Shite in Miniature II

[bunglebus]

1 hour ago, Lord Sterling said:

Ooh, I'm liking the Felcia. 1/43 scale?

Here it is, been on a sunny shelf so has some degradation of the windows - £3.00 if you'd like it

[bunglebus]

Other semi interesting finds from this morning include this Escort cabriolet, in a different colour scheme to the usual all blue, and with XR3i on the base

Tidy Mod Tractor trailer

Corgi Super Sonics Saab with a wheel type I'm unfamiliar with 

Norev Fiat X1/9, anyone fancy it for £2.00?

My phone doesn't like the colour of this Matchbox Pininfarina, it's bright pink

Yellow IROC is new to me

A couple of clean police cars

This one's just weird, from that 90's era when Matchbox lost its way a bit. Mustang Mach III out of a 1995 play set.  Front looks like it should open, but it doesn't 

Nearly missed this one - thoroughly squished VW 1600TL - Superfast version. Base is all good so I'll swap an earlier body onto it

Got some very good 50p bargains today, such a Zowees Beddy Bye

And two Redlines, a Silhouette 

And a Mantis, never had this one 

Yellow ovloV

Majorette Camargue 

And BX, this one doesn't show up often

[Christine]

30 cans!  Ta for the heads up 

[quicksilver]

Got my 30 cans today too. Some duplicates both in this batch and with the 12 I bought last week so I might be looking for swapsies. Vauxhall Star Silver, Land Rover Epsom Green and the Toyota red and white seem particularly numerous.

[bunglebus]

Pondering how to sort out my red Superfast VW 1600 (and of course once I take it apart, the fact it was once red is an irrelevance). Dug these out, ol' spotty at the end there is actually purple, and has a restorable body if I want to paint it, but cracked glass. The next two look like good body donors but both have cracked pillars. The one next to the squashed one has good glass but is missing the same door as the Superfast, and cracked pillars, good glass. 

I think Spotty's body, Superfast base and the window from the worst of the other three could work.

While I think about that, someone on Facebook had a brilliantly simple idea:

Yep, both versions of the Espace F1 with the tops swapped.

That gave me an idea. Take this

And this

Wave a magic wand and Piff Paff Poof:

 

[FakeConcern]

@bunglebus yes please to the Norev X1/9

 

[eddyramrod]

Is that Dodge rescue wagon likely to come available at all?

[bunglebus]

4 minutes ago, eddyramrod said:

Is that Dodge rescue wagon likely to come available at all?

Bought on behalf of @Datsuncog

[Lord Sterling]

8 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Here it is, been on a sunny shelf so has some degradation of the windows - £3.00 if you'd like it

Yes please!

[AndyW201]

Some catching up to do on recent purchases.

First up, a quick, daft repair job. I've been after a miniature version of my Merc C Class for a while. I've got two in 1/43 by Minichamps, albeit pre facelift versions, and one being an AMG, and a few of the DTM racing versions by Hot Wheels. But I've been on the hunt for a facelift version of the road car, like my real car and preferably in a bright red, rather than the duller, darker Imperial red that the Minichamps C180 came in. That left the 1/72 version by Cararama. This in itself is quite hard to find, but I found one on ebay which had been languishing for ages and got it for a whole one pound.

Now, it has to be said from the outset that, unlike Cararama's later efforts, their 1/72 W202 C Class isn't their best. Almost as if the mould makers had a C Class described to them down the phone. It's not helped really by the fact that it is chronically under-wheeled. I did think about using a dog-eared Hot Wheels or Matchbox as a wheel donor, but the wheels used by Cararama are actually nicely detailed replicas of the genuine alloys fitted to the early Sport and Esprit versions,

And I figured that if I used generic Mattel wheels, it would end up looking like one of those licence dodging not-quite-a-C-Classes that were all over Home Bargains a few years ago.

Like these two 'Policie' versions from 201-jnr's old toy box. The Cararama version at least got given a proper Merc grille, badge and headlights.

As can be seen, things were not well with the suspension either. The rear had collapsed and the front was way too high, leaving it looking not unlike the real car when I bought it, before I sorted the right length coil springs for it. 😆

Luckily, these cars are screwed together, so it was a matter of seconds to have it apart and investigate.

The interior moulding, by the way, is pretty good for a cheap toy, with the dash and steering wheel nicely captured, and the folded rear headrests, speakers and first aid kit compartment all moulded into the rear shelf.  As can be seen, the axles are pinned in by small clips moulded into the base. These had snapped at the rear, making the axle disappear into the body. I wanted the wheels to fit further up into the arches to reduce the gap so I popped the front axle out as well. I then filled the axle recesses so the axles were sitting higher up than they were and superglued two small bits of plastic to the bases, to hold the axles on. 

With the ride height 'adjusted' there was a slight improvement. The big expanse of metal above the windscreen was blacked out to make the screen look bigger. The paint chips were then touched  in with the touch up brush out of the real car!

And here it is in it's new home. To use my bluetooth adaptor, the ashtray compartment has to be open all the time, so the Merc  Mini-Me fills the space nicely.

[AndyW201]

A whizz around the local haunts didnt bring a great lot, but,

Aldi brought the recoloured Skyline (I did have to stick it under the lights to make sure it wasnt the black one I had already...)

The metallic blue is rather nice.

Not the STH sadly,

Further down the road at Poundland, I found a few nice ones that I'd been after,

Along with the W124 500E, this is a casting that I'll never get sick of!

Another metallic blue beauty,

I was especially pleased to get this. It's just superb.

[AndyW201]

A couple of premiums too. I'd gone to Smyths in the hope of finding the new Primera and Merc SLC rallye.

Ho flipping Ho! As if. But if you wanted no less than 11 pegs full of bastarding Fast & Furious cack, you were in luck. However, one caught my eye. I've always been a fan of the HW '99 Honda Civic Si coupé, and I thought that they'd done a premium version of it.

But hang on! This is a 1993 coupé, and a look underneath confirmed this is a new for '25 casting. So I grabbed it, I always like a new casting that I havent already got one of.

Sadly, being black, and thanks to the stupidly shaped blister packaging, try as I might, I cannot get a decent look at it, or a picture of it.

I think this one might have to come out to play.

And thanks to AliExpress,

I think this might be my favourite Hot Wheels purchase in a long while.

I did already have the Team Transport set with the first outing for the Supra casting in white and the green 4 Runner, but I had to have this single release when I saw it.

What a lovely casting this is. It looks great in red.

A red one like this can be seen around our town, being driven daily, which is great to see.

[Lord Sterling]

Quick one from me. Had this arrived today:

The Morse Jag "Oi, Mowse, get yerself and yer Jaaayg over 'ere, we're on a bit of a tickow, a blaayg, we need a droivah and a getaway Jaaaayg"

I was inspired partly by the one my Nan brought me for my birthday:

But this is a 1/76 model, Nan was disappointed by it and thought it would at least be a 1/43 scale and nearly sent it back. I'm glad she didn't. 

Anyway, I have a no-name 1/43 Jag Mk2 3.4 which is a nice model. I suspect the model is by Cararama as whilst researching this, I happened upon the same car but with a black roof as per Morse Jag 2.4.

(Excuse the wiring left on the Morse Jag, I couldn't be bothered to untangle it as I wanted to put it back in its box)

The Morse model is by Corgi. Both castings look very simila. One thing I didn't like about the Corgi one was the overly protruding "chrome" numberplate light holder. The other one is just right.

Apart from that, they really are not dissimilar in any meaningful way. The non-Morse car of course is also meant to have a Jaguar leaper as per Morse' car but mine was long lost before I got my hands on it.

It now lives next to my Lovejoy Morris:

[bunglebus]

Boot sales are definitely quieter now

[AndyW201]

Wow! That gold Merc 300 looks mintola!

[Datsuncog]

Boot sales seem to have absolutely died a death here locally - the only regular one I knew of (25 miles away, at Bangor Abbey) didn't come back this summer, for reasons unknown.

I did see a sign for one in Greencastle in July, which was helpfully* being held in a church car park on a Thursday afternoon, but weirdly that didn't seem to happen again 🤔

I do still check into St George's Market every few weeks, and I don't know why the amount of diecast just seemed to drop off a year or two ago. But there's very little of interest there now, it's all usually quite pricey, and hardly ever anything that's actually old.

Still, we had a good run of it for a few years!

[Tenmil Socket]

2 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Boot sales are definitely quieter now

Nice BMW.

[Split_Pin]

Just been to the Northern Toy fair in Glasgow. Came away with sweet Fanny Adams. Highlights were £5 for an average Majorette Simca 1100, £15 for ancient boxed EFEs in English liveries which don't sell in Scotland and £30 for boxed but old Minichamps which I have sold for £15 on Marketplace. Glad I've got you lot with decent fairs and markets about, Scotland is crap for them!

[bunglebus]

7 hours ago, AndyW201 said:

Wow! That gold Merc 300 looks mintola!

From the old boy who apparently has loads tucked away, did gently remind him I'd like to have a proper look through his stash

6 hours ago, Tenmil Socket said:

Nice BMW.

Chinese no name, but I like an E30.

Came back with a few more from the second boot sale

[bunglebus]

You saw it here first folks - Entertainer open on a Sunday

[bunglebus]

The Mrs is getting a bit too good at this. Arrived at a table with a tat covered tarpaulin to the side, before I'd even had a chance to assess the goods, she'd swooped down and grabbed another Welly Lupo

I picked up two Dardas elsewhere, maybe I should have also bought the box of track they were with?

No name Trans Am

And BMW

Road Champs funny car with comedy decals

Lido Gun-of-a-Car Datsun

This is a nice find, Hot Wheels Crack-ups tend to be pretty battered

Unusual Matchbox tanker

Clean Honda 750

Very lovely Merc

Clean Challenger

A glowing windows Super GT - got a plan for this one

Glow test

This was pleasing for £2.00

I complained yesterday about 90s Matchbox losing their way. Things started to improve under Mattel's ownership I think:

You might be able to see from my earlier pics how grubby this Superkings Peterbilt was - came up really well after a trip around the kitchen sink. One of a few I remember having new, and other than a bit of chrome worn off, this one's lovely

[Lord Sterling]

That Mercedes is lovely. For sale? If not, there are a few on eBay.

I didn't realise that some SuperKings had turning wheels. 

[bunglebus]

22 minutes ago, Lord Sterling said:

That Mercedes is lovely. For sale? If not, there are a few on eBay.

I didn't realise that some SuperKings had turning wheels. 

A keeper, but I've got a very nice condition one in my collection it will replace (when I find it).

Think it's just that Peterbilt that steers, and by the time it had changed colour to green, that feature had gone away

Even my boxed one is missing that A frame thing, more's the pity 

[Lord Sterling]

3 hours ago, bunglebus said:

A keeper, but I've got a very nice condition one in my collection it will replace....

Brilliant, let me know about the other one if/when it becomes available. 

Love the fact that the Peterbilt is towing a Blue Jag. Something similar nay have occurred this coming week, but my blue S-Type Jag actually starts so I can drive it to the garage hopefully. 

[bunglebus]

One other arrival the other day was this Guisval Go-Bug, a nicer example of one I already have. The larger Polistil ones go for eye-watering amounts of money