F is for Fleet of Five Free Fiddly Flyers

Generally accepted to have been Quaker premiums (Sugar Puffs - more here), and from way back, these have also had other outings and while the Quaker freebies will have been one maker/issuer, it's clear there have been other sources.

This was my collection late last year, lined-up by vehicle type; I've tried to find the vehicles [in real life] but haven't had much luck. I got out an . . . no, verily; 'The' Encyclopedia of Classic Cars by Martin Duckley from the Library, but it precludes racing cars, and confines itself to post 1945 vehicles! While I didn't know where to start online, nor did I have the time!

I then rearranged them all in colour order (it was a slow-news day, clearly!) and you can see they have come-in over the years at a pretty level rate as far as car-type, goes with two extra 4's and four fewer 5's. Colour-wise; metallic red seems commonest with flat scarlet, yellow, blue and silver together in close second. On their heels are the two greens, metallic and flat, for the seven colours issued by Quaker.

Now, I knew Adrian had a box of these as an inexpensive 'loss leader' on his table at shows, and asked him if I could run my collection past his stock, exchanging his colour or mould variations for my duplicates and he - very kindly (no money was mentioned!) - said yes.

So the re-adjusted line-up now looks like this, the former 88 vehicles is now down to 82 (with the previously not-shown Hong Kong copies taking the total to 84), so Adrian's box is up six, but mostly metallic reds, although they are the best colour-way by far, unless you're looking for Ferrari red's or Mercedes' silver!

But where it still looks like I still have duplicates, they are now all different mouldings; the rest of the post is a meander through them; by car number.

Car number 1 looks to be a pre-war design (possibly sharing DNA with the early Monopoly car?) with various differences between examples; a fatter driver with arms, or a small, blobby driver &etc.

You can see the metallic red one (bottom right) has larger vents on the bonnet (hood) and the figure '1' is one vent closer to the nose for instance, while the white one (a copy . . . or later re-cut tooling) has a slightly different floor-plan (look at the exhaust-tip) and is numbered '5' just to confuse!

Hong Kong was there as always, the plagiarised versions being sans-car number, pantographed slightly smaller and manufactured in thinner-walled, soft, polyethylene, rather than the sturdy polystyrene lumps of the originals. The gold one is - like the previous white one -  from another source/issue, but utilising the Quaker moulds I think, unlike the white one, or the HK copies.

The red one has heat-melt damage to the sides, which look shaped and possibly deliberate (remains of that toffee-coloured contact-adhesive HK used) and it may have been attached to some revolving novelty or something? Maybe sitting astride a pencil sharpener?

Also while the green one is faintly marked Hong Kong, the red one isn't and is slightly smaller still, so two sources in the 'Crown Colony' is a safe assumption!

The number 2 car - is it a Jaguar? You can clearly see at least three different radiator grills, and both long and short nose variants, with differences in the bulges forward of the cockpit too, and a whole-car width-variation.

It looks as if the Quaker mould was a fifteen-cavity tool (three of each car, all different) with the various pirates (at least two) employing smaller tools of five-cavities (one of each car) while someone in HK copied the 1-car and someone elsewhere produced a 2nd-generation piracy of the same vehicle - I've now seen three 1's, but none of the other four cars?

My favourite example of all my cars is this marbled/flecked purple vehicle, made from a mix of what looks to have been 50/50 red and blue granules, it's the only one I've ever seen, but they must all have been done in the same colour, at the same time? It seems to be one of the Quaker sculpts.

Car 3, a pre-war Mercedes racer? In the upper shot you can see clear differences between the better finished silver car and the poorer red vehicle, most notably in the drivers and the exhaust vents. There are also (lower shots) at least three grill types and the red example has thicker axle-stubs/fairings.

The number 4 car, some huge aero-engined beast about (in scale with the driver) 25-feet long!

The right-hand yellow one is shorter, carries a better defined driver and has a wider, flatter exhaust which doesn’t extend to the first port. It also has a smoother bow at the end of a more rounded nose, although you could go blind looking for all the little differences in these!

Number 5, another huge car and a lot of clear differences between both Quaker cavities and new/copy tools. The most obvious are the grills and drivers, but the exhausts as well are quite varied, with some further apart or closer together.

The white one - again - has a different number ('4') but also has a totally re-designed rear with a round-arc covering the duck's-tail of the other cars.

The two white ones with their alternate sequence numbers, the most obviously copied of the 'other cars', these were a bugger to photograph and I had to stop them right-down to get the 4-car in focus. They are much cruder, especially in the drivers who are very blobby and have hardly any discernible steering-wheel.

Colours so far found for other - non-Sugar Puffs' - cars, but it may well be that some of the 'official' Quaker colours . . . err . . . aren't. There is a paler version of the metallic red which is a pinker shade, the metallic greens and dark blues come in several shades, while some of the scarlets are actually a flatter, oxide-brown. The camera's flash also hides two distinct yellows and the fact that some silver cars are in fact grey.

The cream-coloured ones (as opposed to the pure white) carry the correct numbers, while the caramel one at the back shows signs of being another marbled one, but I suspect it's actually either sun-faded on the pale side, or heat-damaged in the factory on the darker side?

The fact is, these are so common compared to other cereal premiums of the day (1957) that one suspects there were many other issues; gum-ball capsule-prizes, lucky-bags, Christmas crackers, comics maybe? And that those issues came from several sources, as well as the HK soft polymer copies, the small size and simple designs making them hard to tell apart.

It may even turn-out that a board-game carried a set - red, yellow, light green, light blue, caramel and cream . . . or grey, although it would have to be a game with large 'squares' or a linier form? Or a 'Grand Prix' version of those ratchet-handle/canvas or rubber-sheet horse race games, where they jerk down the course? It would be nice to find black ones, 3 and 5 would look stunning in jet-black.

An idea of scale, albeit accepting that they aren't in scale with each other or the real-life vehicles they may be based-on, the Airfix 'Mighty Antar' readymade tank-transporter and the similar 'dime-store' Pyro Jeep.

Finally this is one of those posts were I have to thank everyone who's ever given stuff to me in the past or made blog donations, whether cheap or free, as there's often one or two of these in the bottom of a 'junk' bag, or a rummage lot, so that’s Trevor, three Peter's, Jim, Paul, John, Brain and Brian, 'Lego' Dave, Matt, Graham, Andy and a big thanks to Adrian!