Shite in Miniature II

[Split_Pin]

Sikus 1990s renditions are comically bad. You'd expect more from a premium brand.

Audi A6, MK4 Fiesta being the top 2. Big blobby wheels as well.

The Opel Kadett/MK1 Astra SR was another duffer and the MK3 Escort proportions were too upright and with a long bonnet/short cabin. The Senator was even worse.

Having said that, the printed white spokes on the wheels of late 70s and 80s are stark but they at least manage to be characterful. 

I do love Sikus in spite of that though and longingly thumbed through the 1988 Catalogue as a kid. The only stockist I could find was Christies in St Andrews which was far away and we only visited when on holiday in Crail once a year. I remember how excited I was to get one, I chose a MK3 Escort GL which I still have.

[danthecapriman]

Since it’s now marked as posted, that officially makes it mine!

So, feast your eyes upon this beauty*!

Spot-On 1100. With a fantastic custom paint job in the famous Starsky & Hutch style. Complete with paint brush bristles set into the white paint!

Yes. Yes, it is a mess! But, it’s largely complete, just damaged bumpers. And it only cost me £5. Which I think is a bit of a bargain for a solid Spot-On. 

[FakeConcern]

Don't talk to me about Spot On...

[flat4alfa]

13 hours ago, FakeConcern said:

One of the things that put me off is it seemed to be massive having just bought the Corgi Lotus XI & VW KG. I have a few Spot Ons, but is the Zephre 1/43 or thereabouts?

Tri-ang decided to be exactly 'spot-on' at 1:42, to fit their rubber 'Cotswold' village playsets.  Hence, 'Spot-On'.

It was also alongside their plastic 'Arkitex' construction sets so you could build towns and cities and not just stone cottage villages

It was an odd choice as their model railway series scale 'Table Top' (TT) was at  1:120 scale.  Later, they transitioned over to OO-Scale at 1:76 and applied the scale to both the Cotswold and Arkitex series to match, as the catalogue front page above shows

However, 1:43 had already established since the 1930s to fit O-gauge model railways, adopted by Dinky etc.  So the 1:42 scale was a bit of a dead-end, especially when the Meccano empire took Tri-ang over and they already had Dinky.

If I get a moment later, I'll line up (and measure) some comparision shots, to kill the excitement.

[flat4alfa]

25 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

Since it’s now marked as posted, that officially makes it mine!

So, feast your eyes upon this beauty*!

With a fantastic custom paint job in the famous Starsky & Hutch style. Complete with paint brush bristles set into the white paint!

Yes. Yes, it is a mess! But, it’s largely complete, just damaged bumpers. And it only cost me £5. Which I think is a bit of a bargain for a solid Spot-On. 

I saw that one but missed it as I think it ended in the middle of the day and postage was silly

Good to know it's gone to you and will be in the next DanCast™ sale 😄

[danthecapriman]

1 minute ago, flat4alfa said:

I saw that one but missed it as I think it ended in the middle of the day and postage was silly

Good to know it's gone to you and will be in the next DanCast™ sale 😄

This one’s going to get a dunk in the paint stripper and a new paint job at some point!

Nobody else bid on it though!? Starting price was a fiver, which is what I got it for. Even with the high postage I don’t think it was too bad a price?

[flat4alfa]

1 minute ago, danthecapriman said:

This one’s going to get a dunk in the paint stripper and a new paint job at some point!

Nobody else bid on it though!? Starting price was a fiver, which is what I got it for. Even with the high postage I don’t think it was too bad a price?

Yes it was

But they were not impressed with the paint job and it put them off the bidding

[danthecapriman]

Just now, flat4alfa said:

Yes it was

But they were not impressed with the paint job and it put them off the bidding

Most likely!😆

A little bit of me wants to repaint it exactly the same, but do it properly this time! 
Wasn’t it ‘a thing’ in the 70’s to add that stripe onto your Morris Marina or whatever you had!? Maybe this could be a replica of that!

[flat4alfa]

22 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

Wasn’t it ‘a thing’ in the 70’s to add that stripe onto your Morris Marina or whatever you had!? 

No, it wasn't a thing at all

 

[eddyramrod]

Not much, lol!  A lot of highly unsuitable cars got the same treatment, usually a maximum of 12 months before being scrapped.  So yes, on the 1100 it would be perfectly period-correct.

[bunglebus]

That or copy the lot on the other side

[Cookiesouwest]

3 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

That or copy the lot on the other side

I was starting to quite like Marinas. Then I saw your picture.

 

[barrett]

1 hour ago, flat4alfa said:

It was also alongside their plastic 'Arkitex' construction sets so you could build towns and cities and not just stone cottage villages

Whoa, hold up here. This has unlocked a whole hitherto unknown world for me. You mean you can build scale postwar housing and office blocks which match up with toy cars... Just look how big this is!!

That's the coolest thing I've ever seen, frankly

[andy18s]

2 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Since it’s now marked as posted, that officially makes it mine!

So, feast your eyes upon this beauty*!

Spot-On 1100. With a fantastic custom paint job in the famous Starsky & Hutch style. Complete with paint brush bristles set into the white paint!

Yes. Yes, it is a mess! But, it’s largely complete, just damaged bumpers. And it only cost me £5. Which I think is a bit of a bargain for a solid Spot-On. 

Imagine what it would be worth inn the box....

[flat4alfa]

13 minutes ago, andy18s said:

Imagine what it would be worth in the box....

I was wondering that too...  😀

[flat4alfa]

1 hour ago, Cookiesouwest said:

I was starting to quite like Marinas. Then I saw your picture.

[danthecapriman]

1 hour ago, barrett said:

Whoa, hold up here. This has unlocked a whole hitherto unknown world for me. You mean you can build scale postwar housing and office blocks which match up with toy cars... Just look how big this is!!

That's the coolest thing I've ever seen, frankly

There’s also a very similar American construction toy from the same time period. You bought packs of the red plastic girders and road surface sections and, similar to Meccano, there were design plan books to build huge bridges and similar things. All in scale for toy cars. 
I think it was from a company called Kenner or something. Somewhere I’ve got my uncles set from the 50’s. Really good fun to build!

[MiniMinorMk3]

4 hours ago, Jon said:

 

Artistic licence on the model of Lamborghini but one was made, for use on a racing track.

Details from here:

https://www.swiftysgarage.org/siku-v317-lamborghini-400gt-espada-t69190.html

That's not a Lamborghini, it's a Maserati.

These are Lambos used as safety cars.

1983 Monaco

By IXO

Hotwheels version

1995 Canadian GP

[Zie]

After hunting for a Red Rs2000 and having no luck, the ever helpful @bunglebus stepped in and sorted me out with One, plus a few more I needed.

Well look what I found in the scraps at Asda. 

[MiniMinorMk3]

Met Police Gallardo by IXO

 

[flat4alfa]

2 hours ago, barrett said:

Whoa, hold up here. This has unlocked a whole hitherto unknown world for me. You mean you can build scale postwar housing and office blocks which match up with toy cars... Just look how big this is!!

That's the coolest thing I've ever seen, frankly

You will not want to see this book then

[flat4alfa]

3 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

That's not a Lamborghini, it's a Maserati.

( @Jon did mention 'artistic licence on the model' )

My favourite is probably the converted 1990 Alfa 164 Q4 kept at their test track, the Circuito di Balocco proving ground between Turin and Milan.

One 164 still lives on at the AR museum at Arese as an exhibit

and has been modeled at 1:43 in resin, by Zeppelin

[flat4alfa]

Prior to that, during the 1980s they used converted Alfa 6 and Giulietta

The Giulietta has been modelled by Tron in 1:43, both in finished or kit form

[flat4alfa]

For the 1970s, Alfa Berlina conversion.  This also survives and has been rebuilt after a workshop fire when a Ferrari tried to take it with it.  In this shot, it is waiting for the Alfasud fuel tank to fall off. 

Modelled in 1:43 by Tron

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, flat4alfa said:

Prior to that, during the 1980s they used converted Alfa 6 and Giulietta

The Giulietta has been modelled by Tron in 1:43, both in finished or kit form

Only in Italy would the fire brigade use a six carburettored V6 Alfa for tending to the odd fire. 

[junkyarddog]

Had to do a tip run this afternoon and I was transported back to 1983.....

Christmas morning I got one of these...

Long gone now,although I think one car and a few bits of track may have survived. 

This was in a pile outside of the waste plastics skip,it was scattered about amongst other random stuff including  some similar aged Lego tecnic!(not complete,but the boxes looked in good shape)

I didn't have much time and the workers there don't like scavenging,so I scooped up this quickly and got it into the car.

It's only all complete,and in really good condition. 

A test with a 9v battery revealed that the cars still work.

Mega chuffed to have found this!

The price sticker says it was £9.95.

[flat4alfa]

44 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Only in Italy would the fire brigade use a six carburettored V6 Alfa for tending to the odd fire. 

'Squared' headlamps on the top one, making it second series, with Bosch injection.  Yes you are right on the series one behind the Giulietta, why?

That doesn't quite get them off the hook though.  Why did they fit Bosch L-Jetronic, and not the proven SPICA set up, used for a decade of sales to the US market?  Alfa Romeo owned SPICA.

[sierraman]

5 minutes ago, flat4alfa said:

'Squared' headlamps on the top one, making it second series, with Bosch injection.  Yes you are right on the series one behind the Giulietta, why?

That doesn't quite get them off the hook though.  Why did they fit Bosch L-Jetronic, and not the proven SPICA set up, used for a decade of sales to the US market?  Alfa Romeo owned SPICA.

More to the point why did they think that we’d always wanted a Nissan Cherry with the Arna? 

[danthecapriman]

26 minutes ago, junkyarddog said:

Had to do a tip run this afternoon and I was transported back to 1983.....

Christmas morning I got one of these...

Long gone now,although I think one car and a few bits of track may have survived. 

This was in a pile outside of the waste plastics skip,it was scattered about amongst other random stuff including  some similar aged Lego tecnic!(not complete,but the boxes looked in good shape)

I didn't have much time and the workers there don't like scavenging,so I scooped up this quickly and got it into the car.

It's only all complete,and in really good condition. 

A test with a 9v battery revealed that the cars still work.

Mega chuffed to have found this!

The price sticker says it was £9.95.

Well done saving that. What on earth makes people throw things like that away!? Surely you’d try eBay or donate it to a charity shop if it was still in that sort of condition? 
Makes you wonder how many old diecasts have ended up in a skip. 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

7 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Most likely!😆

A little bit of me wants to repaint it exactly the same, but do it properly this time! 
Wasn’t it ‘a thing’ in the 70’s to add that stripe onto your Morris Marina or whatever you had!? Maybe this could be a replica of that!

It definitely was, I bought a Datsun 260C in S&an colours complete with SlotMags, gave it to my brother and he abused it but couldn’t kill it, eventually sold it to a banger racer.

I almost bought a Mazda RX4 Coupe, with a 2.0 Pinto conversion, again Red and white with Wolfies, can’t remember why I didn’t buy it now! Probably couldn’t insure it.