N gauge road vehicles, 70s-80s

[AndyB]

Last year I started a thread about RTR road vehicles for 00 and this got picked up, expanded and there was a lot of input.

 

I'm working on a 70s/80s layout in N gague - my first in this gauge - and was surprised how little there was out there in terms of road vehicles for this era in 2mm scale.

 

There seems plenty of 50s/60s and 90s/00s. But nothing for the gap. Unless I've missed something.

 

(BTW, apologies if this has already been tackled elsewhere on the RMweb pages)

 

Is this an era that has been left out? Who are the main suppliers? Is there a small supplier out there I've missed? What would anyone like to see? I'm thinking Ford Escorts, Cortinas, Transit. Austin Allegros, Princess, Mini Metro. Audi Quatro, Passat, 80,....

 

I'm thinking that steam era is popular and so manufacturers latch on and provide cars / lorries / vans of this era.

Maybe the same is true for 90s/00s rolling stock and associated modern cars.

 

What does everyone else think?

 

Andy

[Hippo]

HI,

The Fleetline by gem range of 2mm whitemetal kits has some

Beetle, Golf, Capri, Escort, Sierra, Fiesta, early Range Rover, Transit and plenty more

 

Also P & D Marsh make some whitemetal kits as well

XR3I, Orion, various sherpa's,

 

Cheers

Owen

[grahame]

Check out this thread;

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/19070-the-need-for-modern-road-vehicles-in-n-gauge/

 

and this one;

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/5377-tomytec/page__st__50

 

G

[AndyB]

Thanks, Owen, Grahame,

I figured that this must have been tackled before - so many thanks for the link.

I'll be shopping at both sites for the road scene on my layout. Thanks!

Andy

[Black Sheep]

One thing that I'd be mindful of when building a 70's scene is that there would be lots of cars from previous decades around the place, especially in a city centre, I recall my dad commenting that one of his friends had a pre-war ford when he was at university in the 70's, he himself had an anglia 105e with a piece of gas pipe welded in to hold the gearbox in place and another friend had a citroen 2CV that he used to drop a brick onto the accelerator pedal as a form of 'cruise control'

 

people often say of the 60's and 70's that young people's buying power was much more than it had been in previous decades (perhaps more true of the 60's) and this was reflected by the small cars available such as the mini or imp, you would find many people would still be looking to buy second hand and you wouldn't see the bumper to bumper parking we get on residential streets like we see today.

 

Walking through a 70's city centre I'd expect to be seeing mini's, VW beetles, a couple of vw vans, mini vans, morris minors, early escorts, ford populars, anglias, hillman imps, avengers, triumph heralds and spitfires.

 

most of these models were newer versions of cars launched years before and updated instead of completely new cars, things such as two tone paint or a different grill being the main difference between model years, although the difference between a mk1 and mk2 escort is less subtle.

 

 

The cars that have survived from those eras are the ones that were either special and so looked after / had money etc put in to restore them - for example a vauxhall HP Firenza (droop snoot) well looked after by a devoted owner - for example a mk2 jaguar, or vehicles that were very popular, made in high numbers and as a result, more chance of survival, for example morris minors or the mini.

 

A quick look round a classic car show, if you ignore the expensive cars from the era and look at the more ordinary cars that you or your parents might have had, might give a good starting point of what vehicles to populate a scene with.

[AndyB]

I don't know how others feel about this, but I seem to remember some regional variation and loyalties thrown in. Down in deepest Essex we used to see a bias towards Fords (due to the Dagenham plant) but maybe more Leylands up in the Midlands?

 

Andy

[Black Sheep]

Having seen (but not been around at the time) old photos of Coventry there were a fair number of Fords mixing in with the more local manufacturers.

 

I'm lead to believe that Ford had a salary purchase scheme for its employees which helped swell the numbers of Fords purchased down there,

 

however, for the years just before the Fiesta was launched you need some very tatty Fiat 121's as Ford fitted the Fiat bodies to pre-production Fiesta mechanicals to test them.

 

Up in Coventry there were so many car companies that just choosing British built cars would fit the scene well.

 

Leyland comprised of:

 

Leyland Motors (Commercial Vehicles) (Leyland)

Austin (Birmingham)

Morris (Oxfordshire but had plants in Coventry)

MG (branch of Morris)

Rover - (Coventry until 1947, Solihul after 1947)

Jaguar (Formally Swallow Sidecars / SS) (Blackpool until 1928, Coventry from 1928 onwards - production now at Gaydon)

Triumph (Coventry)

Land Rover (Solihul)

Standard (Coventry) (Bought out / merged with Triumph)

Maudsley (Coventry and Alcester)

Alvis (Coventry)

Riley (Coventry)

Daimler (Coventry)

Lanchester (Coventry)

Vanden Plas (Belgium but UK rights bought in 1910 and again in 1924 becoming a subsidiary of the Austin Motor Co in 1946)

BSA (used as a car brand) (Birmingham)

Lanchester (Coventry)

Scammell Lorries (Watford)

AEC (Southall, London)

Coventry Climax (Engines and forklift trucks) (Coventry)

 

 

 

 

 

Also in Coventry was Rootes (later Chrysler Europe) group comprising of:

 

Hillman

Singer

Sunbeam

Talbot

Commer (light vans)

Karrier (heavy vans / light duty trucks)

 

Production was based around Coventry and Birmingham but plants were also at Acton, Luton, Dunstable, Maidstone, Canterbury and Linwood (Hillman Imp) with vehicles often arriving by train to the main Stoke or Ryton plants at Coventry.

 

There were hundreds of other car companies in Coventry and the Midlands, with many manufacturing companies to support them, but listing them would take all day -

 

Given the vast array of companies and badge engineered cars in the midlands it is very hard to see brand loyalty at play, you would see it much more, as you've said, in places such as Essex with Ford or Luton with Vauxhall.

[Invicta]

One difference you might well notice, thinking back, is that there were far fewer European/Japanese cars around. The Japanese manufacturers were beginning to get a fairly strong foothold in the market, but IIRC European cars like Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat, VW etc weren't all that common (certainly not in my neck of the woods) compared to the numbers you see today- and the more upmarket ones (BMW, Audi etc) even more so

Thinking back to the Leicestershire street I grew up in during the mid-70's, my dad owned predominantly Vauxhalls, and neighbours cars tended to be Ford, Vauxhall or various BL & Rootes/Chrysler products- and there were still a number of households without a car.

The lineup I can see parked across the road as I'm typing this of 1xFord, 1x Peugeot, 1xSEAT- they weren't selling cars in the UK market until the 80's) 1xNissan, 2xToyota, 1x Vauxhall and a VW would be very unlikely back then

[Grafarman]

In North Wales in the 70's you could see virtually any kind of car as they used to nick 'em from Liverpool and Manchester and drive 'em down the coast for resprays - not me personally, of course...

 

Our family had a VW Beetle followed by a Ford Cortina followed by a Simca 1301 Special - it was just whatever was available - well-off people would drive to the big cities, including round trips to London and wherever to buy new cars and then they stayed in the area... I'm sure that happened a lot all over the country at that time...

[Black Sheep]

I don't know about the french cars, there seem to be a fair number of Citroen CX's and other citroens from the same time, enough to have a fair number of owners clubs, same with a fair few other main stream cars from the same time, I guess it was when they were starting to enter the UK market, hence people becoming disenchanted with BL's offerings and their market presence dwindling during the 80's leaving Coventry as a ghost town (hence the song by the specials)

[Dave777]

Perhaps the ‘fewer Euro cars’ thing was regional or maybe easily swayed by a small sample? My Dad had a Talbot Alpine around 1981/2 (engine rattled like a diesel, but it had terrifically comfy seats) and next door had a VW Passat, and next door to them there was a Citroen (and it wasn’t a rich street by any means). I remember my Auntie had some weird little white thing with the engine in the back and that was definitely European! But go back just a few years to 1978/9 and we had a Cortina, next door had a Vauxhall Viva and there was a Ford Escort where the Citroen would later be.

 

Probably a valid point though, it wouldn’t harm to give some bias towards Fords and Vauxhalls. And spot on about fewer cars, I can remember the houses on the other side of the road had no garages or driveways and there were probably only 5 or 6 cars parked on the road spread between 20 odd houses. I can’t remember seeing any cars in the cul-de-sac round the corner where the old fogies lived in their bungalows – that’s what made this clear, practically unused and thus un-potholed road so good for skateboarding.

 

Other thoughts: in pictures from the mid-80s I’m often surprised how many 1970s cars there are still around. Who can forget the furore over the Sierra and all those people hanging onto their Cortinas? And the Mk III Escort wasn’t well received after the Mk II (which, I believe, wasn’t that liked after the Mk I), so 70s Escorts lived on well into the 80s. My first car even in 1987 was a 1979 Mk II Escort, and that was a common first car (along with Fiestas) among my age group.

 

And 1970s colours too – British Leyland brown or beige was very common (how many brown cars do you see today?!), and brighter colours like red and yellow were much rarer than today. Even silver seemed extravagant at the time. Don’t forget vinyl roofs too, we had a Hillman Avenger in blue with a white vinyl roof (!), but even as a nipper I can remember thinking this was a very ‘bright’ colour scheme.

 

 

And the mists of time clear again…

[BernardTPM]

The Talbot (nee Chrysler) Alpine was built in Coventry and was designed there too, though it used French derived mechanicals (from Simca, lumped in with Rootes after the Chrysler take-over) so though it looked Wuro it wasn't entirely. The '70s was the time when Ford and Vauxhall/Opel both standardised designs across Europe, which tends to confuse the matter. When it comes to age, well todays equivalent to your Mk.2 Escort would be a 2003 Focus now; not new but hardly an old abnger either. As for colours, they come round in circles. Early '70s colours could be quite garish (metallic lime green, bright orange, red or yellow) but the browns and beiges were the 'in' colours of the later '70s. In the early '80s by contrast white silver and red were very popular.

An N gauge Avenger would be nice, especially in deep metallic green with twin headlights!

[grahame]

Good news for those wanting 1970s vehicles. The Tomytec Car Collection #13 is now available and on sale on ebay;

 

Toyota Corolla estate (1974-9)

Toyota Land Cruiser (1967-80)

Toyota Dyna (1968-77)

Mitsubishi Fuso (Canter van-based) pick-up (1975-8)

 

(Apologies for the repeat posting of this but there seems to be a lot of similar threads)

 

G.

[RANGERS]

The British Leyland family tree is missing Riley, Wolseley, Thorneycroft, Crossley, Aveling Barford, Guy, Bristol and the bodybuilders, Eastern Coachworks, Park Royal and Charles Roe.

 

In addition, Carbodies produced the FX4 in Coventry, which although not strictly speaking a BL product, Carbodies remained independent throughout, was built from Leyland parts and marketed as an Austin.

[grahame]

Good news for those wanting 1970s vehicles. The Tomytec Car Collection #13 is now available and on sale on ebay;

 

Toyota Corolla estate (1974-9)

Toyota Land Cruiser (1967-80)

Toyota Dyna (1968-77)

Mitsubishi Fuso (Canter van-based) pick-up (1975-8)

 

Osborns had these vehicles (collection#13) on sale from their stand at the Abingdon show today. £5.50 for a pack of two.

 

Also available were Fujioto TCM ISO container stackers;

http://www.osbornsmodels.com/fujimoto-hobby---heavy-equipment-series-2---n-scale-tcm-43-ton-container-forklift-11894-p.asp

 

G.

[essofal]

hello

I am a french modelling fan and could provide N gauge vehicles among the following list

send a privat email with the list of models , precise scale ( from 1:148 to 1:160) amount of models you are interested in

as soon as the working progress will allow ( according to the arised interest) I will post some photos of finished models

i could also consider exchanges with scratchbuild n gauge vehicles ( 1:160 to 1/120 ) or rare N Gauge road vehicles

aston martin dbr9 lemans 2008

austin healy sprite mk 1 frog eye 1958

austin mini 61

Citroen traction avant 1934/57

Citroen 2 cv 1948/1990

citroen ds 19 ( 1960:68)

citroen ds 21 ( 1968:75)

citroen ami 6 1960/70

Ciroen ami 8 1968:78

Citroen ami 8 estate

citroen gs 1970:86

citroen sm maserati 1970/74

citroen type h 1948/81

ferrari 250 gto

fiat 500 1936

fiat 500 1957

fiat 500 2007

jaguar xk 120 1948/54

jaguar e 1961/67

jaguar c 1951/1953

Jaguar d le mans 1955/57

Peugeot 204 1967

peugeot 205 1983:99

peugeot 504 1971

peugeot 604 1979

renault r 4 1962

renault r 5 1972/85

renault r 6 1970

renault r 8 1963

renault r 10 1965

renault r 12 1969

renault r 11 1980

simca 1500 1963

simca 1301 1971

triumph tr 4 1961:65

mercedes 300 sl 1954/1963

morgan +8 1968:2004

porshe 356 1948/65

porshe 911 1963:2000

vw 1300 1964

VW golf 1 1976

vw kombi 1 1963

vw kombi 2 1967

vw kombi 3 1980

ford escort rs 2000 1973

best regards

[AndyB]

Hi Essofal.

You might want to think about copying this offer over to the new RMWeb Market?

I'm sure we would all like to see some photos of your models sometime and an idea of how much your custom built vehicles might retail for?

Best regards, Andy

 

BTW, many thanks for the PM alerting me to your services.

[grahame]

Oxford DC have some interesting new vehicles due later this year in 1:148 scale including an Austin Mini, VW camper/van/&pick up, VW Beatle, Burlingham Sunsaloon coach and 2010 reg Plaxton Elite coach in National Express livery.

 

http://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/ebooks/trade12011/

 

G.

[BernardTPM]

Interesting that the Mini they illustrated is one of the originals (1959-1967) but below that it says 2000-2010 period. So, is this going to be an old Mini, an old New Mini (2001-2006) or a New New Mini (post 2006)? In 4mm they show both the 1959 and 2006 versions, so the least likely is the 2001-6 model.

If it is the early one, it may not be too hard to update to the 67-2000 versions, given the moulded clear shell.