Old Toys

First off is this little Corgi beetle - bought for the princely sum of 50 pence. Yes, I know it looks rough but you need a little vision. Corgi made this series of special cars with working steering. This one was once a 'Polizei' car but they also made the beetle as a rally car which I prefer. Given how rough this one is, I had a go at restoring it as the rally version.

These old Corgi cars were held together with rivets. The best way I have found to remove these is to drill or grind them out. Once this is done, the body can be popped off the chassis and the model dismantled.

There are lots of parts and the next stage is to clean these up. I scrub the plastic parts in a bowl of warm water and washing up liquid, using a soft toothbrush.

Paint was stripped and resprayed, replacement decals and headlights were found online and the final model is great.

Turning the spare tyre steers the front wheels.

This has gone from being a 50p piece of junk to being one of my nicest models.

Here's the next patient - a 1960's Corgi Heinkel Bubble Car. Again, I had one as a lad and would like to replace it. This one cost the vast sum of 25p but it is in very poor condition.

Here are the component parts after drilling out the single rivet. In this image the interior moulding (made from a very thin plastic) was badly deformed. A quick dip in boiling water and a gentle manipulation soon put it (more or less) straight again. 

Just about finished. This one had some problems which were hard to overcome without sourcing some rare new parts, so I needed to compromise. The glass was badly scratched and the tyres are so small that I had to cut a thin slice out of some slightly larger ones and then glue the ends together (this worked better than I thought it would). Far from perfect but not bad for 25p!

Rough but hard to find cheaply. I have been looking for this model for ages - a 1967 Monte-Carlo rally Sunbeam Imp by Dinky.

In fair condition these are £20 and in good condition closer to £50 - way too much for me..

This wreck cost me £1 - bargain! 

Here it is, dismantled. The paint is mostly off, the floor-pan has been resprayed and the interior given a quick clean.

There are a couple of broken bits of plastic which act as suspension by pressing down on the axles and these will need to be bodged in some invisible fashion.

Otherwise it is not bad for a mass-produced toy which must be around 50 years old.

I painted this one by hand as I had no spray cans in a suitable colour.

I had to fix the broken suspension pieces and did this simply by gluing a couple of layers of paper on using UHU. This glue dries rather like rubber. The paper is impregnated in glue and provides strength, whereas the deliberately built-up glue provides some springiness.

Total cost around 3 quid.

I wish I had done a 'before' shot for this one - it was brush-painted yellow, with no tyres, damaged interior, bent roof etc.

The usual routine followed - strip, clean, straighten, respray...

I reshaped the thin plastic interior in boiling water before adding a spare wheel and 'rally luggage' made from plasticine.

I also made a sump guard and spot-lamp and bought fresh tyres and some decals online.

A 1960's Dinky Mini Traveler - in fair condition and (most importantly) with good glazing.

I was thinking how cool it would have been, had the BMC Competition Department prepared a Mini Traveler for those classic 1960's Monte Carlo rallies.

It would have looked something like this - the same model after some fairly extensive changes.

Repaired interior, basic roll-cage, spare wheel, rally luggage, spot-lamps, side-exhaust, sump-guard. Of course, it would have been Tartan Red with an Old English White roof.

I do like this one. I did a lot of fine filing on the body-shell to improve the many minor casting imperfections.

The black wheels and rally decals give it a sportier feel.

I'd love to build a real one - hmmm.

Another old Mini - a Corgi Monte Carlo Rally Mini which was in a very bad state of repair.

I have broken it down in the usual way and cleaned the interior, polished the 'glass' and figured out how I want this one to look.

Things like the roof rack are out of scale but it is the original Corgi item from the 1960's when this was more of a child's toy than a collector's scale model - the very slightly clunky aspect is all part of the charm.