Land Rover 109" WB

P R E C I S I O N D I E - C A S T S C A L E M O D E L S

438

LAND-ROVER

109" WB

Land Rover 109" WB - 438

page last updated: 02 November 2008

I appear to have rather a lot of these... It just goes to show what mileage Corgi could get out of a popular model. However if you take time to look at them in detail you can see a number of the transitions Corgi went through during the life of this model which saw them through their peak and into the decline of the 70's.

The dark green one is an excellent example of how this model looked on its release in 1962. It is well cast and smart, has nice turned wheels and a grey plastic tilt. The tow hook is metal. The wheels went from turned to cast and then to Whizzwheels, the tilt eventually disappeared and the tow hook changed to plastic. Look closely at the bright blue one on the top row and the bright metallic green one at the bottom right. They are late examples and show a definite decline in production standards, they are less carefully cast and not so well finished.

Some of these are from gift sets; reading from top left. The Chipperfields Land Rover was never sold separately, the blue one next to it might have had a light aircraft on a trailer, the next two are paired with Horse boxes and the red one on the second row although sold alone in this finish could easily have a Ferrari and trailer behind it. On the bottom row we have the Land Rover from the Lions of Longleat set - sadly missing all the rest of the set.

What else can we say about this model? The cab is wrong, 1962 marked the change from the Series 1 to the Series 2 Corgi Land Rover, but Corgi kept the cab from the Series 1. Look at any Land Rover pickup made from 1958 onwards and the back of the cab has rounded quarter windows - Dinky got that right - I've included their effort to demonstrate - however Dinky got the windscreen very wrong by missing out the vent panel below and making the windows too big. Otherwise this is a nice model of an early Series 2 Land Rover 109" truck-cab.

The dark green one at the very bottom is new, bought in 2008 for £1.99, and it is a short wheelbase (88") Series 2. However it is still recognisably the same toy. Whoever owns the Corgi company today is still using this design 46 years after its first release, not bad going.