Shite in Miniature II

[sheffcortinacentre]

17 hours ago, AndyW201 said:

 So, looking at the display cabinet, despite being completely rational and sane, like everyone else on this thread, the non - Vanguards cars without number plates were beginning to jar a bit. So I got to work,

The Minichamps Mondeo, being a saloon, was given the reg from one of my taxicabs from back in the day. Alas the one I drove was a doom blue GLX rather than a Citron yellow Si, but it did at least have a blue interior like this one...

The Premium X Focus RS was given a number from an actual Ford press demo car (looking at the pic, the bloody front plate could have been trimmed better on this, my eyes were starting to go crossed by now...)

Being gold, there was only one number that could go on this Minichamps Capri. Unlike the Professionalmania/Corgi version though, this one's on it's original V reg rather than the W reg it was given for the show.

The Minichamps Mk3 really is a work of art, despite my fondness for the Corgi Vanguards version, the Minichamps one is still superior.

Even has the netting in the Recaro headrests!

Mk3 Fiesta models are incredibly rare. Apart from the hugely spendy Kess resin RS Turbo the Schabak XR2i is the only other option, although even these too can be expensive. I was lucky enough to snag this, boxed, along with one of their Mk5 Escorts for a tenner on ebay, so I had no qualms about pissing about a bit with it.

Schabak, Gama, Schuco, Conrad et al were brilliant models of the period, but on display with more recent 1/43s, they do show their age slightly. So this one was given a bit of detailing on the mirrors, door handles, wipers and fuel cap, along with blacking out the door cards. The reg plates feature a number that could have been a Ford press fleet number at the time,

The Vanguards lowly spec Mk3 Cortina suffered a bit of storage damage, which severely bent the front bumper, and the number plate is missing, presumed lost. 

The bumper was straightened out as well as I could get it, and a replacement plate was added,

It's been knocked about a bit, but it's still one of my favourite Vanguards models, this one. It's just the misery spec of it , compared to all the flashier versions.

Lastly, as the guy I ordered the sheet of number plates from had sent two sets of everything, I used the other RS set on the IXO Octavia, as the VRS version is known as the RS on the continent, so it sort of works on it,

OCD confronted!

The press fleet MK3 cortinas where all pre production cars all scrapped not long after launch .

[sheffcortinacentre]

9 hours ago, AndyW201 said:

Blame poor quality 1993 vintage VHS recordings off UK Gold for that 🤣

I don't think it helps that my camera makes the Vanguards model look a lot brighter than it is in the photos, it looks more like Signal yellow than Daytona...

Currently nearing it's second run on talking pictures Freeview 82

[sheffcortinacentre]

9 hours ago, quicksilver said:

Probably the same reason that the Professionals RS2000 had a sunroof - to let in more light for filming interior shots.

Yes done over a weekend during one episode, the only other being Henry ford jr auto RS 2000.

[AndyW201]

Had a delivery yesterday

This is one off the list of Holy Grail Vanguards that I missed out on when it came out and has subsequently got expensive. This one though was listed as used, and having had it on my ebay watchlist for a while, I got an offer from the seller, which with free postage, made it work for me.

So this is the limited edition TC Jubilee model, produced in 1973 to mark Morris' 60th anniversary. All finished in Citron yellow with blue cloth trim, on top of the 1.8 TC spec, it got front driving lights, Sundym tinted glass, black vinyl roof, black painted door mirrors, side repeaters and twin coachlines. Sadly the Jubilee lost out on the gorgeous TC steel wheels and instead got standard Marina rims with black plastic centre caps which were, I think, the same as the ones on the US-spec Austin Marina. Unforgivable!

So being second hand, there are one or two dodgy areas of paint. For some reason, a few variants of the Marina casting seems to be prone to this.

Still, it was cheap for one of these, and it's only going to go in the display cabinet anyway, not hoarded away for teh investmentz. One thing I've noticed lately on ebay is that Vanguards Marinas, like the real thing, are starting to go for fairly strong money now.

Possibly one of the reasons why this particular variant is quite sought after is that is the only TC version made by Vanguards so far. There was a police TC marketed by Atlas editions, based on the Vanguards casting. I got hold of a slightly damaged one last year, and did a rough, mid '80s style one-bad-MOT-away-from-the-scrapper shitbox version with big tidemark and giffer style badly painted panels. Sadly this one, being police spec, also missed out on TC wheels, so I gave it a set of slotmags,

Lovely detail on the front end, with the extra lights, and the correct yellow stripes on the TC grille for this model.

Nice badges, but the painted moulded-in tail lights give the game away that the Marina is one of the earliest castings from the uprated Vanguards range of the early 2000s which gained features like sprung suspension, glazed headlights, seperate wipers and less generic wheel designs than the earlier Enfield-era cars. The range was expanded to include '70s cars and it was this range that really kick-started my model collecting again after finding the white Marina 1.8 Super in a model shop in Whitby back in 2002, along with the white Granada Mk1 Ghia and Harvest gold Allegro. Little did I know back then...

Compared to those early 2000s releases, this one is a bit of an eyeful with the colour and the extra detailing, which does hide the casting's age pretty well.

Those wheels are pretty well done, considering they were tooled up for this version only. However, I have a problem with the whitewalls, IMHO whitewalls are great on 50's & '60s cars, especially American cars and ones with Transatlantic type styling like Zephyrs/Zodiacs, Crestas, Super Snipes, etc. Not so great on a 1970s porridge saloon, and one with optimistic sporting pretensions at that. Fortunately a quick squizz on Google brought up some pics of the actual car that this was modelled on, without whitewalls on.

Which was all I needed. In the words of Phats & Small,

"Gotta turn around" (the tyres)

Well, I think it looks better, so they're staying like that.

So it goes in the BL/Rover/ARG shelf of the cabinet, along with its smaller Citron yellow stablemate,

(Yeah, they obviously used different batches of Citron yellow paint, although there are about 15 years between the two models)

[AndyW201]

5 hours ago, Snake Charmer said:

@AndyW201 Looks really good, particularly the grille and lights plus the hubcaps correct. Does it wobble at the back like the void bushes have gone? 😁

Possibly, the back end is a bit high and springy compared to the other ones I have...

[Noel Tidybeard]

5 hours ago, Snake Charmer said:

@AndyW201 Looks really good, particularly the grille and lights plus the hubcaps correct. Does it wobble at the back like the void bushes have gone? 😁

the rubber bumper strips & under-riders annoy me somewhat with what is suposed to be a 1600L

[danthecapriman]

1 hour ago, AndyW201 said:

Had a delivery yesterday

This is one off the list of Holy Grail Vanguards that I missed out on when it came out and has subsequently got expensive. This one though was listed as used, and having had it on my ebay watchlist for a while, I got an offer from the seller, which with free postage, made it work for me.

So this is the limited edition TC Jubilee model, produced in 1973 to mark Morris' 60th anniversary. All finished in Citron yellow with blue cloth trim, on top of the 1.8 TC spec, it got front driving lights, Sundym tinted glass, black vinyl roof, black painted door mirrors, side repeaters and twin coachlines. Sadly the Jubilee lost out on the gorgeous TC steel wheels and instead got standard Marina rims with black plastic centre caps which were, I think, the same as the ones on the US-spec Austin Marina. Unforgivable!

So being second hand, there are one or two dodgy areas of paint. For some reason, a few variants of the Marina casting seems to be prone to this.

Still, it was cheap for one of these, and it's only going to go in the display cabinet anyway, not hoarded away for teh investmentz. One thing I've noticed lately on ebay is that Vanguards Marinas, like the real thing, are starting to go for fairly strong money now.

Possibly one of the reasons why this particular variant is quite sought after is that is the only TC version made by Vanguards so far. There was a police TC marketed by Atlas editions, based on the Vanguards casting. I got hold of a slightly damaged one last year, and did a rough, mid '80s style one-bad-MOT-away-from-the-scrapper shitbox version with big tidemark and giffer style badly painted panels. Sadly this one, being police spec, also missed out on TC wheels, so I gave it a set of slotmags,

Lovely detail on the front end, with the extra lights, and the correct yellow stripes on the TC grille for this model.

Nice badges, but the painted moulded-in tail lights give the game away that the Marina is one of the earliest castings from the uprated Vanguards range of the early 2000s which gained features like sprung suspension, glazed headlights, seperate wipers and less generic wheel designs than the earlier Enfield-era cars. The range was expanded to include '70s cars and it was this range that really kick-started my model collecting again after finding the white Marina 1.8 Super in a model shop in Whitby back in 2002, along with the white Granada Mk1 Ghia and Harvest gold Allegro. Little did I know back then...

Compared to those early 2000s releases, this one is a bit of an eyeful with the colour and the extra detailing, which does hide the casting's age pretty well.

Those wheels are pretty well done, considering they were tooled up for this version only. However, I have a problem with the whitewalls, IMHO whitewalls are great on 50's & '60s cars, especially American cars and ones with Transatlantic type styling like Zephyrs/Zodiacs, Crestas, Super Snipes, etc. Not so great on a 1970s porridge saloon, and one with optimistic sporting pretensions at that. Fortunately a quick squizz on Google brought up some pics of the actual car that this was modelled on, without whitewalls on.

Which was all I needed. In the words of Phats & Small,

"Gotta turn around" (the tyres)

Well, I think it looks better, so they're staying like that.

So it goes in the BL/Rover/ARG shelf of the cabinet, along with its smaller Citron yellow stablemate,

(Yeah, they obviously used different batches of Citron yellow paint, although there are about 15 years between the two models)

That Marina is lovely. Definitely looks much better without the white wall tyres showing too.

Ive noticed the Vanguard’s Marina’s have been edging up in price a bit too. Luckily I got a couple cheaply before that, and more recently bagged myself a few of the Atlas versions for repainting.

[sheffcortinacentre]

3 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

the rubber bumper strips & under-riders annoy me somewhat with what is suposed to be a 1600L

Bumper strips were std on L underiders were optional.

Post 72 only base had plain bumpers.

[MiniMinorMk3]

Vanguards in general have been going up for the last couple of years. You used to be able to buy lots of 10 or so earlier Vanguards '70s stuff at auction for about £50, these days you would probably be bidding nearer £100. But if the lot consists of Fords you would be edging towards £150. The later stuff in the perspex boxes are more pricey due to the limited numbers being lower than the early ones. In the old days the edition numbers were in the multiple 1,000s, now most are around 1,000.

I've had example of the first nine Vanguards Marinas pass through here. I've never had the Citron TC (VA06310) of the Aqua Super (VA06309)

VA06300 Teal Blue

VA06301 Harvest Gold

VA06302 Essex Police

VA06304 Glacier White

VA06304 Hidden Treasure

VA06305 Blaze

VA06306 Sandglow

VA06307 Yellow Cars Leicester

VA06308 Limeflower

 

[Split_Pin]

I got this from @FakeConcern and it was almost too far gone:

A 3d printed tyre was what saved it...

Once the tyre was on and it looked like a car again I could see that it had potential, albeit a long way off.

Anyone want to see it now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm actually a tiny bit emotional 😅

[danthecapriman]

1 hour ago, Split_Pin said:

I got this from @FakeConcern and it was almost too far gone:

A 3d printed tyre was what saved it...

Once the tyre was on and it looked like a car again I could see that it had potential, albeit a long way off.

Anyone want to see it now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm actually a tiny bit emotional 😅

That’s fantastic! Really nicely done👍 

The webasto style roof cover was a great idea too, filling the hole. Great to see an otherwise lost cause get turned into something great.

[junkyarddog]

I've ummed and arred over this premium set for months.

But today was the day!!!

Oh yeah,now you're talking!!

[FakeConcern]

5 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

I got this from @FakeConcern and it was almost too far gone:

A 3d printed tyre was what saved it...

Once the tyre was on and it looked like a car again I could see that it had potential, albeit a long way off.

Anyone want to see it now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm actually a tiny bit emotional 😅

That looks fab!

 

So glad you saved it...

[Spottedlaurel]

Some recent acquisitions:

Didn't know about this 5-pack, complete with maroon LS400. Purchased in Sainsbury's at 2 for £15, with a different set for Bunglebus.

This batch came from @bunglebus, as yet I haven't been able to find any of them myself.

And an oddity here from Kent Models:

"Blind box", not sure if there's any clue as to which one it contains.

So, for my £5.99 which one did I end up with?

 

 A nicely detailed little thing, quite light and at first I wondered if it was smaller than 1/64.

Comparison with a 1/65 Majorette DS, the closest thing I had available, which I suppose would make a Figaro look quite diddy at 1:1.

[eddyramrod]

I had a little spare time in town yesterday.  Fatal, isn't it?  Poundland...

...and then Tesco...

And I don't really do this scale any more!  What it is to be weak-willed!

 

[MAF260]

2 hours ago, eddyramrod said:

I had a little spare time in town yesterday.  Fatal, isn't it?  Poundland...

...and then Tesco...

And I don't really do this scale any more!  What it is to be weak-willed!

 

I also picked up one of those Jags in Tesco last week! With a 3 for 2 offer I bought 6 including a Maserati Shamal and Mercedes W124 500E

[bramz7]

Felt nostalgic so went hunting for Hot Wheels from the turn of the millennium. 

Pretty chuffed with this lot. I don't think 9 year old me would have picked any but either myself or my brother had that Tony Hawk fantasy dragster back then. So painfully 2000 isn't it! 

 

[155V6]

3 hours ago, bramz7 said:

Felt nostalgic so went hunting for Hot Wheels from the turn of the millennium. 

Pretty chuffed with this lot. I don't think 9 year old me would have picked any but either myself or my brother had that Tony Hawk fantasy dragster back then. So painfully 2000 isn't it! 

 

I love the Rigor Motor casting,here's a couple of mine

[bunglebus]

Not quite sure what Tony Hawk's got to do with Rigor Motor, but it's a fun casting for sure

 

[Split_Pin]

That's the best name I've ever heard for a Hot Wheels Rigor Motor!😂

[MiniMinorMk3]

14 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Not quite sure what Tony Hawk's got to do with Rigor Motor, but it's a fun casting for sure

  

 

There was a Tony Hawk Skate Series released in 2000 and the Rigor Motor casting was used as one of them.

Tony Hawk Skate Series (2000) | Hot Wheels Wiki | Fandom

 

 

[bramz7]

Birdhouse is/was his skate brand so that looks like the sum of the Toby Hawk-ification.

[eddyramrod]

We were talking the other day about under-used castings, particularly by Corgi, and we mentioned the Hunter as a glaring example.

So, the blue one represents the Eddie Shoestring car that I mentioned by name; the bronze one represents a car I've only ever heard tales of, and seen in one black and white picture.  My friends in Cyprus bought it new in 1970 when they left uni, and drove it all the way to his first graduate job in Zambia.

You'll notice the bumpers are different.  The original Corgi doesn't have any, being a rally car, so I've had to improvise.  I did the bronze car first, using a chrome-plated pair of plastic tweezers; one arm at each end.  Not entirely satisfactory because there's no wraparound to them.  On the blue one I used a large paper clip; again, less than ideal because although I was able to get the wraparound, the profile is wrong.  Not that the tweezer profile is any better really!

I've also completed this today:

The Dinky Plymouth Gran Fury copcar.  This at least did come in Taxi and NASCAR versions, so well done Dinky.  I've accumulated three over time, all in the sole police livery they offered.  One is MIB and will stay that way.  One is rough and in fact is getting stripped as we speak.  The one you see here is the middle one, which had lost its roof lights, but otherwise only really needed a little touching-up.  So I found a stray spotlamp and mounted it at the base of the driver's pillar, to make a Highway Patrol "slicktop" unit.

I've also finished the Studebaker...

...oh.  Er, which one?

Ah ok, this one.  Showing with one I did a while ago.

 

[danthecapriman]

6 minutes ago, eddyramrod said:

We were talking the other day about under-used castings, particularly by Corgi, and we mentioned the Hunter as a glaring example.

So, the blue one represents the Eddie Shoestring car that I mentioned by name; the bronze one represents a car I've only ever heard tales of, and seen in one black and white picture.  My friends in Cyprus bought it new in 1970 when they left uni, and drove it all the way to his first graduate job in Zambia.

You'll notice the bumpers are different.  The original Corgi doesn't have any, being a rally car, so I've had to improvise.  I did the bronze car first, using a chrome-plated pair of plastic tweezers; one arm at each end.  Not entirely satisfactory because there's no wraparound to them.  On the blue one I used a large paper clip; again, less than ideal because although I was able to get the wraparound, the profile is wrong.  Not that the tweezer profile is any better really!

I've also completed this today:

The Dinky Plymouth Gran Fury copcar.  This at least did come in Taxi and NASCAR versions, so well done Dinky.  I've accumulated three over time, all in the sole police livery they offered.  One is MIB and will stay that way.  One is rough and in fact is getting stripped as we speak.  The one you see here is the middle one, which had lost its roof lights, but otherwise only really needed a little touching-up.  So I found a stray spotlamp and mounted it at the base of the driver's pillar, to make a Highway Patrol "slicktop" unit.

I've also finished the Studebaker...

...oh.  Er, which one?

Ah ok, this one.  Showing with one I did a while ago.

 

Nice job on those @eddyramrod 👍

[Datsuncog]

On 26/03/2025 at 15:48, eddyramrod said:

We were talking the other day about under-used castings, particularly by Corgi, and we mentioned the Hunter as a glaring example.

I've been thinking about that one - and a quick check through the catalogues indicates that the Golden Jacks Hillman Hunter in London-Sydney Rally livery was in fact the very last new casting of a 4-door saloon car produced by Corgi in their original 1/43-ish scale.

The Hunter was launched in July 1969, dropped in 1972, and no further new castings of a three-box saloon car were produced until the Mercedes 240D appeared in 1975 - which was, of course, in the new larger 1/36 scale. It came in a number of finishes, including police, taxi and civilian versions.

Following that, there was the Buick Century Regal wiith Kojak branding in July 1976, which was later released in various police versions (and in the uber-rare Fire Chief colour scheme, unique to Marks & Spencer stores).

1980 brought a number of new castings of family saloons and hatches, including the Opel Senator, Chevrolet Caprice and Rover SD1, with the Peugeot 505 and Triumph Acclaim weighing in for 1981 - but the Merc and the Buick were the only two brand-new Corgi castings of saloon cars to emerge during the entirety of the 1970s.

Why, I hear you cry?

It seems that in 1970 Corgi became preoccupied with releasing Whizzwheels versions of their coupes and sports cars, possibly in response to the perceived threat from Mattel's Hot Wheels creating a shift in tastes towards speed and racing, rather than detail and accuracy.

Newly released castings focused on this area, with the Porsche 911 and Iso Grifo appearing in the first half of 1970, with later celebrity endorsement in the form of Graham Hill for the Cortina Mk3 Coupe, as well as the Roger Clarke Capri. Corgi countered Mattel's 'fantasy cars' with models of prototypes such as the Mercedes C111 and the Bertone Runabout, and oddities like the Adams Probe and Marcos Mantis. 

It has to be said that the catastrophic fire at the Fforestfach plant in March 1969, wiping out a year's worth of warehouse stock, also put the company's focus into survival mode. A number of models were retooled to make them simpler, and hence cheaper and quicker to make, such as the De Tomaso Mangusta, which lost its beautifully made separate chassis.

Perhaps in an effort to find a new niche, Corgi shifted their range focus first to toy versions of rail dragsters and funny cars for 1971, then pivoted to Formula 1 in 1972, expanding the range further for 1973 and 1974. This seemed to pay dividends, and naturally the company leaned into this, also developing a new range of film and TV tie-ins alongside.

I'd hazard a guess that the bean-counters simply saw no market to modify the Hunter casting - it simply didn't fit with the 'aspirational' sporty range Corgi appear to have been trying to build. While a number of kids (and hey, adults too) might have been pleased with one, sadly it very likely would have flopped. 

Corgi did re-release the Rover P6 with Whizzwheels for the 1971 catalogue year, however - minus its Golden Jacks and also the boot-mounted spare wheel cover - although it only survived in the range for another season, clocking up 48,000 unit sales in that time. To put that into perspective, that's only a third of the units shifted of the more expensive Mercedes Unimog, which also ran alongside the Rover in the range for the same two years. 

In a way I'm not surprised the Rover was selected as the sole three-box, four door saloon to be re-tooled as a Whizzwheels for the 1970s - as it needed fewer modifications than the Hunter casting would have done.

TL;DR - no-one much seemed to want to buy a model of 'grey porridge' saloon cars in the 1970s.

I'm as saddened as you are!

[FakeConcern]

Last Thursday Mrs Concern bought two Britains cyclists in Lewis 

https://autoshite.com/topic/10758-shite-in-miniature-ii/page/1922/

Today she went back to buy the one she missed

While chatting to the shop owner he mentioned that the seller who's stall in the shop they were on had another different cyclist, there were four in the set and offered to ask him if he'd sell it. We should be picking that up next week.

Last week I also posted the French Dinky Chrysler Saratoga I saw for £12 with the wrong label on it

So decided to buy that and got it for £10 which was ok.

Nothing like mint, but very nice original condition

Another shop had these for £2 each

The Solido X1/9 is a pretty, dainty little thing

I still have my childhood Corgi Cortina GXL so I had to compare

Graham doesn't look too impressed

I wants to stick with twin headlights

I'm sure someone will tell us for sure, but the GXL shold have twin rather than rectangular lights shouldn't it? Also the new one has wheels that look to be from a base model whereas the Whizzwheels look more like the correct RoStyles, at least to me.

In case you wondered it does still have GXL on the base

[danthecapriman]

13 minutes ago, FakeConcern said:

Last Thursday Mrs Concern bought two Britains cyclists in Lewis 

https://autoshite.com/topic/10758-shite-in-miniature-ii/page/1922/

Today she went back to buy the one she missed

While chatting to the shop owner he mentioned that the seller who's stall in the shop they were on had another different cyclist, there were four in the set and offered to ask him if he'd sell it. We should be picking that up next week.

Last week I also posted the French Dinky Chrysler Saratoga I saw for £12 with the wrong label on it

So decided to buy that and got it for £10 which was ok.

Nothing like mint, but very nice original condition

Another shop had these for £2 each

The Solido X1/9 is a pretty, dainty little thing

I still have my childhood Corgi Cortina GXL so I had to compare

Graham doesn't look too impressed

I wants to stick with twin headlights

I'm sure someone will tell us for sure, but the GXL shold have twin rather than rectangular lights shouldn't it? Also the new one has wheels that look to be from a base model whereas the Whizzwheels look more like the correct RoStyles, at least to me.

In case you wondered it does still have GXL on the base

Nice buys there.

You got a bargain on that Saratoga for a tenner. I’m confident you’ll make a decent profit on that if you put it on eBay.

[FakeConcern]

27 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

Nice buys there.

You got a bargain on that Saratoga for a tenner. I’m confident you’ll make a decent profit on that if you put it on eBay.

Yes, even though the Fiat is a Century of Cars or something like, I still really like it!

I think you're right, but if I decide not to keep the Saratoga, I'll probably offer it on here. I thought of getting the Dinky New Yorker as well, but for £20 I didn't want it enough.

[Split_Pin]

Both the Fiat and the Cortina are Century of cars releases. Although released in 2003, the Fiat, plus a fair number of other Solido castings such  were from the 1970 and 1980s and jolly fine they were too. The Renault Alpine, if you ever stumble upon one, is fantastic as is the Porsche 928 and BMW 2002.

If you decide to move the French Dinky Saratoga on, I'd happily give it a home next to my Citroen Ami!

[eddyramrod]

@FakeConcern: firstly, congratulations, some top-of-the-table buying there.

Secondly: I agree about the Cortinas.  Yes the GXL should have the four little round headlights; only the GXL and GT had those.  And the Whizzwheels did have a strong RoStyle look to them, indeed.  I always had a bit of an issue with Corgi making the Cortina as a two-door, as they were very thin on the ground in real life.  Especially, I don't think I ever saw one with two doors and four headlights in period, at all!  The rectangular headlights appeared on the mid-life facelift and signified the more upmarket models, certainly; but the GXL and GT designations were dropped.  And the two-door became even more scarce.  We didn't get a four door saloon until the Matchbox mk4, and in 1/43 we had to wait for the Vanguards mk3!  Ahem...