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Restoration of Dinky 23d Auto Union

This is the restoration of a model that I had as a child of about 12 years old, in about 1954. It was one of a few that I used for the game of “playground racing”, at school, where we used to push the car as hard as possible with the thumb, to see how far it would go! I modified it to have stabiliser bars to prevent it turning over, hence the notches in the body, most of the base plate was missing and the paintwork was in a bad state. There was no driver, although the slot for mounting one, was in the casting. I think this was an early post-war model, as it had ridged hub wheels. From information that I have read, it seems unclear if post-war model had a driver or not. To try to make it authentic, I manufactured a driver from aluminium and also fabricated the base plate using the small remaining original piece and manufacturing the sump/gearbox/axle details, again from aluminium, bonded to a steel plate, soldered to the original piece, which had the “Dinky Toys” marking.

Thanks to Mike Foote for contributing this article. Feb 2014.