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Here's an ad from TV CENTURY 21 #9, way back in 1965, that captures the mood of the era perfectly. I happen to have the SAINT's VOLVO, but I quite fancy the ice cream van, a version of which is still available today, although not made by CORGI.
Interestingly, the Saint's car was Corgi's first piece of character merchandise, created by placing a figure of SIMON TEMPLAR in an existing Volvo P1800 model and sticking a matchstick-man decal on the bonnet.
Another fascinating glimpse into the past in a future post - don't miss it! And below is the cover to the actual issue.
Now, having whetted your appetite, don't miss our upcoming TV21 Cover Gallery - in the very next post!
I sorta remember having some Corgi cars as a small lad, back in Iowa. Mostly it was Matchbox and Hotwheels. Matchbox were better, I thought, because it seemed like Hotwheel cars used to lose their paint pretty fast. Funny what you remember.M.P.
ReplyDeleteIronic that Mattel now own the Matchbox brand, eh, MP? I think they're pretty much indistinguishable these days.
ReplyDeleteI must have been a weird kid. Of those 3 models I recall wanting and getting the Walls Ice cream van - I was a big toy car collector as a kid, mostly Corgi and Matchbox. I don't recall the Saint car but had a brilliant" Man From Uncle" car that had the 2 main characters (not even attempting to spell out the names, too early in the morning for that ) who would pop out the windows shooting when you clicked on the view scope that was a feature at the top of the car - arghh, now I want to track that down again -McScotty
ReplyDeleteI've got that actual car, McScotty. Which one did you have, the blue or the white version? There were some right cracking toy cars back in the '60s, eh?
ReplyDeleteI had the blue version of the "UNCLE" car (I think it had the "UNCLE" logo on the bonnet - I think I recall the ring now as well). I wasn't aware of a white version of the UNCLE car either - to be fair I don't know what toy cars are out there now but they seemed to be really well made in the 60s (and no doubt before that). Corgis that I recall from the 60s with some fondness were (probably most folks' favourite) the UNCLE car, the Bat-mobile, the 007 Aston Martin, the Daktari Jeep (I also had the Lions of Longleet set (same as Daktari but it was white not green, with animal/tiger stripes and different characters) and a Commer van that had a TV camera man on the top (loved that car and not seen or heard of this one in ages) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (I wasn't allowed to race that for a while - I raced my cars lol). One thing I do recall was the Corgi and Dinky catalogues (about A5 landscape size) that you could pick up free in toy shops, always worth drooling over (and wish I had held onto a few of these) - McScotty
ReplyDeleteI've got the U.N.C.L.E. car (Thrushbuster), Saint's Volvo, Chitty, DB5, and the Batmobile. There's a photo of the Commer TV van in my great book of Corgi - I'll put it on the blog at some stage. Great days, eh, McScotty?
ReplyDelete"Thrushbuster!" - really? Finbarr Saunders must be ready to burst right now!! - would love to see the Commer van again when you get the chance - McScotty
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Corgi advertisement !
ReplyDeleteI was already looking out for it for a long time! My family is driving Volvo since 1947 and I'm collecting Volvo scale models. I had The Saint's Volvo already as a little boy and bought it again a few years ago.
Another interesting advertisement about Corgi Crime-Busters shows all the models mentioned in the comments (including The Saint's Volvo, Corgi's first crime-buster ever). It was published in TV Century 21, issue 96, 19 November 1966. See http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.be/2012/12/corgi-crime-busters.html
The picture is in a rather small format. If you can get me a bigger picture of this advertisement, many thanks.
That same picture is somewhere on my blog - I'll try and post a link later. In the meantime, if you find it yourself, click on it to enlarge, then click again. That way, you'll be able to see it as big as can be.
ReplyDelete