Famous Over There, In Scale and 1/1: Triumph Vitesse/Sports 6

  

In the early 1960s, Standard-Triumph Motors needed a small high-performance car with a great deal of practicality compared to the existing TR4 and Spitfire. They used a 1600cc straight-six engine and uprated front and rear suspension, in a more luxuriously trimmed version of the four-cylinder Herald shell. Two-tone paint jobs, fancy wheel covers or even wire wheels, and Lucas foglamps, were not unknown on Vitesses, as opposed to the more spartan Herald. 

This unknown-language brochure shot shows the Spartan yet luxurious look of the Vitesse's interior.
(C) autominded.net

A convertible coupe and two-door sedan were available, with a coupe never progressing beyond prototype stage, and a handful of custom-built wagons were produced at S-T's Park Royal service depot in London.

In 1962, Triumph attempted to launch a "Sports Six" convertible to compete with other British, American, Italian and German rivals on North American soil, but it was slaughtered by the higher-performing and less expensive Corvair Monza Spyder, marginally cheaper and more fun-to-drive NSU Prinz and Sunbeam Imp, the great value-for-money of the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, and the more practical Chevrolet Nova, Plymouth Valiant Signet and Studebaker Daytona. The final nail in the coffin of the Sports Six was the Ford Mustang. The Sports Six was duly replaced by the Spitfire-based GT6 sport coupe, and few examples remain today.

The Vitesse continued to evolve along with the Herald and Spitfire/GT6, and was finally laid to rest in the 1971 model year to make way for the all-new Triumph Dolomite. The Vitesse also competed in many races, most notably the Monte Carlo Rally in the early 1960s and the 1971 Trans-Am series.

Production Figures

• Vitesse 6 (1600): May 1962 - September 1966; 31,261
  • saloon: 22,814
  • convertible: 8,447, includes 679 Sports 6 (USA)
• Vitesse 2-Litre: September 1966 - September 1968; 10,830
  • saloon: 7,328
  • convertible: 3,502
• Vitesse Mark 2: July 1968 - July 1971; 9,121
  • saloon: 5,649
  • convertible: 3,472

And now for the diecast version of this article:

I purchased this well-loved little Dinky Toy Vitesse Mark I sedan for $20 at an overpriced antique shop in downtown Eugene, Oregon, painted on its number plates, repainted its lights and "chrome" trim, but left the barn-find esthetics alone otherwise. If this little car could talk, imagine the stories it could tell. My guess is that it was either a cherished souvenir from England or was bought as a birthday/Easter/Christmas gift because it looked like some of the small American cars that were common then (especially the Studebaker Lark) It is quite playworn, but still as cute and lovable as the day it was made and still rolls nicely. It, like most other toys of UK-domestic-market cars and trucks, falls into the Famous Over There category.

                                                                         

Diecast Review: 1/24 scale Welly Diecasting 1960 Alfa Romeo 2600 Spider

Beautiful lines that capture the 1/1 subject's elegant body style, more reminiscent of an Iso Rivolta or a Lancia than of an Alfa Romeo, befitting its role in the 1960s sports car market

Front-end details are spot-on, "googly eyes" produced by light mounting lugs are less present

Beautiful front-end design, slightly spoiled by bonnet (hood) and lower-body air intakes being tampos instead of cast-in details. Side lights are especially well-done.

Other than odd bumper angle, rear end is well-done.

Mouth-watering side elevation, hubcap, wheel, Carrozzeria Touring badge and trim are well-done, but bumper could stand a better placement.

Rear deck is beautiful and well-executed, down to the folded and booted convertible top, top boot snaps, twin petrol fillers and small mystery trim piece.

Altogether executed well, even the "two-crush-two" seating typical of Touring and Vignale sporty cars in the 60s is perfect.

Interior is outstanding, but came from the factory a bit dusty. Gauges, switchgear, steering wheel, seating and dashboard are well-executed, even an ashtray is included.

Industry-leading detail in the dash and center tunnel. Even the quirky grab handle & cantilevered rear-view mirror are well-done, and a legible gold Alfa logo is visible on the steering wheel.

This casting is not recommended in red, especially with the top up, white suits its luxo-sport genre nicely and the nonremovable up-top may obscure the wealth of interior detail. Build quality/fit & finish is a 6 out of 10 (bad door gaps on passenger door, came out of the box very dusty, bad rear-bumper fit, and I had to use Testor's model glue to permanently attach all 4 hubcaps, but solidly built otherwise), detail is an 8.5 out of 10 (chassis is minimalistic, engine is literally two colors with little color and part detail, and the boot does not open, but it is great for a $15-20 price range casting), visual impact is 10 out of 10 and subject matter is a 10 out of 10, since no scale subjects of the 2600 Spider beyond a Protar 1/24 model kit from 1993 or so and a handful of cottage-industry 1/43s existed until Welly cast this up in late 2012. A 1/18 version was planned, but cancelled in the end.

Conclusion: Highly recommended.

Buy your own here at Diecast Models Wholesale, you will not regret it.

Diecast Car Review: Corgi "Kojak" 1970s Buick Regal (1999 issue)

   

This casting was a 1999 partial retool of a classic 1970s Corgi casting, with added details, and manufactured for collectors. It originally retailed for $36.99, but has been on markdown status at my local hobby store, Eugene Toy & Hobby, for at least two years and was purchased on January 9, 2013 for $18.59. 

Onto the review... proportions are nearly spot-on except for a highly arched roof with no rear vent windows. Tampo details and cast-in details are as much as one could want, save for no detail to the bumper guard rubber and no detail on the stamped rear taillight trim. There is also no glass in the left rear door. But it is a retool of a 1970s Corgi toy car, not a Franklin Mint or other high-end collector diecast, so that is excusable. 8/10.

Interior leaves a lot to be desired, but again... par for the course on 1970s Corgis. The seat and seat upholstery designs are reasonably accurate, the cast-in door panels on the opening front doors are accurate, but the dashboard is quite crude, the steering wheel the typical 70s Corgi four-spoke black plastic piece, and no door panel detail at all for the rear seat area. 6/10.

Fit and finish are first-class and are everything expected of a Corgi diecast. 10/10.

The less said about the included hand-painted white-metal figure of Detective Theo Kojak, the better. Homies minifigures are well-suited to this scale of Malaise Era American diecast and are fairly easy to find (I bought a huge bag of them for 99 cents at Goodwill just before Christmas 2012)

All in all, a decent little casting, and just about the only medium-scale casting of a Colonnade-body GM car available, but be prepared to pay big money for one online, these are not normally available in stores over 10 years after they were issued. 

Oddball in Very Small Scale: Zee Toys 1/87 Triumph TR3A

Found this oddball, Tootsietoy-like casting, in roughly 1/87 scale, at my favorite diecast car dealer, More of Everything Racing Collectibles, and was pleasantly surprised to see the logo of one-time major player in the low-priced toy vehicle market Zee Toys, also known as Zylmex, cast into the body.

Zylmex had its beginnings in Hong Kong in the early 1970s, and started out making fairly crude but likable small-scale diecast cars patterned after major brands like Matchbox, Corgi, Tomica and Siku. Their castings were highly popular into the 1980s, with inexpensive and fairly crude but well-made "Dynawheels" selling at 3 for almost the same price as a single Hot Wheels or Matchbox casting, but in the 1990s their popularity waned and the company's toolings were sold off. The Zylmex name and logo are no longer trademarked, but an unknown company (presumably successor company Redbox/Motormax) still holds the rights to the Zee Toys name and logos.

A photo of a full set of Zylmex Mini Wild Cars from the 1980s can be seen below showing a brighter-colored version of this casting. Could this have been a preproduction version of the Mini Wild Cars TR3A?

                                                       Photo (c) ambassador84 on Flickr.

Pawn Cars: A Trip to Gold & Silver Pawn Shop

In October I visited Las Vegas for the first time since I went there with Colin in 2007. This time, though, one of my must-see destinations was Rick Harrison's Gold & Silver Pawn Shop. I've been a fan of History's Pawn Stars since the series began, and the show often deals with people selling their cars to the shop.

The 1960s Mercedes-Benz Unimog in the parking lot was a good start. This truck featured in season 5, episode 38 ("What the Truck").

Inside, the shop yielded a beige 1949 Hudson Commodore sedan, which appeared in season 6, episode 6 ("Man, Make Fire").

I vowed to buy something at the shop as a souvenir, so I picked up this Matchbox Collectibles 1:18 Jeep Liberty diecast.

Photo courtesy of Andrew Youngchief

Vegas may be a dump with a glitzy veneer but it's certainly interesting to visit once every several years or so. The shop is worth taking a look even though you'll have to wait out a line just to get in the door. If you're ever in Sin City, check it out.