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.

AB is for Vidalis Brother's 'Joy Toy'

Back to Greece, pure coincidence but there it is, another Greek plastic toy here on Small Scale World, but sadly no figures again; no figures today actually, so figure-purists come back tomorrow, and more 'plastic smalls' so the PSTSM can have the day-off too!

The set, which has - since these shots were taken - gone in the bin! Reason being, it was a very poor carton when I got it, with a sun-burnt blister-window, and a lot of hidden mending; I did the whole dismantle - dampen - iron - patch-the-inside (with Butterfly paper-tape) job on it years ago; so it was already a bit ersatz over its originality, and these are not so rare on feeBay, or at the bigger shows like Sandown, so - in the end - there was little point keeping it limping along.

The 'meat and two three veg' in this set is the Bedford car-transporter with three VW Golf/Polo type 'hot hatches', all have tinted windows and the Bedford is particularly well done with only the gryphon missing from the little shield 'nose'.

Partly that is down to a larger size, these are toward the larger end of 1:72nd, rather than the similar Blue Box's smaller end of 1:76th, and the cab is the same model as that military MK from Blue Box (and others), but as a triple-axle tractor unit this would have been a larger engined vehicle or have a different gearbox and therefore a different code-designation, I suspect?

The same cab on a longer chassis provides heavy-lift and there is a good measure in interior detail in the cab. As far as I know this type of Bedford nevr saw service with the British Army, who used Foden's in the heavier classes, but some other NATO members may have had such equipment, while for old school war-gaming all they need is a coat of matt-green and they can serve in any army you want them to!

The logo is an AB from the Latin alphabet, odd for the country which still uses the Greek alphabet, but as it stands for 'Adelphoi Bitali' which is the Greek for 'The Vidalis Brothers', I suspect it's all cleverer than me! This is - obviously - the Mercedes bus.

While there is a lack of figures, there is still a lot of play-value added with the inclusion of a whole bunch of accessories, including both working traffic lights and working pedestrian crossing lights (for the non-existent pedestrians!), for those who need to know about these things, there are two variants of road sign with longer and shorted plinths at the bottom of the Lego-like pole.

The light units are quite clever with a slider placing a white plastic disc behind clear, coloured plastic lenses as you push and pull it up and down behind the cover, finally' two slightly sub-scale petrol-pumps are included. there's also a bag of traffic-cones

The typical range sample circa-1970, when this set was issued (note the larger 1:43rd (?) sports cars), there are a few earlier, simpler models from the 1960's, and it may be that more will be revealed by Greek collectors going forward, I don't know a good source for Greek toy info, beyond a couple of toy soldier pages, but 87th Scale Info havea page on them here, despite their mostly being quite oversized for HO-gauge - the smaller turcks here are Toyota's in a very HO-looking size.

And - as with the Comet-Authenticraft stuff (which they never actioned) if someone from that site contacts me I can give them the new model numbers and some new photo's?