I wonder if this was aimed at the tourist market in London? If it was it was a remarkably long-lived piece of product design as you can still by variations on it in any shop where a foreign tourist may find themselves, mostly in London but also in airports and motorway service areas all over the UK. They won't be made by Corgi any more and they won't be anything like as nicely done, but the Austin FX4 taxi and the AEC Routemaster bus remain as icons for the London street scene. The buses have been modernised out of existence and the taxis are all wearing out and are mostly superseded but you do still see them around.
The models which made up the London Traffic Gift Set - GS35 were:
You recognise the taxi from this set because it has a driver. The core range one does not, all the buses should have a driver and a conductor, but my driver is missing, which appears to be a factory error. The bus is the original smaller casting with suspension and will be either the Corgi Toys or Outspan version. There should also be a policeman on point duty - now that is something you absolutely never see in London, or anywhere now, on riot duty maybe, but not point duty. Mind you my heart always sinks whenever I see a Policeman directing traffic - you just know you are going to be stuck there for ages.
The set was in the range from July 1964 to being withdrawn in 1968.
