M is for Mohawk and More Military Miniatures

At the recent Sandown Park show I picked up a parcel from our roving reporter in New York, Brian Berke, which was very useful, as while I've mentioned them once or twice over the years, I've never encountered the sample while transferring things between different places, so they've remained rather absent from the Blog, but we can now tick that box - Mohawk's mini 'dimestore dreams'.

 

The one on the right is the colour of all my sample, so the pale herb-green ones, to the left, which made-up the bulk of Brian's donation were new to me, and this is a slightly larger version of the jeep we've seen before here more than once.

 

Brian also included a few marked-Lido mini's, so we can compare the two mouldings, as a full-stop to this original post, here, which compared the other three contenders for who's the pirate, who's the licensee, and who did the first version!

 

So that's six (Kleeware, Lido x2, Merit, Pyro and Mohawk) in total now, with the soft plastic Hong Kong version, Lido seem to have sanctioned themselves, toward the end!

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/08/l-is-for-lido-not-load-of-limp.html 

 

The lorry on the left, a sort of 1950's pantechnicon, is also a homage to other mini 'readymades' of the era (the Pyro 'artic'), and also scaled-up, while the Ambulance is a more original moulding. I know I have a tanker, to look at another day, but I think I was missing the pantechnicon, so lovely to get both colours.

 

The car is also based on another model, and while less obvious, joins the Empire-Ideal-Kleeware-Lido-Pyro (2 sculpts)-Wyandotte family of small post-war family saloons, for an eight-count! While Brian himself sent us the Carzol coloured versions of the Tank not that long ago;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/07/n-is-for-new-stuff-from-new-york.html

 

Lido on the left, Mohawk on the right and there's more on the cars here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2013/03/s-is-for-siblings-take-2.html

 

Among the Lido's was a lovely bronzed version of the 'StuG III' which was new to me, and while rather washed-out by camera-flash in this shot (left-hand tank), is - in daylight - a distinctive goldish-bronze colour plastic, like some of the Captain Video figures!

 

At the same show Adrian had a few dime-store's saved for me, both of which are useful, having seen marked tractors and or guns from Banner, Bell and Merit, I'm not sure who issued this unbranded pair (left, the tractor has a 'Made in England' which I'll compare to others in the collection at a later date), but in a batch of British stuff, Kleeware, Tudor Rose or Merit (licensed or copy) are in the frame, and with the wreaker-truck a marked Kleeware copy/mould-swap of the Pyro, the clever money goes on Kleeware?

 

As with the Jeeps and 'Staff Cars', we've looked at many versions of the gun here at Small Scale World, already, but getting two new versions in one show is a feather in the collection's cap, with the unmarked green one, and a full-sized Hong Kong copy, in silver polymer, with eye-damaging ammunition!

 

There were a couple of more conventional/less contentious British 'Dime Store' AFV's from Tudor Rose, not copied by five other people, or licensed to anyone, the rather good Churchill IV, and the more dodgy armoured car.

Many thanks to Brian and Adrian, it’s all a dimestoretastic show-plunder and donations post, folks!

M is for May's Visit - Historical Bits

We reach the penultimate post in this series, but there's still July and September's lots to go through, so there will be plenty more of these mixed posts, which do seem to get the traffic, even if it fell off a cliff on the 1st October, and probably ain't coming back, something called the 'The &num=100 Parameter Change', which, as I've never chased traffic, doesn't concern me, I post stuff even AI isn't interested in!

 

Two 70mm's from Papo, both women who lived and died [young] in a man's world run by men who didn't like 'uppity' (that's 'successful') women! Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc), and Cleopatra, and I can imagine her, wandering about her palaces, with a cat in her arms, a mini-God for a God-Queen!

 

Nice pose sample of Spencer Smith Miniatures 30mm Wellingtonians, with a colour/mould-purge gun-carriage. It's funny, but when you encounter a sample like this, you know he saved-up his pocket-money, and bought a few of each, just to see what they were like! We all did it!

 

Lido on the left, Hong Kong on the right. The Hong Kong goes with those copies of European wagons and coaches, while the Lido are usually found bi-coloured, but with a clean and dirty yellow, I suspect these halves were unioned years after they left the factory!

 

At last! Loyal Readers who've been with the Blog for a while may remember several posts on these a few years ago, as both Chris Smith and me, kept finding another, then another, then another pose, and it ended-up with Chris having one more pose, the tied explorer above!

 

Which raises the question of the nature of the - as yet - unfound set, one of the Great White Hunter's is free to wander about with a gun, the other is tied up? Shades of H. Rider Haggard or Burroughs about the whole thing! And he looks like a 'Bad Guy'!

 

Papo 40mm pirate and the painted version of the lady we saw, bagged, as a generic, in Rack Toy Month, and whom we had seen before, unpainted in the Webbs' sets, it took me a while to work out she hadn't got her hands tied behind her back too, but is hiding a pistol, to either defend her honour from a pirate, or slot a Revenue Man, if she is a pirate!

 

Three 15mm war games figures, may be one for Gisby? They look to be a command group, with officer, standard barer and bugler, all mounted, for the English Civil War? Thanks again to Peter Evans for all these.

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Space!

I got confused last night, that bronze figure wasn't Lido, it was Archer, but these (first shot) are Lido, seen elsewhere, not that long ago, but I'm trying to get stuff cleared from Picasa, and off the PC, so let's get these out of the way!

 

Lido, Captain Video, the large versions! I'm missing the robot, and there may be a fifth pose, but as a sample which didn't exist two years ago and has literally come in as one's and the painted pair, it shouldn't be too long before I've tracked down the missing miscreants! Note the 1930's leather American football or early Tank Crew helmet, on whom, I assume, is the actual Captain Video himself?

 

I don't know if the two painted ones are factory or 'home' painted, but if home, it was a long time ago, so contemporary with the unpainted issues, I'm not going to strip them, as I have unpainted versions, and you can harm 'styrene in a way you don't damage 'ethylenes, trying to clean them.

 

While this is the latest (and not even the best) line-up of Archer robots. These have all come-in over the last 24-odd months, and add to previously seen samples here, with two Archer on the left, a probably Tudor Rose in green, a - smaller - silver copy by Glencoe unknown and the 'heritage' reissue of the answer-robot! House of Marbles or Keycraft Global? They've both carried the game in recent years?

 

As with the Lone Star 'Richard I's, there will have to be a final comparison with all of them, as this makes about 11 robots now!

 

I wondered where the turquoise one had gone (it's in other images), and upon finding it realised the Glencoe are from the old tools (I think there's a long post, somewhere else on the Wibbly Wobbly Way, which explains it all), so I dug-him out on Sunday afternoon, and here's a corrected image with, from the left

• Archer
• Archer
• Glencoe (recent)
• Tudor Rose
• Unknown (smaller copy)
• Board Game 'Magic Answer Robot' (current)

M is for Micro Minis

We did a bit of an overview on these micro-mini's a couple of years ago, and Ed Berg has recently done a season on his, and there's not a lot to add here beyond eye-candy, for now, and hopefully nothing to tread on Ed's toes, but Brian sent several nice lots of the integral-wheel teenies for us to look at.

These are lovely, because despite having most of the AFV's, 'Planes and ships/vessels, all of which we have seen here, I had none of them! They are the MPC Mini's, and these are roughly one-each of the various makes from the lot, in which the full sample was bigger, and the duplicates were all different colours. I'm not sure how I ended up with a hole in the middle, but I kept adding and moving around to get a nice looking shot, and must have spotted a late duplicate and not replaced it!

 

Of interest is that the Jeep, Mini-Clubman ('Morris') and old crock seem to be in a different scale/style, and might indicate more than one master sculptor behind the set? Also, the old crock (a Packard) gave rise to a copy which keeps popping-up as a Christmas cracker toy or gum-ball capsule-machine prize!

And, while we're looking at them, I will repeat the call made several times now on the Blog over the last fifteen-or-so years, for the whereabouts or a contact for Bob Maschi (or his heirs), whose MPC Mini's guide, bound, sits with my Tim Geppert and and George Kerton originals, (all a bit black & white, and a bit dated now, but well-loved), as I do still owe him for it!

 

A mix of Lido, Empire and/or Acme? As Ed was pointing out the other week, it's not necessarily clear (see below) so, for now, just nice little cars and things! I love the bulldozer, it's small-enough to be an Engineers' vehicle with micro-armour!

 

Real wheels! Behind are three of the Tootsie Toy mini die-casts, there were similar lines from Marx, and someone in Hong Kong, and when we were very young my Brother's godmother, who lived in California gave him a little suitcase full of them, I can't remember which lot they were, but the jeep was different - if memory serves - a sharper, squarer moulding, and it had a seperate, weeny trailer!

 

In front are what I initially thought were game-playing pieces, but actually the red one is a different sculpt, a two-seater, so they may be a similar line to the Tootsie Toys, but older, lead slush-casts? Turning to O'Brian (8th edition) gives me Barclay, CAW/C&H or Kansas as likely culprits, but no direct match?

 

Comparison between the two Jaguar's in the parcel, MPC Mini on the left Tootsie Toy on the right, back when we (Britain) made some of the best automobiles in the world! I think they are both representing the racing D-Types?

 

While this illustrates the problems in trying to attribute these, the cream-white wreaker has 'wheels' and a sharp, clearly delineated hook, the chocolate-brown one has 'wheel fairings' and a less obvious hook, and the red one (which came in with a lot not seen on the Blog yet), polyethylene, is a poorer copy of the 'edible' colour Hong Kong ones Brian sent years ago, which we saw last time. And I can only assume they are in the order they were copied from each other!

 

So, that's the end of Brian's parcel, five posts worth of lovely, useful, interesting things, gap-fillers and new questions, thanking him greatly for all of it, but as we're finishing on micro-mini's, I forgot to include in that September '22 overview (above link) another sample, sent to the blog by a Scandinavian reader . . .

 . . . whose subsequent submission to the blog is also being held over, as I really can't bring myself to promote Russia, or things Russian until Putler's dead, or we know the outcome of the current barbarism in Ukraine. Nor do I have any time for those traitorous, anti-democratic fuckwits, who do. It's about principles - you either have them or you don't.

 

But these are northern European cereal premiums, in the style of various others, or all these moulded-in-wheel mini's, although there only seem to be two mouldings here, a VW Beetle and what might be another Jaguar, a Riley or Austin Healy, which seems improbable? And I'm no expert!

So apologies for not posting them last time (it all gets posted in the end!), and many thanks to him and Brian for everything. Because the MPC Mini's need a good clean, which I haven't got round to yet, and all need to be ID'd better, we'll probably return to them in a short while, with the other bits that have come in?

P is for Plastic Toys!

The title of Bill Hanlon's excellent book on Dimestore Dreams of the '40s & '50s, and the core of this blog, no matter how much metal, wood, glass or card sneaks in! Alongside the military vehicles, which Mr Berke sent us the other day, was a plethora of civilian transport delights, most being of the 'dime store' variety, and this post is looking at the larger examples.

Left to right we have here, a 1911 Maxwell Roadster, a 1911 Daimler and a 1911 Renault, all made in Hong Kong, and my initial thought - given the leery colours - was Wilton's cake decorations, but they are different, so these may have just been pocket-money rack toys, like the ones we saw in a bit of a mini season a while back, but lovely additions to that particular oeuvre!

Two of the vehicles had been enhanced with 'ticker-tape' type-written graphics, which had seen better days, but with weathering/discolouring looked like a comercial exercise, until you realised one was a Marx tanker, the other a Dillon-Beck 'Wannatoy' utility/tool-locker truck, so I removed the remnants, which proved easy, as the glue was some water-based animal-stuff, like the old 'Gloy' pots at school!

 

There were actually a fair few Wannatoy or DB marked examples, including the boat and three 'rigid' trucks - we saw the artic's here, years ago! Indeed i think there were five different markings between the seven items. One of the spare cab/tractor-units had a different hitching mechanism/method, and I thought I might be looking for new trailers, but the aforementioned Hanlon book put me right.

 

I had seen the unmarked yellow bit, and decided it must be part of a construction vehicle or earthmover, but it turned out it's the other half of the 'new' Wannatoys cab design, but I'm still looking for the outer-end of the arm, for now it can do service as a tow-truck!

 

A lot of red, in the parcel, it has to be said! Three lovelies here, with a Renwal delivery van, we know it's a delivery van because it has DELIVERY written across the roof for police helicopters!

 

In the middle a Thomas Toys marked sedan, or at least I think it's called a sedan, in the UK it would be a 'family saloon car'! With a soft polyethylene dream to the right! I thought it might be a T-Bird and was googling with image-results by year '51, '52, '53 etc. . . and getting nowhere, before switching to Processed Plastic soft top, and finding it was a '56 Cadillac El Dorado, which I should have recognised, but I only drove the hard-top!

 

Stop me if I've bored you with this already, oh! You can't, it's a Blog . . . Hay-ho! Many years ago, like about 25, I worked for a stretch-limo' firm for a bit, actually ran into a childhood mate, but have since lost touch with him again!

 

Anyway, they were mostly shitty-old Lincoln Towncars from the 90's, ratted, sparking mother-boards you had to hold against the shocks with your spare hand to keep the gizmo's shining for the punters, awful things which had been hammered doing the LA-San Fran-Las Vegas triangle, 100's of thousands of miles. And in various liveries of silver, graphite, grey, white (weddings!) and two-tone.

But, there was one original 1960's 'Beatles & Stones', presidential Cadillac El Dorado ('68 I seem to recall), in black, with all leather, slightly stretched with a little B&W TV, and mahogany veneer bar, it only sat about six (some of those Lincoln's could hold 12 or 14 topless tarts!) in a small broken-U, but compared to the modern shit, it was one classy lady!

 

One summer evening I parked-up in the big Sainsbury's at Hatch Warren in Basingrad, while my fare did their function, and I went in for a snack and when I came out I had a crowd! She was lovely, and this little toy, albeit an earlier model, will remind me of her! She broke down as often as the others, though!

If you need a Limo', go to a reputable firm, with new cars and a landline, stay away from the local-press guys with their old cars, a mobile number and maybe a hosted webpage, you could spend half the night by the side of the motorway, or miss your flight, and you rarely get your money back!

This was funny, I'd literally mentioned it in passing a few days before it dropped on the porch, unannounced! It's the dairy boardgame, which was from Hasbro, and four players go around delivering milk, eggs and butter (I think) which fit over the different studs on the back! There was a green one in the parcel, but Royal Fail did their worst, and I have a bag of green bits waiting for a glueing session.

 

Some more polyethylene, the two to the left are in the style of all that German or Scandinavian vinyl, but in 'ethylene, and probably some similar infant/first/early-learning type thing, 1970's maybe? The tractor is lovely, marked Hong Kong, it is a direct copy of the Jean Höfler one which I have in military and civil types, so it will be nice to compare all three sometime.

While the sports car [muscle car!] is in a similar vein to the first two, I suspect enhanced with aftermarket or old leftover kit transfers, and while I would clean them off if I was sure, I'm not, and I'm even less sure about the blue paint, not obvious in the shot, but which runs around the lower quarter, and might/might not actually be factory-finish, so I wouldn't want to lift that at the same time?

Two of the little Pyro's, an Ideal 'aerodynamic' trailer (very 1950's), which is a fair lump of stable cellulose-acetate, a Banner road-grader, I think I have the military-green one somewhere (?) and a locomotive conductor's caboose from Lido Lines!

 

While this is a mystery, there's a feint USA mark under the right corner of the bonnet/hood, but no other markings, and it clearly had some interactive properties which are now half-missing, a hole in the rear only reveals that which is no longer there, while a sliding piston thing at the front has no obvious stop, trigger or function? I don't think it's dropping low enough to fit in a road-slot?

 

I suspect either a jump toy, with the trigger in another component (ramp or launch-mechanism), or a magnetic novelty with parts/a corresponding magnetic-wand missing? So any help tying this down to a maker or a set would be happily accepted!

 

And many thanks to Brian again, for this pile of brightly-coloured treasures!

M is for Mammals, Mostly Horseflesh!

In Brian's parcel were a couple of bags of useful animals, which happen to be mostly horses, although one or two other animals were present, including one of my all-time favourites - “Ruh-roh–RAGGY!!!”!

Four horses, the one at the back left is probably an Empire Toys Grand Champion, with brushable hair, they came with such accessories (brushes, curry-combs, bows, rosettes etc....), while the white foal is a common enough Hong Kong sculpt, originally copied from Britains Herald by Blue Box, but subsequently copied by many others. Blue Box also used it as a Zebra foal, with the necessary stripes! As a horse; less common in white, usually brown, tan or black plastic.

 

The other two are more interesting, for being unknown to me, but A) good quality models, and B) the probably domestic American product which gave rise to other Hong Kong copies, even though one looks to be a copy of the Cherilea grazing horse, any info on either/both gratefully received.

Scooby-dooby-Doo! He's a pencil top, how cool is that, it's a pencil-topper of Scooby-Doo! The black dog is looking quite menacing and a hard polystyrene plastic, so may well be from a model-kit by Pyro or Aurora or someone like that, the Hound of the Baskerville's, something prehistoric, or a monster's companion? [the next day: GI Joe's 'Junkyard', see comments]  

 

While the cow is a generic cartoonish 'funimal' aiming for the same market as the Lik Be (LB) Farm Friends or Holly Toy's similar Funny Animals, both hawked to many other brands/jobbers.

 

These are definitely Grand Champions from Empire, but from the Micro-Mini's line, a nearer 40/45mm range, and you can see the GC 'brands' in silver or gold on the rumps. They tended to re-use the sculpts with different sets, so the horse's title depends upon the horse's decoration, but I think we have an Arab in the white one, and two quarter-horses from an earlier wave . . . However, don't quote me!

 

The History of Grand Champions took a very odd turn in 2000'ish, when they were bought by Alpha International, an outfit best summed-up by this US bankruptcy judge's summing-up of an interim hearing, of a battle-royal, with Super Wings, one of three rulings I found, spread over half a decade!

 

The whole thing is rather hilarious, with wives, ex-wives and sisters in Grand Rapids, Hong Kong and mainland China, holding each other's shares, companies, moulds and tooling (specified and unspecified), internal loans, subsidiaries, serial bankruptcies, past histories of wrongdoing and the IRS apparently far too busy on another planet to pay any attention, while none of the judges seem to care a jot for neither the word nor case-validity of either party!

 

I don't know what happened in the end but J.Lloyd now seems to be connected to Tim Mee (also claimed by BMC ? Some more digging to be done there?) and Alpha International's websites are dead from 2013, and only to be found on the Waybackmachine! That Mr. Keener sounds like a charmer, he should run for President!

 

Finally, some lovely old hollow-polyethylene farm animals from one of the early US makers, Lido I think, and among a few of this hollow-type from over there, I have. All useful stuff, and thanks again to Brian for sending them.

M is for Military Marvels from 'Merika!

So, around the same time as the show the other week, I got a lovely parcel from the other side of the pond, and having covered the show a couple of weeks ago, and Peter's stuff from it, last week, it's time to show gratitude to Brian Berke, by sharing his plunder with the rest of the loyal readers, and we're starting with the military, in what was a vehicle-heavy donation.

This should be a Renwal readymade, very much in the same vein and size as the similar Airfix Attack Force, or stuff we've seen here from Injectaplastic, Jean Hoefler, Manurba or Norada, but this one isn't fully-marked, and has already led to a follow-up! It's quite 'space-tank'y isn't it?!!

 

Gilmark's Sherman behind and a lovely, early, polystyrene, US-made Lido jeep, trailer and gun in front. Following the pattern of the 25lbr and quads, I suspect some artistic licence from the 1950's dime-store supplier, with the very British limber added to a jeep, and a gun closer to the early war 37mm, which, although quickly rendered ineffective by advances in German armour, remained far from obsolete, retained as a very useful infantry support weapon, and which WAS towed by jeeps, among other tractor-vehicles.

 

It is a sad inevitability, that Royal Fail have to take their boatman's coin from pretty-much every parcel from Brian, Chris or Peter, and on this occasion it was the Auburn jeep which paid the price. No matter, I will glue it, and before the cyanoacrylate dries whitish, shoot it with the Airfix jeep for that post, on the Airifx blog.

 

Annoying though, as I'm pretty sure I have the original Auburn Rubber 'rubber' one somewhere (chunk of PVC), and having the polyethylene replacement turn-up is a fine showing of the other side of that coin!

Also the Auburn one I think, or 'based on', although we have seen various versions here over the years, not least the Banner, Bell, Lido and Merit ones, but unmarked and a clean mould-shot, so probably one of the US 'army man' issuers rather than Hong Kong's finest?

 

These on the other hand, are Hong Kong, but rather uncommon 'German' blue plastic, probably from Ri-Toys (Rado Industries), and one of their bagged or carded rack-toys of the 1970/80's, but equally possibly a sub-pirate, the tank being a cruder copy of the Blue Box one, than I remember Rado being responsible for!

 

Brian kindly put these to one-side when I mentioned them a while ago, and it's the Faun 6x6, NATO-era, 10-ton Bundeswehr truck from Roco Minitanks, with a load of assault boats and the larger rubber-boat.

 

Interestingly, I think that grey wheel, is the early sign of 'styrene-rot, and it's only the second time I've seen it, but on the other occasion it was A) also Roco product, and B) also from the 'States, probably AHM over-stamped stuff from the late 1960's? On that previous occasion, I rather blamed the climate in Florida - well, Americans themselves, seem to blame Florida for most things!

 

It's not like the brittleness of dying polyethylene, but more like the Mazak-rot you get in early die-casts, the grey bloom eventually getting fine cracks in it before crumbling, more like biscuit. As with other plastic diseases, I'm sure it's a batch thing, but whether it's down to too-high or low injection temperatures, incorrect operating-pressures or corrupting additives/inclusions . . . as yet, as far as I know, that work hasn't been done.

Many thanks to Brian for all these, and there will be more on the Renwall tank next!

L is for Lido's Louche Luna Lads

Not a mystery, although they were to me for a while, as they turned-up in 'Blast Off' the other day when I was looking-up Jet Cars! I used to think they might be the French Rex, but they weren't and for a long time I didn't have a clue, but they are to be seen in the aforementioned tome (pp.142) in a Lido 'Toy Parade' header card as Captain Video Space Rangers, which reminded me these were in the queue!

 

Four from evilBay back in 2014, and four from my own collection in three poses, I've never seen these alongside the robot/bird-man aliens of the more common Captain Video figures from Lido, so I think maybe they could have been a seperate issue within the line, or a seperate line using the same branding and accessories (the little 'train' of space vehicles), rather than a part of the larger set?

Knowing so little about them beyond Lido, 'styrene, 50mm'ish and Captain Video Space Rangers, they are just a fun box-ticker! Also while the common line has the cartouche/ovoid bases, these are pod-feet chaps!

R is for Red Thunderchief Movie Car-90 or Something?

With a nod to Pete and Dud for their skit, which I've posted the link to here, and elsewhere, more than once, so won't bore you with again! And it's all because this is one of those moments when TJF's criticism of me holds some water, if only because I do, from time to time, get it wrong, but I tend to then tell you, giving a lie to his arrogant-git's attempts to paint me as an arrogant-git, although I may well be over-confident in my self-assurance sometimes!

I saw this going cheap on evilBay, can't remember if it was BIN or opening-bid, but I secured it for a reasonably small amount, thinking two things, firstly, "It's a copy of that big thing I got in two parts, but smaller and made as a single piece" and secondly "It's that little space man (fifteenth image down!) with the plug-in ariel who is still a question-mark".

 

Well, when it arrived, very quickly and well-packed I'm pleased to say, I knew instantly that I had been a very silly boy, as not only was it the smaller half of the X-40 Thunderchief Movie Thing, but that meant I'd had the pilot, AND had posted him, before I posted him again as a question mark! Doh!

 

Anyway, as you might have noticed it was also damaged, so, with nothing to lose, and a better one in the box, I carefully prised the two glued halves apart, by running a fine blade round the joined rim until the two halves fell apart, and the contents fell out!

I then cut away the remains of the cross spars, and polished the scars away with my finger-nails (the best way to get rid of the whitening of damaged polystyrene, you can also use jade polishing tips, or the old ivory finger-nail buffers), and heat-polished the transparency by rubbing vigorously on my jeans until I could feel it heating up, a technique which requires a bit more care/practice as you can crack the piece or actually melt it and instantly pick up fluff which equally-instantly wealds itself to the softened plastic

 

I then washed off all the greasy finger-marks from the inside of the canopy and put it all back together again, although you may have noticed the wheels have changed size, and it's lost its spigot/pitot/anemometer thingy . . . whatever they call the spike!

Major 'King' Kong, goes to space war! Yeeharh!

 

When it turned-up with different front wheels, and because I needed to dig everything out to unify it all, in one place, a quick look at the box, and comparison with my whole (ish) one, revealed that it had been mucked-about with and should have had the larger wheels, so they were swapped-out, and the pitot tube/prong went on the bigger model at the same time.

 

It's actually a carefully sanded, rolled-paper, lolly-stick (the new Q-tips, or 'don't-put-these-in-your-ears', ear-cleaners have them too), from the previous owner, to which I have applied a silver Sharpie! At some point in the future, I will do a little more work, especially to the rear, to make it more of a space-taxi or airfield/space-field apron vehicle!