Shite in Miniature II

[Datsuncog]

Just to finish off today, there was a bit more from the lunchtime market expedition:

Having ascertained that everything wanted on here had been cruelly snaffled in the meantime, I did note a large Ford C series tractor unit that wasn't on the stall earlier - 

Mmm, overpaint everywhere...

...and hot glue. How strange.

No manufacturer marks, but loads more hot glue. Curiouser and curiouser. And it was big - maybe about 1/28 scale, I'd say.

 

Perplexed, but chafing from the loss of the Corgi catalogue (dunno why I put it back down again) and the disappearing Morestone taxi, I put it back and mooched off.

On my final circuit of St George's before leaving, I happened past the Charity Stall which has been very light on diecast for the past month or two.

[***Dramatic reconstruction imminent***]

I'm sure my head practically bounced as I did a double-take.

Shut the door!

Now, things then became sticky.

As there was a third model there too - a ludicrously implausible Morris Minor wearing NYC checker taxi livery. I was just lining up my camera to take a shot of all three when - a hand reached over me and snaffled the Minor, to my horrified befuddlement.

A woman. With a pram. Buying a toy car. For her child.

Obviously she has no clue how this show runs.

These things aren't for children, they're for tragic middle-aged men who literally have nothing better to do on a Friday lunchtime (or any other day of the week, personally speaking).

I probably made some kind of strangulated croak, a bit like a seagull trying to swallow a wheelie bin, and gathered the remaining two models to my heaving bosom before some other nefarious marketgoer attempted to buy these playthings for their unappreciative offspring.

The very idea.

£4 later, this is what I had.

So. it's a Polistil 1/25 scale model of a VW Polo/Audi 50, in fairly nice nick bar the unfortunately missing grille/light/bumper combo, and a snapped-off wiper.

Of course, I have no need or use for it... so if anyone can make use of it for £2, let me know.

 

The second model, then...

Well, it looks like a tinplate Buddy L rendering of mid-70s Mack Cruiseliner.

But what's this?

More hot glue? And home made rear wheelarches, plus a ludicrously oversized smokestack?

Bashed up plated bumpers but pristine paintwork? Weird glazing - and a Britains figure in the cab? Hmmmm...

I'm trying to figure out if Market Blokey bought the yellow Ford off the Charity Stall thinking it might be worth a punt - or if the guy from the Charity Stall bought these two off Market Blokey? Clearly there's a link somewhere

It's like bloody EastEnders over here...

Again, if anyone's interested - £2 also.

Phew!

[Split_Pin]

May I have the Polo please. 100% fits in with my other cars.

[Datsuncog]

You sure can! Displayed sideways, it'll still be a nice model.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

The woman buying that Minor for , of all things, a child. Reminds me of a visit to a car boot sale a couple of years ago.

i spotted the Dinky Police Range Rover, Corgi XJ- C Coastguard and SuperKings SM , from 4 stalls away - all 3 immaculate, just as I got to the stall a woman handed over £2.00 for all 3 ! Then proceeded to give one each to 3 little kids!!!!! I was horrified, even more so when they immediately started playing with them on the dusty field, un- fucking-be-frigging-lievable.

MrsN had to drag me away, for fear I'd mug the toddlers. Even a pub lunch and pint couldn't cheer me up.

[Split_Pin]

I'm fairly sure my MK1 Golf Revell kit in 1/24 scale inexplicably came with spare grille and bumpers. These should be easy to make fit.

[sierraman]

2 minutes ago, NorfolkNWeigh said:

The woman buying that Minor for , of all things, a child. Reminds me of a visit to a car boot sale a couple of years ago.

i spotted the Dinky Police Range Rover, Corgi XJ- C Coastguard and SuperKings SM , from 4 stalls away - all 3 immaculate, just as I got to the stall a woman handed over £2.00 for all 3 ! Then proceeded to give one each to 3 little kids!!!!! I was horrified, even more so when they immediately started playing with them on the dusty field, un- fucking-be-frigging-lievable.

MrsN had to drag me away, for fear I'd mug the toddlers. Even a pub lunch and pint couldn't cheer me up.

I’m glad it’s not just me that has had that thought. 

[Split_Pin]

In one ofnthe many car boot stalls I rented during the Great Purge of 2013 I sold a mint 1/18 Bburago Renault Alpine to a scummy woman and her daughter who looked about 8 because I was a bit desperate for money at the time . Clearly No interest in cars and even the princely price tag of £4 was not enough to put her off. Seeing it being carried off to it's certain imminent doom made me vow never to let that happen to any of my remaining collection again.

[DoctorRetro]

Had a couple of ebay deliveries today... 

 

[bunglebus]

I had that Jag!

 

That Polistil Polio ^^ was really nice, great find for £2

 

Had a couple of arrivals

 

Fantastically awful Zylmex Jag XJS

 

20200221_095600 by RS, on Flickr

 

Diablo

 

20200221_095539 by RS, on Flickr

 

And Madza RX7

 

20200221_095508 by RS, on Flickr

 

Despite many opening bits, this Welly 928 is much disappoint due to missing spoiler and lenses

 

20200221_095400 by RS, on Flickr

 

I decided to finish off the ex-Bugs Bunny buggy in a sort of desert camo, in two minds whether it needs a windscreen and/or some sort of cage. 

 

20200221_110259 by RS, on Flickr

20200221_110317 by RS, on Flickr

 

I remembered once again why I stopped using Gorilla Glue - I used it to stick some tubes under the base for the axles to sit in. Goes on well but bubbles and expands leaving a horrid mess. Poxy stuff.

 

 

[sierraman]

There’s the 1-75 one of the Jag XJ40 on the stall I visit on a Monday. 

[Spottedlaurel]

12 hours ago, TheDoctor said:

Started on the Peugeot 604 restoration, although littlun has kinda claimed it, so not sure he will let me glue the bonnet on. Made the bonnet from an old plastic scraper, as the material is easy to work with...

Is the 604 particularly susceptible to bonnet issues? I bought two in France last year, one was missing the bonnet, the other one had it but the scuttle panel was bent upwards where the bonnet is hinged.

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, Split_Pin said:

In one ofnthe many car boot stalls I rented during the Great Purge of 2013 I sold a mint 1/18 Bburago Renault Alpine to a scummy woman and her daughter who looked about 8 because I was a bit desperate for money at the time . Clearly No interest in cars and even the princely price tag of £4 was not enough to put her off. Seeing it being carried off to it's certain imminent doom made me vow never to let that happen to any of my remaining collection again.

I thought the 1/18 ones fetched a decent price. 

[DoctorRetro]

Remember I got these two scuzzy Polos in my tat box?

One had the front axle missing and some weird corrosion, as well as the doors and boot being kinda glued shut.

The other had the suspension snapped, and the boot broken. 

So now to make at least one good one out of the two. 

Here's my work so far. I've managed to strip them both without breaking anything, and transferred the boot and suspension to the white one. Paint and tidying will come later. 

 

I did try some other wheels on it, and although they look good, they don't quite fit or turn correctly. 

 

[bunglebus]

File the arches back a bit? Plenty of meat on them normally

[sheffcortinacentre]

I had that triang circus truck as a nipper in the late 60's along with several others & buddy L stuff aswell.

[Split_Pin]

3 hours ago, TheDoctor said:

Had a couple of ebay deliveries today... 

 

Ooh mercy me some prime late 80s Superkings! Those were the dog's when I was a kid. Strange that both they and Corgi made identical Mercedes 190s, both equally fine.

I recall being excited when I got the Jaguar from Woolworths in Falkirk as it had a then very recent 'E' registration.

[DoctorRetro]

Getting there with the Polo, painstaking work with just sandpaper and a screwdriver. 

A lot of the moulding is damaged through its years in toyboxes, so I think a Hunbrol hand paint would be better to hide the imperfections. 

Any suggestions on colour? I'd wanted to do a grandad spec one in brown or beige, but the body I've saved is the sporty one with the bigger front bumper, so maybe not... 

I've got the boot to line up a lot better too. 

[RoadworkUK]

Hello, and welcome to “Daft things that RoadworkUK bought from eBay because he has next to no self-control”.

It was advertised as “1:32 Mini Alloy Double-Decker Bus W/Sound Light Pull Back Car Model Toy For .#”. With a spamlist of keywords like that I felt powerless to resist before I even looked at the pictures.

After some weeks in transit, appropriately plainly packaged in a nondescript black bag, with foam swaddling affording just about adequate protection from thousands of miles of buffeting, it arrived on Monday when I was out. That gave me two more days of hyperventilating and foaming at the mouth before I could pick it up yesterday. I was right to be excited, because it’s one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever spent £12.87 on as a total whim. It’s also, in a way, utterly pointless, and I’ll come back to that later.

 

The “Double Decker Bus” in question is actually a Setra S431 DT coach, and a bewilderingly faithful representation it is, too. The pics in the eBay listing showed that it had potential to step beyond “Toy”  status in terms of detail, and for a model that I seriously doubt has any kind of official sanctioning from the good burghers of Setra, it’s uncannily well observed.

It easily matches, and in some places, surpasses the standards of most  EFE and Corgi Originals buses I’ve seen. The bodywork casting is very crisp, with nicely pronounced vents and panel lines. The glass areas are attractively done, with no serious gaps between window and bodywork. There’s a substantial amount of metal involved, too, with the roof being sensibly made from plastic, and perforated by glazed panels that are reasonably true to the original. There’s a fully furnished interior, too, which is as close to the real seat plan as anybody could ask for. 

The paint, trim and tampo work is top quality, too, the fictional livery actually bearing the same toymaker’s name, Proswon, as is embossed into the chassis. If anybody is able to translate the Chinese, I’d be fascinated to know what flagrantly offensive or pleasingly wholesome mantra it expresses.

 

It has things that open, too. The engine cover opens, quite stiffly, to reveal a vague but noble rendering of a big Mercedes diesel engine, and the side luggage compartments join in the fun, too, pivoting on clever parallelogram hinges just like the real thing*. Oh, the front axle has suspension, too, and there are double wheels on the second axle. The wheeltrims are remarkably true to the 1:1, too.

Cleverer than any of that, though, is how the side doors are linked together, opening simultaneously on a sliding mechanism and popping out like the plug doors of the original. Admittedly, the door pieces themselves somehow circumvented the care put into the rest of the bodywork; the areas that would be glazed on the original were painted the same fetching gold as the main body. As you’ll see, I hastily “put this right” with a solvent-based permanent marker, slightly ruining the finish in the process. Perhaps owing to the non-existent packaging, though, there are areas of minor scuffing to the roof and a wheeltrim or too, but I suppose this counters the "too shiny to be real" issue that plagues certain EFE , OOC and Oxford releases.

The sliding tab that operates the doors yields further amusement, too, because it also controls the very most hilarious aspect of this novelty item – its light and sound feature. The nicely-modelled front and rear lights conceal appropriately coloured LEDs, dazzling white in the case of the headlights, and each upstairs seating bay has a blue LED, too, which actually looks a little like an overly bright version of the same ambient lighting effect you'll encounter in the full-size coach. It’s a shame, then, that you can’t switch them to stay on for extended periods; they only glow as part of a light and sound show that risks pulling the whole shooting match firmly back into the Toy realm.

There are three sounds; they rotate in sequence with every operation of the doors. The first is an authoritative-sounding PA announcement in Chinese; the second is a comical generic car horn, and the third is a horribly penetrating and none-too-accurate alarm sound. It’s these, as well as the wholly inappropriate inclusion of a pull-back motor on the second axle (and one that’s not quite man enough to move the thing with any verve), that makes this such an amusingly unfocussed toy/model crossover.

So, which of my 1:32 models should I display it with? Well, I was a contemplating the Scalextric route or a model kit so as to obtain a similarly-scaled partner for display purposes, but the tape measure put an end to that plan: depending on which dimension you compare against the original, the true scale runs between 1:57 and 1:59. Nothing like the scale suggested in the advert, and the only real disappointment in what is the most peculiar diecast I’ve amassed thus far. I’m struggling to think of how I can display it in any worthwhile context.

It’s an interesting decision on the part of Proswon. With the only packaging amounting to a Chinese-language tag on the rear axle, I imagine the retail ambition for these is to display them loosely in trays of six or twelve in the manner of any number of cheap Chinese toys you’ll encounter in a seaside toys, buckets ‘n spades shop, for example. Odd, because the fidelity of this model is far greater than such a destiny deserves. If they stripped out the sound and pull-back motor, boosted the scale to, say, 1:43 and added a fancy box, I reckon a range of buses and coaches like this would sell relatively well at far more than £13.

Anyway, despite the brow-furrowing scale discrepancy, it’s a lovely thing, and available in a range of liveries. Prices are curiously variable with multiple eBay retailers hawking the same thing at different tariffs, but thirteen quid delivered seems entirely reasonable.

[DoctorRetro]

It literally means 'Global simultaneous listing'

My translation app also suggested 'Going Global' which may be closer to what it is trying to say. 

 

[RoadworkUK]

Excellent! Not the most ridiculous name at all, then.

[eddyramrod]

On 2/21/2020 at 5:34 PM, TheDoctor said:

Wrc Xsara and Freelander please if still there when you next go? 

Both procured.  Shall we hang on a week or two in case anything else catches your eye?

[DoctorRetro]

10 minutes ago, eddyramrod said:

Both procured.  Shall we hang on a week or two in case anything else catches your eye?

Yes, please, if that's OK. 

[Spottedlaurel]

After my big cabinet reshuffle, this is the current state of play:

Plymouth(?), 924, Chrysler/Simca and Merc SL have all been mine since I was young.

I ran out of room, not quite sure how/where those on top of the cabinet are going to end up yet. Note MB Flareside collector's card and slightly older version on the shelf. The latter is about the last one I got when I was young, so it has survived the years well.

Haven't utilised the transporters yet, although whatever goes on them won't be easy to see. One or two of these larger Matchbox may get thinned out soon.

[Spottedlaurel]

I still keep tweaking the display, it's taking a while to get used to and there are certain groups of cars I like to keep together.

The other cabinet:

Again, some odds and ends which lost out in the fight for space. There are a few other 1:43s on the top shelf behind the small Corgis below, but I think I might have to do something else with them all as they're not fitting in well with the 1:64 and 1:36 stuff.

I didn't realise quite how much the Corgi 1:36 collection had grown, and how much space they take up.

[RoadworkUK]

Eyewatering stuff, Nigel, as is the cabinet itself (the one with the 1:36s in it). What's its story? 

[Spottedlaurel]

1 minute ago, RoadworkUK said:

Eyewatering stuff, Nigel, as is the cabinet itself (the one with the 1:36s in it). What's its story? 

Thanks Chris. Funky cabinet was £10 from the local auctions.

If ever you're heading up this way you'd be welcome to call in and have a look.

[RoadworkUK]

12 minutes ago, Spottedlaurel said:

Thanks Chris. Funky cabinet was £10 from the local auctions.

If ever you're heading up this way you'd be welcome to call in and have a look.

It's a fascinating piece.

Cheers; come the spring and the Rover awakens, I might well set myself up for a Sunday road trip.

[DoctorRetro]

More faffing... 

Got this Simca 1308 (Which has Chrysler on the bonnet etc) with no boot. No idea how I'm going to sort it, but I thought I'd touch up the missing paint with some silver, giffer repair style to tidy it up. 

The Peugeot 604 got a coat of burgundy. Will see how it looks when properly dry. 

Decided to paint the Polo blue, will take a couple of coats to get it right... 

Meanwhile, I discovered the best way to repaint wheels if they are off the car is to paint on the paper and dab the wheels in the paint, quick and less shaky hands to worry about.. 

 

 

[Spottedlaurel]

Those projects are coming on nicely.

About the Chrysler/Simca, maybe add one of those camper bodies occasionally fitted onto hatchbacks?

[bunglebus]

2 hours ago, TheDoctor said:

 

 

Decided to paint the Polo blue, will take a couple of coats to get it right... 

Meanwhile, I discovered the best way to repaint wheels if they are off the car is to paint on the paper and dab the wheels in the paint, quick and less shaky hands to worry about.. 

 

 

 

 

 

Not been on today, I was going to say dunk the Polo in some paint stripper or hot water/caustic soda to get the paint off.