Base Toys

[37114]

I keep meaning to get round to doing some detailing on mine, as per my original post they are more expensive than the quality can carry, £9 would be more in keeping.

 

I see Base Toys are bringing out a Bristol Lodekka, be interesting to see how they get on with it.

[John M Upton]

EFE and Corgi OOC already do perfectly acceptable die cast Lodekkas of various flavours and remaindered examples can be picked up for detailing and repainting for as little as a fiver. If Base Toys bring out another over priced plastic craptastic effort it will be a pointless disaster.

[stewartingram]

EFE do not do the Bristol/ECW Lodekka rear platform version, only the front entrance (FLF). OOC do the low floor air suspension version (FS) with rear platform however - but although a good basic model it does have faults. The BT version that is promised is the earlier (LD) version which has been asked for on the forums for quite a while. There are a lot of visible body differences between the LD and FS versions. There have been kits produced over the years which are much more expensive than RTP versions.

As with all buses, the 'standard' build is anything but. They were/are basically handbuilt, with individual variations to each customer (though nowhere near as many today). Add the variations needed to fit the body to a different manufacturer's chassis and there will be lots more changes. So the 'diecast' (be it metal or plastic) model is either accurate for one small batch of buses, or a compromise to suit many variations, and thus spread the development costs over a wider sales market. Also plastic models are far more expensive to produce than diecast. The end rusult from BT is actually a good compromise; anyone wanting to improve it can either try a bit of modelling skills on it, or pay the true cost of a handbuilt one.

 

Stewart

[PhilJ W]

The asking price for the BT model is quite reasonable compared with the current price of EFE and other diecast buses. For example the current price of EFE models is about £25 and some other manufacturers can be priced as much as 4 times the BT models. Tampo printing of details such as side mouldings and grills is common even on the most expensive models. On the subject of side mouldings, there is already an etched set of side mouldings available from a company called Brynkits (mrt.bedford@btinternet.com) for £4 a set.