quicksilvercoaches

I'm continuing to build up a small collection of cars owned by family and friends so here's a couple of recent additions. When I was born my dad had a Valencia Blue Triumph Vitesse convertible. I only have vague memories of this as a complete car and mostly remember bits of it spread all over the garage, attic, shed, next door's garage etc. as it failed an MOT when I was 2 years old and he decided to strip it down for a complete restoration. After several years he got fed up of tripping over it and sold it in bits to someone who intended to restore it but it hasn't been taxed since 1987 so it never made it back onto the road. The model is an EFE repainted in a mixed-up Humbrol approximation of Valencia Blue, and the silver trim looks much better in real life than the photo that's much larger than actual size. After the Vitesse had gone, for many years we had this mongrel Morris Minor, which had started life as a 1952 803cc Tourer but at some point had been fitted with all the mechanical bits of a Minor 1000 saloon and had also been re-registered. It supposedly ended up in Germany, having been sold to the boss of a German transport company in a rather strange deal that basically involved him instructing the manager of his UK depot to buy him a Minor sight unseen and put it on the next truck bound for Germany. Both Classix and Oxford make maroon Morris Minor convertibles and I chose the Classix as it's a better representation (but still not great) and Oxford's colour looked too brown.

As a fairground transport modeller, one frustration is the complete lack of any modern 4x4 crew-cab pickups in OO as these can be seen at every fair towing caravans, kiddies' rides and catering trailers. I did manage to find a couple of toys that are based on US-market pickups not sold in the UK and aren't quite the right scale but are good enough in the absence of anything else. Matchbox Honda Ridgeline in 1/69 scale with some added detail painting Motormax Toyota Tacoma of indeterminate scale but compared with the Oxford trailer it seems about right Motormax also made a Mark 2 Land Rover Discovery in 1/72 that goes well with the various Cararama Land/Range Rovers.

I recently acquired an original version of this kit, copyright 1981. The original has exactly the same box art but a title that would have answered the query straightaway: it is labelled 'Opel Blitz + PAK 40' whereas the new one is just 'PAK 40 gun & truck'. I'm not a military modeller so I'm not sure what to do with it; one idea is to graft the bonnet and wings to a Bedford OB and create a representation of a late pre-war Duple-bodied Blitz coach. The Blitz name seems to have remained in use until the 1970s as the Bedford CF was sold in mainland Europe as the Opel Bedford Blitz. Incidentally the CF celebrates its 50th birthday this year.

I'd never heard of Silhouette but they made some interesting stuff - I particularly like the look of the Isuzu Piazza, which was available in the UK but is near extinct now. 1/80 models look fine with 1/76 to me and I have a set of Nissan Skylines by Tomytec that are virtually the same size as the Oxford Diecast Cavalier. That generation of Skyline was never sold in the UK but was quite similar to the Laurel that was and can pass as a generic 1980s big Japanese saloon so I'm very happy with them.

They're not LHD wipers, that was the standard way round for all but the earliest Marinas and LHD cars had them set the other way. Apparently it was discovered that the driver's wiper could lift off the screen at speed, so in a typical BL solution instead of fixing the problem they just turned them round so the wiper that lifted was now on the passenger side where it didn't matter! Of course that put the large unswept area on the driver's side so it wasn't a great solution. I've never seen a high-top Marina or Ital either so I suspect that was an aftermarket conversion.

Another one but just some minor cosmetic tweaks to a modern Oxford model this time - not 100% accurate but close enough for me. Does anyone here watch HubNut on YouTube? If you do then I'm sure you'll recognise Elly. She's actually the second red and white 2CV Dolly in my collection as another friend owns the G-reg car

Earlier in this thread I mentioned my idea of trying to convert a Minix Landcrab into a Maxi. That got knocked on the head when Oxford announced their Maxi and now inevitably I've repainted one to match my real car. Yes the Oxford Maxi has its faults but I think it's better than anything I could have made and replacing the oversized wheels has really helped. My car is a standard 1750 rather than the posh HLS so I had to grind off the bumper underriders too. Incidentally, I don't know if anyone here follows Ian Seabrook aka HubNut on YouTube, but you'll find a video of him road testing this very car on his channel.

Time to revive my old thread as I've just completed a restoration I'm very pleased with. This poor old Dinky Dublo Singer had seen better days. It took four applications of Nitromors and much scraping to get all that paint off. Still red as most of the photos I found online are of red ones and I didn't think the original yellow suited it, but a much better finish. The wheels and screen are from an Oxford Diecast Morris 8.

Several of my TKs have suffered the same way and I assumed it was exposure to sunlight that caused it but it could just be age as these must be getting on a bit now. Fortunately I've re-cabbed quite a lot with RTI cabs so I had enough spare cabs with good glazing to replace the affected ones.

Haha, I certainly do have a weird and wonderful collection of road vehicles. I don't have any of those Ladas but they're right up my street. Prices are a bit steep though and all the suppliers seem to be in eastern Europe with massive postage costs. I'd want to see a built example before shelling out that kind of money. PhilJW mentioned the Fiat 124. It seems Armada have made a kit of that as well as the various Lada models. Here's a lovely beige Riva SLX (the posh one) that belonged to my late friend whose Renault 6 I now own. It can't have been very old but was already looking worse for wear.

I can't answer any of those questions but what I can do is reveal a means of making authentic pre-2001 plates. There are various firms who make 'show' plates in a variety of fonts, some of which are clearly illegal and only suitable for off-road use, but they also include some of the older styles. They usually have a preview system on their website that allows you to type in any registration you want and customise the plate font, size etc. By downloading the preview images and resizing them you can create authentic plates - helpfully they often include the dimensions so just divide these by your scale and resize the images to those values and your plates will even end up exactly the right size. The Serck style is my favourite and these two Fodens are now wearing authentic Serck plates thanks to the above method.

Charles Wright is the current post-2001 font - don't use it on a 1960s vehicle as it won't look right. Prior to this there was actually no single standard font and despite extensive searching I've sadly never yet found anything that accurately represents of any of them. Arial is generally a reasonable substitute in small scales but isn't quite right, especially the wide letters like M and W that are too wide. I've tried Arial Narrow for these letters but it doesn't quite work as the point sizes aren't exactly the same and an Arial Narrow W is noticeably shorter than Arial letters of the same size. If anyone does find a downloadable version of a pre-2001 font I'd love to hear about it as the wrong type of plates on classic cars is one of my bugbears and that extends to my models.

Okay, so I have to confess it was me who bought that Piccolino VW van on eBay, and it arrived from Germany last weekend. Until now its existence had been little more than a myth as I'd only ever seen reference to it in a 1988 price list and never any photos of either a kit or completed model, so having proved it existed and not knowing when or if another would turn up I had to take this rare opportunity to buy one. Even by the standards of thirty years ago it isn't a great model to be honest and has only a vague resemblance to the real van. It seems to be cast in two halves and the top is noticeably longer than the bottom, creating a step above the front grille that shouldn't be there. The grille itself is a bit crude and there is a nasty casting defect just above it. Interior detail is rudimentary - a bench seat and a simple dashboard with a vertical steering wheel cast into it - and the vac formed glazing is quite poor. The wheels look okay from the sides but are too narrow when viewed from the front or rear. Being black it's quite difficult to photograph and show the detail. The signwriting is all self-adhesive labels. Plans for it now? I have an idea to get a friend to cast me some resin copies and maybe convert one to a minibus for my coach fleet, but I don't think the quality of the original is good enough to offer them for sale. It's a bit disappointing to be quite honest but still an unusual and rare piece to have in my collection that a lot of people have probably never seen before.

There's a Piccolino VW van on eBay at the moment, it's in Germany and 25 euros though. That's the first time I've ever seen a picture of one. It looks ok from the back but the front isn't quite right. The racing and land speed record cars still seem to be commanding good money. There's one of those barely-recognisable Elans at £33.33 and the cheapest Thrust 2 is 60 quid!

That's handy to know as I have a Silverado on its way to me. Looking at the ebay pic it does only just fit in the box so I guess at true 1/72 it wouldn't fit and it had to be scaled down.

I've accumulated a large collection of Cararama and other 1/72 models, mostly acquired back in the early 2000s when they were cheap and commonplace but several more have come my way recently as collectors seem to be getting rid of them, perhaps in favour of the 1/76 Oxford offerings. As long as you avoid the earlier obviously oversize offerings (like that ghastly 1/60-ish first-gen Merc C-class) they don't look out of place on a 1/76 layout and the detail and accuracy, particularly on the later ones, is superior to Oxford. I mix 1/72 and 1/76 indiscriminately and no one has ever commented. As time has passed the 1/72 cars have perhaps become more useful - what was exotic when new has become affordable so you can get away with Cararama BMWs, Mercs, Jags etc. on a present-day layout as things like the E39 5-series and the Saab 9-5 are firmly in banger territory now. It's just a shame that the most useful everyday cars are among the hardest to get hold of. I'm particularly looking for the Ka, Puma and Polo but they very rarely come up for sale and when they do they're overseas with massive postage charges that make them uneconomic.

Here you go then, my Flickr album should give a good flavour of the event. It's a bit depressing to think how few of these once common cars are available as OO or N scale models.

And here's some inspiration, a real 131 of the same spec as the model seen at the brilliant Festival of the Unexceptional yesterday. And there were two other later ones there too. Not bad for such a rare car!

I bought one of these to provide some competition to my coach and wedding car fleet and it arrived from Japan this morning. Not a bad likeness considering it's basically a toy but it suffers from the opposite problem to most toys as the standard wheels are too small and not blingy enough. Only the front half is glazed with the back windows cast in and painted black, but that doesn't really matter as limos usually have very dark black tints anyway. It's something different for the layout and with a bit of work could look quite decent. 1/79 is an odd scale though, so close to Japanese HO but not quite.

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.

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.

I finally managed to get my hands on one of the elusive Lima Fiat 131s, all the way from Barcelona. First impressions: better than the Capri as it has glazing and interior but suffers from the same issues with the wheels/axles, and it reminds me a lot of the later black base Minix. With a bit of paint and some attention to the wheels it should scrub up well. A lot of people quote this as being HO scale but it's about the same size as the Oxford Marina and looks OO to me.

Can't help with route numbers but vehicle-wise, as has been suggested NBC standard REs, Nationals and VRs, plus Bristol Lodekkas in front and rear entrance forms were the mainstays of the fleet. There were some oddities too as UCOC were beset with vehicle shortages in the seventies and ended up with a lot of Willowbrook-bodied Bedfords plus a batch of Ford R1014s with Duple Dominant bus bodies, none of which lasted very long. Geoff Amos never had any RTs and I can't think offhand of a Northants independent who did. In the eighties they were mostly running Caetano-bodied Bedford coaches, of which no models exist.

I converted one of those into a minibus a long time ago, hard work but I think it looks good Real-X models are also worth looking at as they did some seventies and eighties Japanese cars that were sold in the UK like the Nissan/Datsun Skyline - they're 1/72 but the size difference isn't really noticeable. Oxford Diecast's BL cars (Allegro, Marina, Princess and the forthcoming Maxi) are perfect for 1984 as there were still loads of them about in the eighties.

You're being too harsh on yourself Grahame. There's nothing wrong with the finish on any of your models and if you hadn't said you're an N gauge modeller I would have guessed they were OO. I struggle to achieve finishes like that in OO so to do it on tiny N models that still look good when magnified to that extent is impressive.