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Minix (and other) car improvements


quicksilvercoaches
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They are pretty rare. 15 years ago you were looking at about £25.00 for one, so £40 wouldn't be an unreasonable amount to pay for one now.

 

I think he is just hoping someone wants one real bad. :)

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Doomed to an eternity in the 50p box!

I found all but the wheels of a MINIX Victor 101 in one of those rummage boxes once, i.e. it was in bits. The roof was damaged but I used it as the basis of a pick-up version (the prototype being followed was a rebuild, of course).

Edited by BernardTPM
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I found all but the wheels of a MINIX Victor 101 in one of those rummage boxes once, i.e. it was in bits. The roof was damaged but I used it as the basis of a pick-up version (the prototype being followed was a rebuild, of course).

The Victor 101 is also quite rare. I found one at a toy fair once with some of the more common models and the Triang car carrier for the princely sum of £10. I replaced it with one of the more common models and sold the car carrier on for £12.

Edited by PhilJ W
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The Victor 101 is also quite rare. I found one at a toy fair once with some of the more common models and the Triang car carrier for the princely sum of £10. I replaced it with one of the more common models and sold the car carrier on for £12.

 

Where's the enterprising/ entrepreneurial button when you need it!

 

Mike.

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The Victor 101 is also quite rare. I found one at a toy fair once with some of the more common models and the Triang car carrier for the princely sum of £10. I replaced it with one of the more common models and sold the car carrier on for £12.

I can beat that, I found a car carrier on a market stall that had two Victors on it, plus various others I didn't have. I think that was a tenner too. I keep hoping a Cresta or Rambler will turn up in some obscure place with someone who doesn't really know what they've got.

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I can beat that, I found a car carrier on a market stall that had two Victors on it, plus various others I didn't have. I think that was a tenner too. I keep hoping a Cresta or Rambler will turn up in some obscure place with someone who doesn't really know what they've got.

Where's that 'Green with envy' button? :jester:

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LOL - anyone watching the R342s on Ebay over the past couple of years will have noticed a steady churn of recycled boxed tierwags, as I amassed my cartrain quantities of BLMCs, Vauxhalls and Fords, and moved on the Hillmans and Simcas....   

 

My Ebay eagle eyes spotted four Victor 101s on a couple of Cartics that weren't itemised and were barely visible in the photos, needless to say they were snapped up!!!!

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post-26971-0-22732200-1530717766_thumb.jpgHere's part of a large order I got back in the late 1960s when ERG of Bournemouth were selling up. If I remember correctly, they were 6d each, 12 for 5 bob or 50 for a pound. I had a quidsworth, plus a big pack of Modelcraft plans and card lorry kits. As you can see, I still have two each of the Victor, Cresta and Rambler.

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Minix chose the Rambler, it is the only American car in the range. The only other foriegn car they made was the Simca.

 

Lines Bros wanted to tap into the lucrative USA market, and this was their tokenistic way of going about it.

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Interesting that you plumped for the rambler but no doubt glad you did I’m sure. Unless they were selected randomly by the seller. Not much call for a 1:76 USA car.

 

I don't tknow the commercial reasons behind it, probably an easy way of getting large cars in the country via a smaller British arm of a multi-national manufacturer, but, from the early 1960's there were quite a few RHD Ramblers in Great Britain, I remember seeing quite a few Ambassadors(?).

 

Mike.

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I don't know why Tri-ang chose the Rambler, but as one who has always been a fan of American vehicles, I'm pleased they did. A few years after buying my Minix Ramblers (five of them originally), I bought a real one - a 1964 Classic 4-door with factory right-hand-drive. Although it was a very good car, with a 3.2 litre six-cylinder engine and automatic transmission, I never really took to it the way I did with my other Yanks, all left-hand-drive. The Rambler felt too much like a Zephyr or a Cresta, not having that "presence" on the road. They were quite a popular import from 1963-66, competitively priced and aimed squarely at the larger BMCs, Fords and Vauxhalls.

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I've always thought the Rambler was an odd choice, firstly because OO isn't a popular scale in the US and secondly because it wasn't an especially common car and something from the Big Three would have made more sense. RHD Yanks are surprisingly numerous actually, as are LHD ones supplied new in the UK. Any Rootes dealer could apparently obtain anything from the US Chrysler range as a special order and I've even seen a unique RHD-converted Plymouth Barracuda. Another oddity that lives not far from me is a RHD Pontiac Parisienne built in Canada for export to Australia but sold in the UK instead. A lot of American car fans apparently look down on RHD versions as not 'proper' Yanks despite them being built on the very same production lines as the LHD ones. 

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I never realised the rambler was available in the U.K. Google image search after this post! My comment was related to the scale for USA as they don’t recognise 1:76 like we do. I know triangtoyed with USA trains so I can see the logic.

 

The biggest mistake by a long chalk was the bus not being 1:76.

 

I have the Simca with wheels off an Oxford. I know they were sold here as I remember the hatchbacks.

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