A is for Available in Any Colour, as Long as it's Fast!

I seemed to do quite well in the racing-car department, at Sandown, I rarely go to Sandown with anything like a shopping list, it's a question of what's there (and cheap) on the day! And, a month or so ago, it was racing cars, apparently?

Rather highfalutin instructions, and blurb, bigging-up a basic mechanism in this Maserati, which had been known to aficionados of balsa flying machines for several decades before this was issued? And the addition of a crown and bevel makes the 'starting handle' a harder wind than the propeller usually employed for the winding of rubber-band models!

 

To be honest, and given the quality of some more obvious 'facsimile' boxes I've seen recently, I have my doubts over the authenticity of this box, it's just too good, too clean? But the jeweller's loupe seems to suggest it's litho- or screen-printed onto an absorbent card, and shop stock stuff does turn-up, from time to time, but I'm not confident, either way?

 

This is my second FROG (Flies Right Off [the] Ground) Penguin (flightless bird), but is very different, the previously-found jeep being a heavy, vulcanised rubber, almost composition in consistency and weight, while this is a lightweight, plastic (early 'styrene?) and tin, novelty.

 

A future post (currently in storage) will be two of these helmets, one of which, in silver, is identical to the one depicted on this driver figure (the reason vehicles started to gain traction in the collection), with the set-forward or stand-off, drop-down perspex sheet, mounted around the front of a rigid visor.

 

They both came from 'Old Mr. Bening' (might be Benny or Benning), who was a silversmith, in a little shop/workshop, I think at the T-junction of the B3004 (Forge Road) and A325, just shy of Bordon, Hampshire, although the premises seem to have gone in a junction remodelling over the 50-odd years since he died, and we last visited him.

 

It may have been somewhere else, nearby, the memories are weak, and Google is no help with everyday, local historical stuff, there might as well have been no world prior to 1997! But he had been a racer in his younger days, and gave us a couple of his old helmets.

 

Ingap large scale Porsche F1, my first larger Ingap, and another in that classic fifties or sixties metallic blue plastic! I don't know if the box is original (packing from a larger carton?), or fashioned by a previous owner, but it fits well, and keeps the car protected, so I'll hang on to it! Both the above are about 1:43rd/48th scale.

 

Not a racing car, and closer to 1:35th/32nd, but just for fun, it was one of the items missing from my flood-damaged set, which we looked at prior to my discarding the packaging as beyond saveable a few years ago;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/08/ab-is-for-vidalis-brothers-joy-toy.html

 

And given the price Greek sellers on evilBay want, for everything, it was a bargain! I guess it's trying to be a VW Carmen Ghia, or early Porsche Carrera? Bonnet's not right for either! Equally, the Greek Hellas sports-car, might fit (after a quick Google!), but whatever it wants to be, it's still, a nice find.