realise we needed to have a hair trigger response even before the sale has started haha!

[bunglebus]

Majorette was in a 50p bag of of tat

I got one of these Hot Wheels Mercs recently, but y'know...

Glow test - failed!

Yes that's the pop-up camper from a 5 pack

Didn't notice before there's a bloke asleep inside

 

Matchbox Baja

Ruff Trek

Laser Wheels - these often seem to be really corroded for some reason

And a Blazer

Another Corgi 911, has the light on the pillar but the siren's gone

Corgi Mini is a bit battered but far from dead

I had a Golden Jacks Marcos before but sold it. Got two different versions this morning

What I didn't appreciate last time was the sliding seats

Lastly a King Size Merc ambulance with working steering

[RoadworkUK]

Considerable OOF triggered by one @ThePollitt, occasionally of this parish:

 

[Weird Car]

Finally found a Proton hot wheels by chance whilst in Halfords earlier 

[FakeConcern]

I'm sure many people have decided to convert a Corgi Mini Van missing its doors into a Pickup.

I strted mine the other day and progress is being made, back cut off and edges filed made the bulkhead out of various bits of plasticard, also the tailgate and number plate.

I also cut off the original number plate and amazingly the apature for the locating tab on the base hasn't snapped off (yet!)

I'm thinking cream with a black interior

[Datsuncog]

Some Matchbox Action Drivers silliness, then - as promised.

I just so happened to have assembled some of the latest purchases on the day the DanBox arrived, so that's broadly what populated them.

Matchbox have made, licenced and sold assorted little garages and other accessories since their early days so kids can augment their play experiences - sometimes plastic, sometimes cardboard. Sometimes great, sometimes daft.

Most of us here seem to have owned a few over the years, and after I let my much-loved Motorcity sets go sometime in the mid-1990s, I thought I was done with that sort of thing. I mean, detailed diecast cars are one thing, but brightly coloured plastic buildings are a different thing entirely, right? Too big, too simple, too kiddie-oriented. Not collector grade stuff. Not serious.

Turns out I was wrong... last February I encountered the Auto Shop set over in Home Bargains at an attractively low price. 

I saw it, I had a vague thought along the lines of "oh, that's quite a nice little set", and then I went away again. I hadn't noticed any of the Action Drivers range before, had never heard of them, had no intention of finding out any more about them.

But something had been set in motion, deep down inside. Over the next few days, a curiously strong desire for this set started to build. By the time the following weekend rolled around, I was almost sick with worry that they'd all be gone, and I wouldn't get to own one. 

Why? I really dunno. The heart wants what it wants, I guess. And I very badly wanted this.

So I went over on a Saturday morning, early doors, and scythed myself through the weekend shoppers with a sense of rising panic in case all I encountered was an empty shelf.

But it was okay. I found one, and for £6.99 it was mine.

I love putting these things together. Somehow, applying the stickers and slotting it all together is a big part of the appeal.

These are good-quality sets, too. I can recall being a little disappointed at how much cardboard was involved in some of my childhood Matchbox sets from the 1980s, which inevitably bent and tore and split after only a little use. These are all heavy-duty plastic, and the components snap together really firmly.

There's always that sense of a 'point of no return' when the stickers are peeled off the backing paper and stuck on permanently. I tend to keep the backing sheet even after the stickers have been removed; I always have, along with all the rest of the packaging. The packaging feels like part of it.

My rationale was that this model garage would be a nice background when photographing my various toy cars  - better than just a flat table, right? Bit more interesting.

I was very pleased with it. The whole thing with  Action Drivers sets are that they have automatic mechanisms in them, and this adds to the playvalue - in this case, raising the ramp causes a little dude to scoot out rolling a tyre, while pushing a car into the adjacent bay brings a woman pushing a V8 engine block on a stand round to the front.

Of course, I felt a bit self-conscious. Bashful, even. I didn't want MrsDC to see it, in case she found it a bit ridiculous and immature, even by my standards.

I also felt that although she might tolerate me picking up the odd model here and there, acquiring larger sets like this might set her alarm bells off. The unpleasant memory of 2022's Diecastgate - when it emerged that pretty much our entire attic was crammed with my models and other rubbish, at the point we were urgently needing to move house - hovered unpleasantly.

So I kinda kept this acquisition secret. After a few pics taken in the early hours of the morning, I disassembled it, repacked it into the box and hid it away under the bed in the back room.

And then in June last year, I found some more, in a different branch of Home Bargains.

The two Auto Shop sets were quite speedily dispatched to a fellow-shiter, but I kept the Bus Station set for myself. At £4.99, and with a Matchbox model included, it seemed pretty bargain-tastic.

It proved mildly disappointing, however. Although the little passenger moving forward to hail an arriving bus was a nice touch, this set had less going on, since it was about half the size of the Auto Shop and seemed a bit more toy-like, with improbable parking spaces on the roof and a far-too-steep ramp. One of the road pieces supplied was also incorrect and the connector tabs couldn't line up, so it also looked a little incomplete.

It went back in its box and under the bed too.

And that was that.

Until January this year, when...

Aargh. Another one, encountered by chance over at an independent Toymaster branch. This time, the Fuel Station set. Three sets on the shelf, all the same.

This set looked about the same size as the Auto Shop, but was quite a bit more expensive. For £6.99 I could see myself making an impulse purchase, but at £16.99... mmm. Seemed a bit pricey, for what it is. I didn't much fancy the generic 4x4 thing either.

So I didn't.

But a few days later I found it playing on my mind again... so I had a look online, in case someone else might be doing it a bit cheaper.

Nope, if anything it was even more expensive on Amazon and eBay for this set - anything from £24 to £50.

Crumbs.

And of course, since capitalism is a finely tuned instrument these days, it didn't take very long before my YouTube 'recommended videos' feed started featuring people unboxing Action Drivers sets.

And, because I'm easily influenced, of course I started watching them. And desiring them.

Not all of them - some were a bit too juvenile for even my tastes, like the 'Canyon Adventure' set I'd encountered in TK Maxx late last year.

But the ones featuring buildings - fire stations, restaurants, police stations, multistorey car parks, building sites - now those appealed.

I think I held out for just over two weeks before scuttling back over to Holywood one lunchtime.

I needn't have worried - all three sets were still there on the shelf. But I had worried. A lot. I'd tied myself in knots at the thought of missing out on one of these. The FOMO is strong.

And y'know what? It's pretty good. Maybe not really good, but pretty good.

The pumps swing down automatically when you drive vehicles over the little pressure switches, and the door to the mini-mart slides open when a car parks outside.

The pumps are pretty toy-like, but good all the same.

There's even an EV charging station.

I guess the question has to be, why would a grown man want to spend time and money messing about with this sort of thing?

I really don't know.

But it feels like this appeals to my 43yr-old self in broadly the same way it would absolutely have appealed to my 8yr old self. That same very pure rush of joy at something designed to delight and amuse - even though you'd think that several decades of being an adult, and having to fill cars with fuel to get to work, might have soured my enthusiasm for make-believe play of this nature.

So I dunno.

Through watching the YouTube unboxing videos, I slowly came to learn more about the Action Drivers line of play sets.

Of course, Matchbox have been making this sort of thing for decades, but the Action Drivers branding only started in 2020, when the Fuel Station was launched, along with a Fire Station and a slightly alarming 'Helicopter Rescue' set, featuring a helicopter that seemingly drops an ambulance through the roof of a hospital, where it crashes down two storeys through the building and out the front, straight into a barrier.

Both of these others were available online; the fire station at about £25 and the hospital for £19. While the hospital seemed to be about the same size as the fuel station, comprising two square base units clipped together, the fire station seemed twice the size at four base units, and boasted light and sound features.

The idea is that all the sets can be clipped together to form streets and junctions, to build a small but rather busy town.

As seems to be Mattel's way of doing business, rather than just making the sets for as long as demand sustains it, the 2020 Action Drivers line were deleted and replaced with three new releases for 2021. These included a large multistorey car park with light and sound, about as big as the fire station (four base units); and an even bigger Airport Adventure set, with airport terminal, car park, runway and control tower (a whopping eight base units, I think).

These can be found online for anything between £40 and £90.

Additionally, as is Mattel's habit, they released an exclusive Pizza Hut restaurant in late 2021 which (I think) was only available through Target stores in the US.

For 2022, a slightly different Pizza Hut set was released worldwide, which seems to command a bit of a premium (£30-£50), despite only being a small single base unit set.

A whopping six new sets appeared in 2022, comprising another single-unit set, the Bus Station; along with the twin-unit Auto Shop; a twin-unit Construction Site; the four-unit Canyon Adventure shown upthread; a four-unit Police Dispatch Centre; and a large six-unit 'Volcano Escape' set.

Busy times.

2023 saw five new sets - a single-unit FedEx Depot (which seems to be very sought-after, as I haven't seen any for sale anywhere), a twin-unit Ferry Terminal set with push-along ro-ro ferry boat; a four-unit Super Clean Car Wash set; a much bigger six-unit building site set styled as the Epic Construction Yard; and a slightly weird 'Transforming Excavator' which isn't a city-type toy, but rather a large plastic lorry with fold-out bits allowing you to play with smaller Matchbox on it.

So far this year Matchbox has released a 'Tow & Repair Truck' set similar to the Transforming Excavator, as well as a more conventional Traffic Control Centre single-unit set, and a large 'Farm Adventure' set that looks like it might be a six-unit set. So far.

I'll level with you - I don't want them all. Some of them just don't appeal much; others seem quite expensive for all they are.

But I do like a lot of them.

Watching the (predominantly US) YouTubers picking these sets up in Walmart or Target for like $8 or $12 made me a little indignant, as they're so much more expensive over here.

FOMO and rage, what a great combination.

Having scored well over at the Toymaster in Holywood, it occurred to me that the branch in Newtownards might be a good hunting ground for any other sets.

But I was wrong.

Just another fuel station, this one with the Questor car robbed out of the packaging.

However, after another few weeks of YouTube, FOMO and bitterness at how UK collectors seem to get screwed over pretty much every which way, I remembered that there was another independent toy shop over in Ards.

This one proved rather more fruitful, and of course I fell into it wallet-first.

Yup, the 2020 release 'Helicopter Rescue' - for a few quid less than its online listings - and the 2022 'Park & Play Garage' came home with me.

This store also had the Canyon Adventure set for £17, and the Bus Station set for £14, but I don't much fancy another bus station and the Canyon Adventure isn't my bag.

But the multistorey car park is quite good, if somewhat overly-orange.

There's barriers to get in and out, a lift with light and sound, and parking for a fair few vehicles.

I'm not all that keen on the light and sound functionality, though it can be disabled on this set by taking out the electronics unit. Certainly not because it sounds very loud at 1am.

EV charging points on the top floor.

It's very appealing. Yet still, a sense of 'why?' nags at me.

The hospital is a bit weird, and also makes something of a nonsense of Matchbox's 'real world play' tagline, as I'm not sure how responsible it is to teach kids that hospitals are drive-thru buildings.

But it really looks well when they're all clipped together.

And it was into the midst of this turmoil that the Airport Adventure set arrived from a courier; I'd been swayed by discounts applied into my Amazon wishlist item. £55 down to £49.

Hnnng.

I haven't opened it; apart from the fact I've some vague notion of gifting it to my brother's kids, I understand that once the airport terminal building is clipped together it can't be taken apart again, so will never fit back in the box.

Not a problem for 99.999% of buyers, probably. But an issue for me. To the point that, once I realised the toyshop in Ards had another airport set for £35, I was giving serious consideration at the weekend to going back over and buying it as a second one.

But - I didn't.

Yet.

So they're all back under the bed at the minute. You can be sure there was no trace of them in the kitchen by the time MrsDC got home.

All the while, the Ferry Terminal and Fire Station are still sitting in my wishlist.

But I don't know if I want them. Not really. They're very appealing, and very ingenious toys, but I keep looping back round to why I'm so drawn to these sets. Even as a kid, I found the idea of sets like these better than the reality; often there was that sense of "oh... so that's all it does" about 10 minutes after opening it on Christmas morning or whatever. So I know better. But I still like them.

Ah well. It's probably fair to say this post hasn't exactly gone the way I intended it to when I started typing this morning.

But thanks for coming to my TED Talk, however involuntarily. 

Hopefully the pics are enjoyable, and you can avoid the rambling.

[FakeConcern]

Blimey @Datsuncog what an amazing write up and it leaves me really wanting one of those sets!

[Hertz]

If it brings you happiness and joy then go for it @Datsuncog

I must admit the more you buy the more time the Mrs needs to be out to set it all up and put it back again 😆.

[quicksilver]

Remember this infamous broken Metrobus @Datsuncog scored for me off the Tat Stall?

It now has a friend with a similar story...

This one is a Dennis Dragon with an Alexander body. It's by Venus Collectibles, a company I'd never heard of, and would be quite valuable and sought-after if it was complete as only 300 were made. Sadly this one's chassis and lower deck interior had gone AWOL at some point in the past, hence a bargain price. The chances of finding replacement parts are basically zero, but I did manage to find a spare seating unit from another HK bus that had the right number of seats but in the wrong place. With a fair bit of chopping and rearranging, and some spare truck wheels, it's now serviceable once more and has gone onto school runs alongside the Metrobus. I don't think I'd fancy driving it with 110 little darlings on board.

You might spot the mismatched seating. Original brown bus seats upstairs, replacement pink coach seats downstairs, typical of the sort of thing operators often do to keep old school buses on the road on a budget.

[stuboy]

21 hours ago, bunglebus said:

You need this bit!

 

yes i do!!

[danthecapriman]

2 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Some Matchbox Action Drivers silliness, then - as promised.

I just so happened to have assembled some of the latest purchases on the day the DanBox arrived, so that's broadly what populated them.

Matchbox have made, licenced and sold assorted little garages and other accessories since their early days so kids can augment their play experiences - sometimes plastic, sometimes cardboard. Sometimes great, sometimes daft.

Most of us here seem to have owned a few over the years, and after I let my much-loved Motorcity sets go sometime in the mid-1990s, I thought I was done with that sort of thing. I mean, detailed diecast cars are one thing, but brightly coloured plastic buildings are a different thing entirely, right? Too big, too simple, too kiddie-oriented. Not collector grade stuff. Not serious.

Turns out I was wrong... last February I encountered the Auto Shop set over in Home Bargains at an attractively low price. 

I saw it, I had a vague thought along the lines of "oh, that's quite a nice little set", and then I went away again. I hadn't noticed any of the Action Drivers range before, had never heard of them, had no intention of finding out any more about them.

But something had been set in motion, deep down inside. Over the next few days, a curiously strong desire for this set started to build. By the time the following weekend rolled around, I was almost sick with worry that they'd all be gone, and I wouldn't get to own one. 

Why? I really dunno. The heart wants what it wants, I guess. And I very badly wanted this.

So I went over on a Saturday morning, early doors, and scythed myself through the weekend shoppers with a sense of rising panic in case all I encountered was an empty shelf.

But it was okay. I found one, and for £6.99 it was mine.

I love putting these things together. Somehow, applying the stickers and slotting it all together is a big part of the appeal.

These are good-quality sets, too. I can recall being a little disappointed at how much cardboard was involved in some of my childhood Matchbox sets from the 1980s, which inevitably bent and tore and split after only a little use. These are all heavy-duty plastic, and the components snap together really firmly.

There's always that sense of a 'point of no return' when the stickers are peeled off the backing paper and stuck on permanently. I tend to keep the backing sheet even after the stickers have been removed; I always have, along with all the rest of the packaging. The packaging feels like part of it.

My rationale was that this model garage would be a nice background when photographing my various toy cars  - better than just a flat table, right? Bit more interesting.

I was very pleased with it. The whole thing with  Action Drivers sets are that they have automatic mechanisms in them, and this adds to the playvalue - in this case, raising the ramp causes a little dude to scoot out rolling a tyre, while pushing a car into the adjacent bay brings a woman pushing a V8 engine block on a stand round to the front.

Of course, I felt a bit self-conscious. Bashful, even. I didn't want MrsDC to see it, in case she found it a bit ridiculous and immature, even by my standards.

I also felt that although she might tolerate me picking up the odd model here and there, acquiring larger sets like this might set her alarm bells off. The unpleasant memory of 2022's Diecastgate - when it emerged that pretty much our entire attic was crammed with my models and other rubbish, at the point we were urgently needing to move house - hovered unpleasantly.

So I kinda kept this acquisition secret. After a few pics taken in the early hours of the morning, I disassembled it, repacked it into the box and hid it away under the bed in the back room.

And then in June last year, I found some more, in a different branch of Home Bargains.

The two Auto Shop sets were quite speedily dispatched to a fellow-shiter, but I kept the Bus Station set for myself. At £4.99, and with a Matchbox model included, it seemed pretty bargain-tastic.

It proved mildly disappointing, however. Although the little passenger moving forward to hail an arriving bus was a nice touch, this set had less going on, since it was about half the size of the Auto Shop and seemed a bit more toy-like, with improbable parking spaces on the roof and a far-too-steep ramp. One of the road pieces supplied was also incorrect and the connector tabs couldn't line up, so it also looked a little incomplete.

It went back in its box and under the bed too.

And that was that.

Until January this year, when...

Aargh. Another one, encountered by chance over at an independent Toymaster branch. This time, the Fuel Station set. Three sets on the shelf, all the same.

This set looked about the same size as the Auto Shop, but was quite a bit more expensive. For £6.99 I could see myself making an impulse purchase, but at £16.99... mmm. Seemed a bit pricey, for what it is. I didn't much fancy the generic 4x4 thing either.

So I didn't.

But a few days later I found it playing on my mind again... so I had a look online, in case someone else might be doing it a bit cheaper.

Nope, if anything it was even more expensive on Amazon and eBay for this set - anything from £24 to £50.

Crumbs.

And of course, since capitalism is a finely tuned instrument these days, it didn't take very long before my YouTube 'recommended videos' feed started featuring people unboxing Action Drivers sets.

And, because I'm easily influenced, of course I started watching them. And desiring them.

Not all of them - some were a bit too juvenile for even my tastes, like the 'Canyon Adventure' set I'd encountered in TK Maxx late last year.

But the ones featuring buildings - fire stations, restaurants, police stations, multistorey car parks, building sites - now those appealed.

I think I held out for just over two weeks before scuttling back over to Holywood one lunchtime.

I needn't have worried - all three sets were still there on the shelf. But I had worried. A lot. I'd tied myself in knots at the thought of missing out on one of these. The FOMO is strong.

And y'know what? It's pretty good. Maybe not really good, but pretty good.

The pumps swing down automatically when you drive vehicles over the little pressure switches, and the door to the mini-mart slides open when a car parks outside.

The pumps are pretty toy-like, but good all the same.

There's even an EV charging station.

I guess the question has to be, why would a grown man want to spend time and money messing about with this sort of thing?

I really don't know.

But it feels like this appeals to my 43yr-old self in broadly the same way it would absolutely have appealed to my 8yr old self. That same very pure rush of joy at something designed to delight and amuse - even though you'd think that several decades of being an adult, and having to fill cars with fuel to get to work, might have soured my enthusiasm for make-believe play of this nature.

So I dunno.

Through watching the YouTube unboxing videos, I slowly came to learn more about the Action Drivers line of play sets.

Of course, Matchbox have been making this sort of thing for decades, but the Action Drivers branding only started in 2020, when the Fuel Station was launched, along with a Fire Station and a slightly alarming 'Helicopter Rescue' set, featuring a helicopter that seemingly drops an ambulance through the roof of a hospital, where it crashes down two storeys through the building and out the front, straight into a barrier.

Both of these others were available online; the fire station at about £25 and the hospital for £19. While the hospital seemed to be about the same size as the fuel station, comprising two square base units clipped together, the fire station seemed twice the size at four base units, and boasted light and sound features.

The idea is that all the sets can be clipped together to form streets and junctions, to build a small but rather busy town.

As seems to be Mattel's way of doing business, rather than just making the sets for as long as demand sustains it, the 2020 Action Drivers line were deleted and replaced with three new releases for 2021. These included a large multistorey car park with light and sound, about as big as the fire station (four base units); and an even bigger Airport Adventure set, with airport terminal, car park, runway and control tower (a whopping eight base units, I think).

These can be found online for anything between £40 and £90.

Additionally, as is Mattel's habit, they released an exclusive Pizza Hut restaurant in late 2021 which (I think) was only available through Target stores in the US.

For 2022, a slightly different Pizza Hut set was released worldwide, which seems to command a bit of a premium (£30-£50), despite only being a small single base unit set.

A whopping six new sets appeared in 2022, comprising another single-unit set, the Bus Station; along with the twin-unit Auto Shop; a twin-unit Construction Site; the four-unit Canyon Adventure shown upthread; a four-unit Police Dispatch Centre; and a large six-unit 'Volcano Escape' set.

Busy times.

2023 saw five new sets - a single-unit FedEx Depot (which seems to be very sought-after, as I haven't seen any for sale anywhere), a twin-unit Ferry Terminal set with push-along ro-ro ferry boat; a four-unit Super Clean Car Wash set; a much bigger six-unit building site set styled as the Epic Construction Yard; and a slightly weird 'Transforming Excavator' which isn't a city-type toy, but rather a large plastic lorry with fold-out bits allowing you to play with smaller Matchbox on it.

So far this year Matchbox has released a 'Tow & Repair Truck' set similar to the Transforming Excavator, as well as a more conventional Traffic Control Centre single-unit set, and a large 'Farm Adventure' set that looks like it might be a six-unit set. So far.

I'll level with you - I don't want them all. Some of them just don't appeal much; others seem quite expensive for all they are.

But I do like a lot of them.

Watching the (predominantly US) YouTubers picking these sets up in Walmart or Target for like $8 or $12 made me a little indignant, as they're so much more expensive over here.

FOMO and rage, what a great combination.

Having scored well over at the Toymaster in Holywood, it occurred to me that the branch in Newtownards might be a good hunting ground for any other sets.

But I was wrong.

Just another fuel station, this one with the Questor car robbed out of the packaging.

However, after another few weeks of YouTube, FOMO and bitterness at how UK collectors seem to get screwed over pretty much every which way, I remembered that there was another independent toy shop over in Ards.

This one proved rather more fruitful, and of course I fell into it wallet-first.

Yup, the 2020 release 'Helicopter Rescue' - for a few quid less than its online listings - and the 2022 'Park & Play Garage' came home with me.

This store also had the Canyon Adventure set for £17, and the Bus Station set for £14, but I don't much fancy another bus station and the Canyon Adventure isn't my bag.

But the multistorey car park is quite good, if somewhat overly-orange.

There's barriers to get in and out, a lift with light and sound, and parking for a fair few vehicles.

I'm not all that keen on the light and sound functionality, though it can be disabled on this set by taking out the electronics unit. Certainly not because it sounds very loud at 1am.

EV charging points on the top floor.

It's very appealing. Yet still, a sense of 'why?' nags at me.

The hospital is a bit weird, and also makes something of a nonsense of Matchbox's 'real world play' tagline, as I'm not sure how responsible it is to teach kids that hospitals are drive-thru buildings.

But it really looks well when they're all clipped together.

And it was into the midst of this turmoil that the Airport Adventure set arrived from a courier; I'd been swayed by discounts applied into my Amazon wishlist item. £55 down to £49.

Hnnng.

I haven't opened it; apart from the fact I've some vague notion of gifting it to my brother's kids, I understand that once the airport terminal building is clipped together it can't be taken apart again, so will never fit back in the box.

Not a problem for 99.999% of buyers, probably. But an issue for me. To the point that, once I realised the toyshop in Ards had another airport set for £35, I was giving serious consideration at the weekend to going back over and buying it as a second one.

But - I didn't.

Yet.

So they're all back under the bed at the minute. You can be sure there was no trace of them in the kitchen by the time MrsDC got home.

All the while, the Ferry Terminal and Fire Station are still sitting in my wishlist.

But I don't know if I want them. Not really. They're very appealing, and very ingenious toys, but I keep looping back round to why I'm so drawn to these sets. Even as a kid, I found the idea of sets like these better than the reality; often there was that sense of "oh... so that's all it does" about 10 minutes after opening it on Christmas morning or whatever. So I know better. But I still like them.

Ah well. It's probably fair to say this post hasn't exactly gone the way I intended it to when I started typing this morning.

But thanks for coming to my TED Talk, however involuntarily. 

Hopefully the pics are enjoyable, and you can avoid the rambling.

People go out every weekend and piss much more money than the sticker price on those sets up the wall at pubs and bars or worse still, throw money down the crapper in betting shops. 
I won’t suggest those things are a good idea or a sensible way of spending (losing!?) money, but it’s their thing and it seems to make them happy so whatever! 
If buying (definitely not collecting!!😄) those Matchbox play sets makes you happy then why the hell not!?

I don’t think you can always try to successfully reason why with a hobby like this. It’s different things to different people. 
Some might, as adults, want to buy themselves the toys they had or wanted when they were kids. 
Some might be just in it for collecting stuff.  
Maybe it’s a trip down memory lane and reliving that childhood thrill of Xmas morning or birthday getting a new toy. 

I think for me personally, I’m more interested in them from a model perspective. I do like the toys but since I’ve started collecting these things again as an adult it’s been the ‘model’ part of the hobby that’s piqued my interest. Again though… why!?

Ive thought long about this! 
I think it’s a way of living what I feel I missed out on. I’ve always been a petrol head, but I’ve always thought I was born in the wrong era. I’d have honestly been a pig in shit if I was an adult in the 80’s or 90’s when all the cars I love now were around in much bigger numbers and cost considerably less than they do now. I feel wronged in a weird way that I got stitched up with not being old enough to have enjoyed them!   
But… in a way I can now. I can buy a model of a Renault 18 (example!) and look at it and it looks exactly like a real one but in a size I can keep easily(ish). It also means I can have lots of them! And I can also do something constructive with my time by changing them, modifying or repainting them to make them a bit more realistic. And I like doing this!

Not everyone, even here, will see it the same way of course but each of you will have your own reasons for doing what we do. 
Really, does it even need to be a reason why!? If you enjoy it and get something from it then why not.

I used to get loads of shit off my peers as a kid for liking cars and trucks and trains etc etc, and even more shit would have come my way if they knew I also liked making and buying models of them. I kept it to myself and did it anyway, and I’m glad I did! Fuck the rest of them that don’t think your cool unless you spend all day kicking your brain around a field and aspiring to be some sinfully boring little tosser like (insert premier league footballers name here). 
Be different and do what makes you happy!

[sheffcortinacentre]

2 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Some Matchbox Action Drivers silliness, then - as promised.

I just so happened to have assembled some of the latest purchases on the day the DanBox arrived, so that's broadly what populated them.

Matchbox have made, licenced and sold assorted little garages and other accessories since their early days so kids can augment their play experiences - sometimes plastic, sometimes cardboard. Sometimes great, sometimes daft.

Most of us here seem to have owned a few over the years, and after I let my much-loved Motorcity sets go sometime in the mid-1990s, I thought I was done with that sort of thing. I mean, detailed diecast cars are one thing, but brightly coloured plastic buildings are a different thing entirely, right? Too big, too simple, too kiddie-oriented. Not collector grade stuff. Not serious.

Turns out I was wrong... last February I encountered the Auto Shop set over in Home Bargains at an attractively low price. 

I saw it, I had a vague thought along the lines of "oh, that's quite a nice little set", and then I went away again. I hadn't noticed any of the Action Drivers range before, had never heard of them, had no intention of finding out any more about them.

But something had been set in motion, deep down inside. Over the next few days, a curiously strong desire for this set started to build. By the time the following weekend rolled around, I was almost sick with worry that they'd all be gone, and I wouldn't get to own one. 

Why? I really dunno. The heart wants what it wants, I guess. And I very badly wanted this.

So I went over on a Saturday morning, early doors, and scythed myself through the weekend shoppers with a sense of rising panic in case all I encountered was an empty shelf.

But it was okay. I found one, and for £6.99 it was mine.

I love putting these things together. Somehow, applying the stickers and slotting it all together is a big part of the appeal.

These are good-quality sets, too. I can recall being a little disappointed at how much cardboard was involved in some of my childhood Matchbox sets from the 1980s, which inevitably bent and tore and split after only a little use. These are all heavy-duty plastic, and the components snap together really firmly.

There's always that sense of a 'point of no return' when the stickers are peeled off the backing paper and stuck on permanently. I tend to keep the backing sheet even after the stickers have been removed; I always have, along with all the rest of the packaging. The packaging feels like part of it.

My rationale was that this model garage would be a nice background when photographing my various toy cars  - better than just a flat table, right? Bit more interesting.

I was very pleased with it. The whole thing with  Action Drivers sets are that they have automatic mechanisms in them, and this adds to the playvalue - in this case, raising the ramp causes a little dude to scoot out rolling a tyre, while pushing a car into the adjacent bay brings a woman pushing a V8 engine block on a stand round to the front.

Of course, I felt a bit self-conscious. Bashful, even. I didn't want MrsDC to see it, in case she found it a bit ridiculous and immature, even by my standards.

I also felt that although she might tolerate me picking up the odd model here and there, acquiring larger sets like this might set her alarm bells off. The unpleasant memory of 2022's Diecastgate - when it emerged that pretty much our entire attic was crammed with my models and other rubbish, at the point we were urgently needing to move house - hovered unpleasantly.

So I kinda kept this acquisition secret. After a few pics taken in the early hours of the morning, I disassembled it, repacked it into the box and hid it away under the bed in the back room.

And then in June last year, I found some more, in a different branch of Home Bargains.

The two Auto Shop sets were quite speedily dispatched to a fellow-shiter, but I kept the Bus Station set for myself. At £4.99, and with a Matchbox model included, it seemed pretty bargain-tastic.

It proved mildly disappointing, however. Although the little passenger moving forward to hail an arriving bus was a nice touch, this set had less going on, since it was about half the size of the Auto Shop and seemed a bit more toy-like, with improbable parking spaces on the roof and a far-too-steep ramp. One of the road pieces supplied was also incorrect and the connector tabs couldn't line up, so it also looked a little incomplete.

It went back in its box and under the bed too.

And that was that.

Until January this year, when...

Aargh. Another one, encountered by chance over at an independent Toymaster branch. This time, the Fuel Station set. Three sets on the shelf, all the same.

This set looked about the same size as the Auto Shop, but was quite a bit more expensive. For £6.99 I could see myself making an impulse purchase, but at £16.99... mmm. Seemed a bit pricey, for what it is. I didn't much fancy the generic 4x4 thing either.

So I didn't.

But a few days later I found it playing on my mind again... so I had a look online, in case someone else might be doing it a bit cheaper.

Nope, if anything it was even more expensive on Amazon and eBay for this set - anything from £24 to £50.

Crumbs.

And of course, since capitalism is a finely tuned instrument these days, it didn't take very long before my YouTube 'recommended videos' feed started featuring people unboxing Action Drivers sets.

And, because I'm easily influenced, of course I started watching them. And desiring them.

Not all of them - some were a bit too juvenile for even my tastes, like the 'Canyon Adventure' set I'd encountered in TK Maxx late last year.

But the ones featuring buildings - fire stations, restaurants, police stations, multistorey car parks, building sites - now those appealed.

I think I held out for just over two weeks before scuttling back over to Holywood one lunchtime.

I needn't have worried - all three sets were still there on the shelf. But I had worried. A lot. I'd tied myself in knots at the thought of missing out on one of these. The FOMO is strong.

And y'know what? It's pretty good. Maybe not really good, but pretty good.

The pumps swing down automatically when you drive vehicles over the little pressure switches, and the door to the mini-mart slides open when a car parks outside.

The pumps are pretty toy-like, but good all the same.

There's even an EV charging station.

I guess the question has to be, why would a grown man want to spend time and money messing about with this sort of thing?

I really don't know.

But it feels like this appeals to my 43yr-old self in broadly the same way it would absolutely have appealed to my 8yr old self. That same very pure rush of joy at something designed to delight and amuse - even though you'd think that several decades of being an adult, and having to fill cars with fuel to get to work, might have soured my enthusiasm for make-believe play of this nature.

So I dunno.

Through watching the YouTube unboxing videos, I slowly came to learn more about the Action Drivers line of play sets.

Of course, Matchbox have been making this sort of thing for decades, but the Action Drivers branding only started in 2020, when the Fuel Station was launched, along with a Fire Station and a slightly alarming 'Helicopter Rescue' set, featuring a helicopter that seemingly drops an ambulance through the roof of a hospital, where it crashes down two storeys through the building and out the front, straight into a barrier.

Both of these others were available online; the fire station at about £25 and the hospital for £19. While the hospital seemed to be about the same size as the fuel station, comprising two square base units clipped together, the fire station seemed twice the size at four base units, and boasted light and sound features.

The idea is that all the sets can be clipped together to form streets and junctions, to build a small but rather busy town.

As seems to be Mattel's way of doing business, rather than just making the sets for as long as demand sustains it, the 2020 Action Drivers line were deleted and replaced with three new releases for 2021. These included a large multistorey car park with light and sound, about as big as the fire station (four base units); and an even bigger Airport Adventure set, with airport terminal, car park, runway and control tower (a whopping eight base units, I think).

These can be found online for anything between £40 and £90.

Additionally, as is Mattel's habit, they released an exclusive Pizza Hut restaurant in late 2021 which (I think) was only available through Target stores in the US.

For 2022, a slightly different Pizza Hut set was released worldwide, which seems to command a bit of a premium (£30-£50), despite only being a small single base unit set.

A whopping six new sets appeared in 2022, comprising another single-unit set, the Bus Station; along with the twin-unit Auto Shop; a twin-unit Construction Site; the four-unit Canyon Adventure shown upthread; a four-unit Police Dispatch Centre; and a large six-unit 'Volcano Escape' set.

Busy times.

2023 saw five new sets - a single-unit FedEx Depot (which seems to be very sought-after, as I haven't seen any for sale anywhere), a twin-unit Ferry Terminal set with push-along ro-ro ferry boat; a four-unit Super Clean Car Wash set; a much bigger six-unit building site set styled as the Epic Construction Yard; and a slightly weird 'Transforming Excavator' which isn't a city-type toy, but rather a large plastic lorry with fold-out bits allowing you to play with smaller Matchbox on it.

So far this year Matchbox has released a 'Tow & Repair Truck' set similar to the Transforming Excavator, as well as a more conventional Traffic Control Centre single-unit set, and a large 'Farm Adventure' set that looks like it might be a six-unit set. So far.

I'll level with you - I don't want them all. Some of them just don't appeal much; others seem quite expensive for all they are.

But I do like a lot of them.

Watching the (predominantly US) YouTubers picking these sets up in Walmart or Target for like $8 or $12 made me a little indignant, as they're so much more expensive over here.

FOMO and rage, what a great combination.

Having scored well over at the Toymaster in Holywood, it occurred to me that the branch in Newtownards might be a good hunting ground for any other sets.

But I was wrong.

Just another fuel station, this one with the Questor car robbed out of the packaging.

However, after another few weeks of YouTube, FOMO and bitterness at how UK collectors seem to get screwed over pretty much every which way, I remembered that there was another independent toy shop over in Ards.

This one proved rather more fruitful, and of course I fell into it wallet-first.

Yup, the 2020 release 'Helicopter Rescue' - for a few quid less than its online listings - and the 2022 'Park & Play Garage' came home with me.

This store also had the Canyon Adventure set for £17, and the Bus Station set for £14, but I don't much fancy another bus station and the Canyon Adventure isn't my bag.

But the multistorey car park is quite good, if somewhat overly-orange.

There's barriers to get in and out, a lift with light and sound, and parking for a fair few vehicles.

I'm not all that keen on the light and sound functionality, though it can be disabled on this set by taking out the electronics unit. Certainly not because it sounds very loud at 1am.

EV charging points on the top floor.

It's very appealing. Yet still, a sense of 'why?' nags at me.

The hospital is a bit weird, and also makes something of a nonsense of Matchbox's 'real world play' tagline, as I'm not sure how responsible it is to teach kids that hospitals are drive-thru buildings.

But it really looks well when they're all clipped together.

And it was into the midst of this turmoil that the Airport Adventure set arrived from a courier; I'd been swayed by discounts applied into my Amazon wishlist item. £55 down to £49.

Hnnng.

I haven't opened it; apart from the fact I've some vague notion of gifting it to my brother's kids, I understand that once the airport terminal building is clipped together it can't be taken apart again, so will never fit back in the box.

Not a problem for 99.999% of buyers, probably. But an issue for me. To the point that, once I realised the toyshop in Ards had another airport set for £35, I was giving serious consideration at the weekend to going back over and buying it as a second one.

But - I didn't.

Yet.

So they're all back under the bed at the minute. You can be sure there was no trace of them in the kitchen by the time MrsDC got home.

All the while, the Ferry Terminal and Fire Station are still sitting in my wishlist.

But I don't know if I want them. Not really. They're very appealing, and very ingenious toys, but I keep looping back round to why I'm so drawn to these sets. Even as a kid, I found the idea of sets like these better than the reality; often there was that sense of "oh... so that's all it does" about 10 minutes after opening it on Christmas morning or whatever. So I know better. But I still like them.

Ah well. It's probably fair to say this post hasn't exactly gone the way I intended it to when I started typing this morning.

But thanks for coming to my TED Talk, however involuntarily. 

Hopefully the pics are enjoyable, and you can avoid the rambling.

Just like the cars can't find them round here.

[bunglebus]

Spotted this on eBay - have ever seen a toy car with more miles on it than this?