The Big Smoke being London. Yes readers last Thursday I planned to circumnavigate the M25, the London Orbital Motorway without passing Go, as I collected 5 sets of models. I nearly didn’t set off at all as we were promised a storm, Storm Ciaran. According to the BBC it was going to wash the South-East of England into the sea.
As it becomes clearer these days that the BBC’s mission seems to have shifted from educate and inform to scare the living daylights out of everyone, I chose to ignore the warning. I went anyway. A more apposite name than ‘Storm Ciaran’ would have been ‘Annoyingly Persistent Drizzle Ciaran’ but that lacks some of the menace I guess.
The weather warnings and the fact it was a dark and dreary day in November kept the classics at home too, so very little to report on that front. What little I did see comes later.
I set off for the M40 and headed south to pick up the M25 and turned left, east, clockwise in fact. My first port of call was in Rickmansworth. I was meeting Dave to buy some more of his buses.
There were five crates like this one full of really good EFE and Corgi OOC buses. It is my second purchase from Dave as he slowly sells down his collection. Like the first set I bought from him the condition is excellent. There are more to come from Dave as he sells his collection on. I will look forward to taking more of them.
It was back to the M25 next, and farther east to Potters Bar, just a few more miles round the circuit.
My call was at Maria’s house. Maria had recently inherited a very mixed collection of mostly Corgi and Vanguards from a relative. Some of the collection will not find a home at Little Wheels, we tend not to sell the Days Gone & Lledo models as the values are so low. We store these in the loading bay and periodically I drop a van load at Warwick & Warwick auctioneers who sell them for me. Those Corgi 9 Double 9 models are very welcome though.
These Vanguards are from the early days of the brand which means that there are a lot of them coming on to the market, which can drive down prices, however these are all in lovely condition and will be a good addition to the Little Wheels on-line shop. Condition is everything.
After Potters Bar it was another, longer haul east as far as the A12 where I left the M25 and headed in towards London, crossing that line that marks the ULEZ, the Ultra Low Emissions Zone where you have to pay a daily fee of £12.50 to drive an old diesel like my van.
It is an interesting concept. If you choose not to trade in your vehicle for a newer model, or you just cannot afford to, then you pay. If you have the money to get a new car, you are exempt. Out of interest I checked my wife’s BMW 1 Series, which has emissions almost too low to measure and gets free Road Tax as a result. It cops for the charge because of its age. It makes little sense to me and the zone stretches out to the rural parts of Greater London which have little traffic and no public transport as an alternative. We got stung for it at the weekend dropping off our daughter at Heathrow.
I was in Chadwell Heath to pick up a collection of Land Rovers from Andy. This one is more interesting to me as I spent many years driving Series (leaf sprung) Land Rovers, even rebuilding one of them from scratch.
The Solido / Verem Land Rover Series 3 station wagons above are from a seemingly never-ending variety produced by the French manufacturer. I’m not sure where you would find a definitive list of them, but there are dozens which we have found and it would make a fun project to track them all down.
In addition to the Solido Series 3s there are a good many Series 2 Land Rovers from Corgi and all in lovely condition. The vintage Corgi Toys Priestmann Cub Luffing Shovel is nice and in its original box.
The name Chadwell Heath sets you up with a very misleading image of this section of Romford. For someone like myself who travels the length of England and takes notice of place names it suggests moorland with a landmark well dedicated to St Chad. It might have been like that once upon a time, but it is solidly Essex/East London these days. Admittedly nowhere looks its best on a mizzling and dark November day.
Instead of sending me back north to the M25 Google Maps sent me a little farther south into Barking, which I have to say was not much better. I picked up the A13 to head east back to the M25. On my way passing a massive rail-head junction opposite a huge Eddie Stobart depot, Carlisle it was not.
I felt a bit cheated as this wedge out of East London, between the A12 and the A13 meant I missed a bit of the M25 and would not be doing a complete circuit after all. I can live with that.
I rejoined the M25 just north of the Dartford Crossing which is a very long and very high suspension bridge which spans the Thames Estuary. The M25 south takes all four lanes of the bridge while the northbound side takes the old tunnels, using all four lanes which were originally 2 north and 2 south.
When I got to the top of the bridge I began to shift my position a bit regarding Storm Ciaran. It was very windy up there. Not only was the wind trying to blow the van sideways it was also rocking the deck of the bridge. Of course you know that bridges like this are designed to move a little with the wind, but it is a whole other thing when you are hundreds of feet up in the air actually experiencing it.
The Dartford Crossing dropped me safely into Kent and I headed off down the Dover road, the M20, towards Maidstone. My next call was in West Malling.
I’d never been to West Malling before. It is a small town tucked into a hillside near Maidstone. The centre is very old worldly and pretty. Looking at Wikipedia it seems well worth a proper visit having Norman buildings form just after the Conquest. There is a keep built by Bishop Gundulf who was responsible for the White Tower in the Tower of London, among other interesting remains.
On my way into West Malling I spotted my first classic of the day, a late model Classic Mini Cooper.
It was in red with a white roof, Cooper stripes and a row of four spotlights. It also had trade plates and as I saw it again an hour or so later on my way home, looked like it might be on an extended test drive. The model is a Corgi in 1:43 scale from the ‘Century of Cars’ series.
I was on my way to see Sandra who had agreed to sell me her late uncle’s collection of Atlas Editions.
These sets are always popular and tend to sell very nicely, especially the more unusual ones. This does not include the MkII Police Jaguar as there must be a million of those out there for sale – it being the first of the series which is always heavily discounted. Lots of people buy the first, low priced, model in the series and then cancel, usually the higher the number, the better the price.
The police cars are mostly Vanguards redecorated for the Atlas series, the buses are Corgi OOC similarly repainted in the main.
In addition to the Police cars there were bikes, planes and buses.
My last call of the day was in Ditton, only about ten minutes away. Google maps directed me into the car park of a sports centre. It then took me across the car park and down the sides of some all weather pitches and up an unmade road onto the apron in front of what had once been a large and pleasant gentleman’s residence, now some rather shabby offices. By this time I was wondering where I was going.
Google kept leading me on to a gap in the bushes at the far side of the apron which opened out into a small residential development, about four houses tucked away in the corner of what had been the grounds of the big house. It was a charming spot, really private and the houses were lovely. Outside one of the houses and waiting for me was Bob.
Bob had inherited a collection of sports and racing cars from his uncle.
These are all models I am familiar with and have handled many times before. You might have noticed that some of them are already appearing on the on-line store. Bob’s uncle had been a great fan of Jack Brabham so I think you will be seeing a number of his drives turning up.
There was just time for a quick late lunch at the excellent chippy in Ditton (I can thoroughly recommend it) before hitting the road back to Kingston with my van loaded with goodies.
My second and last classic of the day was a very nice Saab 900 spotted on the M25. I really cannot blame people for keeping their precious cars at home on such a damp, dark and miserable day, but it was a bit disappointing as the M25/M20 for the Channel Tunnel usually has one or two interesting vehicles heading too and from the Continent.
My next trip is to Southampton for a collection of Minichamps and Forces of Valor military vehicles. There are some tanks, half-tracks and a plane or two. I’ve also got a collection of Spark and Minichamps cars in 1:43 scale coming in from Scotland via courier, there are more than 100 of them.
Today I made an offer for a collection of Corgi modern trucks and continental construction and mining machinery, excavators, cranes and the like, well over 200 pieces. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s ramble, if you did please scroll to the bottom of the page and click the ‘Like’ button.
What’s in the Van? – Home
19th October – Stonnall & Bicester
4th/5th October – Berkhamstead & Poole
21st/22nd September – Stratford & Farnham
20th September – Duesenberg Coupe Simone
14th September – Croydon
10th September – New Romney
24th August – Shrewsbury
17th August – Airedale, Gainsborough & Leicester
3rd August – Bedford
27th July – Worthing
13th July – Chatteris, Hinckley & Nuneaton
6/7th July – Magor & Westbury
15/16th June – Newcastle upon Tyne
8th June – Bournemouth, Ringwood & Bracknell
1st June – Diss, Stewartby & Brackley
25th May – Rickmansworth
12th May – Kingston & Fleet
4th May – Witham
21st April – Staines
12th April – Dereham
6th April – Warminster
30th March – Doncaster, Gainsborough & Peterborough
18/22nd March – Bedford & Epsom
15/16th March 2023 – London, Hemel Hempstead & Stafford
8th March 2023 – Warwick & Solihull
5th March 2023 – Huntingdon & Bedford
23rd February 2023 – Little Wheels Museum
16th February 2023 – Devon & Dorset
9th February 2023 – Nottinghamshire & Lincolnshire
2nd February 2023 – Gloucester & Hereford
What's in the Van? 
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