SILVER FLYERS & SILVER COMMERCIALS (C.1972)

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Lone Star’s ranges of “Silver Flyers’ and ‘Silver Commercials’ are particularly mysterious with very little known about them. They did not appear in any of Lone Star’s trade catalogues nor have any leaflets or promotional material so far come to light.

The ‘Silvers’ are finished in a striking chrome plated effect. Of course Lone Star were famed for applying this type of ‘gleam’ finish to its ranges of toy guns and accessories so were well placed to add it to its toy cars. 

I believe the finish was achieved by applying a thin coating of aluminium in a vacuum chamber followed by a clear varnish to prevent tarnishing and giving the chrome effect. Tinting the varnish gave coloured finishes which were used on the ‘Silver Flyers’ cars. The Commercials usually had the main diecast component finished in ‘gleam’ silver but with any other parts finished in regular colours.

Several ‘Silvers’ have appeared on the collector’s market having originated from Japan (often still featuring the original Japanese price sticker) implying the range may have been produced primarily for this market. Lone Star were certainly enjoying strong sales of its Flyers and Commercial models in Japan at this time so it’s feasible that this could have been the case. Alternatively, the ‘Silver Flyers’ could have been inspired by Corgi’s ‘Rockets’ which launched in 1969 and included cars with similar plated finishes. 

It looks likely that both ranges date from 1972 but with so little information its difficult to say for certain. Each range used a standard box design with the model contained inside printed on the end flaps. Different styles and fonts exist for the ‘Silver Flyers’ model names suggesting several production runs.  

Six ‘Silver Commercials’ exist although its worth noting that the large box will accommodate the Foden fitted with the curtain sided ‘Express Freight’ body however this version has never been seen.

So far seven ‘Silver Flyers’ models are known to exist. For years I was quite happy believing there were six ‘Silver Commercials’ and six ‘Silver Flyers’ as that seemed to make sense. I then found an empty box for a ‘Silver Flyers’ No.10 Jaguar so that spoilt that! Although excitingly this then begs the question, how many more of the 21 available Flyers castings were issued as ‘Silvers’?

The infamous No.7 Vauxhall Firenza was produced in a plated finish although this is believed to have been a promotional model issued to Vauxhall dealerships and not part of the ‘Silver Flyers’ range. Likewise the Routemaster bus was later issued in plated silver for the 1977 Silver Jubilee and plated gold for the 1982 Royal Wedding.

If anyone has any further information on these ranges or is aware of any further models please get in touch. 

SILVER FLYERS - KNOWN MODELS:

S9    - Maserati Mistral

S10 - jaguar Mk.X

S11 - Gran Turismo

S12 - Chrysler Imperial

S13 - Toyota 2000GT

S18 - Ford Corsair

S21 - Fiat 2300S Coupe

S36 - Lotus Europa

Lone Star developed a reputation for including models in its catalogues and listing which never materialised. Some of these proposed models were little more than ideas but others did make it off the drawing board and as far as the final stages of pre-production.  These intriguing ‘ghost models’ are listed below along with any catalogue illustrations as well as clues and hints which shed light on how close the models came to production.

An article ‘Lone Star’s Forgotten Fords’ which looks at the trio of proposed Ford models is due for publication on Diecast Collector Magazine at some point in the future.

'Ghost' models:

8.    Ford Capri - Flyers

13. Ford (USA) Thunderbird - Impy

26. Foden Bulk Sugar Transporter - Impy

28. Citroen DS - Impy

29. Cement Mixer Lorry - Impy

35. Articulated Flat Truck - Impy

37. Ford GT40 – Flyers

NA. Horse Box – Impy

The Impy Ford Thunderbird must be one of the most intriguing of all Lone Star’s models with evidence of pre-production examples and even the possibility of a short production run before it very quickly disappeared with no models known to survive.

The illusive Impy Thunderbird first appeared in the initial Impy leaflet complete with an illustration of a real Ford Thunderbird car (although this was a picture of the latest Mk.4 model rather than the Mk.3 as under development at Lone Star). As model No.13 the Thunderbird appeared in listings on various Impy boxes and packaging throughout the period of Impy production.

Excitingly a photo of the actual Impy Thunderbird model is shown in Lone Star’s 1966 trade catalogue, and even features on the front cover! Despite these appearances, and the model looking production ready, it only gets a mention in the catalogue as part of a list of 20 ‘planned models’. The Thunderbird is missing from the1967 and all future trade catalogue suggesting whatever went wrong with this model happened very early on.

Further intrigue is added to the Impy Ford Thunderbird story by the discovery of a box for this model. Excitingly this suggests the Impy No.13 Ford Thunderbird could have briefly made it into production.

With only snippets of information and a handful of clues we are left to speculate what happened to this model preventing it from being widely available as part of the Impy range. It seems most likely that a significant failure to the Thunderbird’s tooling occurred which proved uneconomical to repair. However, it’s worth discussing a couple of alternative possibilities.

It could have been that there was a licencing issue with Ford which prohibited the realise of the Impy model. Given these are usually ironed out early on at the design stage, and that Lone Star had already produced several Ford models (including the Mk.1 Thunderbird in the Road-masters range), this seems unlikely. 

A final more offbeat consideration is that the photographed Thunderbird is not actually a Lone Star Impy model at all. It was commonplace for manufacturers to acquire competitor’s products for scrutiny and even as a source of inspiration. Lone Star certainly did this, with toys from rival companies even finding their way into Lone Star’s trade catalogues! In the 1966 catalogue Matchbox petrol pumps appeared with Lone Star’s ‘Garage and Filling Station’ but more brazenly Lone Star featured a VW Microbus from German toy manufacturer ‘Faller’ on the front cover of its 1967 trade catalogue! 

After investigating this theory it seems very unlikely that this was the case with the Ford Thunderbird as other than Husky and Solido there were very few models of the Mk.4 Thunderbird. Besides any rival Thunderbirds did not have the opening features of the Impy model as depicted in the photo plus they were also to different scales. Helpfully we can be sure the model shown in Lone Star’s 1966 catalogue is to a similar scale to the rest of the Impy cars thanks to a further, more covert, appearance from the Impy Thunderbird. Careful study of the photograph of the ‘Impy Despenser Stand’ which appeared in trade catalogues from 1966-69 shows a line-up of Impy cars displayed on top off the stand. The furthest right model is the Impy Thunderbird.

Lone Star’s Ford GT40 was due to enter the new Flyers range in 1969/70 and appears to have been under development along with the Lotus Europa and Maserati Mistral which appeared around this time. Illustrations of No.37 Ford GT40 appeared in Flyers leaflets and Lone Star’s 1970 trade catalogue. 

Whilst this catalogue appearance is only an artist drawing the GT40 does make another more discreet appearance in the form of a pre-production model displayed with the Lotus Europa in the photo of the Flyway ‘Double loop-the-loop Racing Set’. Both cars are posed in a staged action shot with the GT40 about to perform the loop-the-loop. This is a small grainy photo but the GT40 model appears to be a one-piece resin (or similar) casting which would have been produced during the final stages of the tooling process.

With development of the Flyers GT40 model nearing completion, boxes for this model were produced by Lone Star. Only a handful of these have ever surfaced but unlike the mysterious Ford Thunderbird Impy box it’s known that these sadly did not contain Ford GT40 models. The surviving examples have had the numbered end flaps crudely altered from ‘37’ to ‘15’ (for the VW Microbus).

It should be pointed out that in recent years a full range of reproduction Flyers boxes have been produced which include several ‘what if’ and ‘fantasy’ models including the GT40. The artwork on the GT40 reproduction boxes is very similar to the genuine boxes as it was available to copy from the Flyers ‘Six Car Gift Set’ where Lone Star also featured the same side profile drawing of the Ford GT40. Fortunately, there are enough differences to tell the reproduction boxes from the ultra-rare genuine examples.

Again we can only speculate why this model did not appear in the Flyers range, Development of the model appears to have reached the final stages of pre-production and with boxes ordered Lone Star must have fully expected the model to enter full production. 

Lone Star’s 1970 trade catalogue not only featured the Ford GT40 but it also announced a second new Ford model, the Ford Capri. The model must have been in the very early stages of development as not even an artist’s illustration was shown. Instead, the space reserved for an image was simply occupied with the text ‘Ford Capri’. The following year’s 1971 trade catalogue still failed to illustrate a model of the Capri which was instead represented by a basic artist’s impression.

A possible reason why Lone Star’s Ford Capri never materialised was also first hinted at in this 1971 trade catalogue where a generic drawing of another new Flyers car was shown with the mysterious announcement ‘New 1971 model of popular car to be released during the course of the year’. This would turn out to be the Vauxhall Firenza and its likely Lone Star diverted its resources away from the Capri model to focus on the Firenza which was produced exclusively in conjunction with Vauxhall. 

Lone Star didn’t completely give up on the No.8 Ford Capri though as it again appeared in the following years trade catalogue now shown alongside the Vauxhall Firenza which was No.7. There was still no model to photograph so this time a photo of a real Capri was used. 1972 was the last trade catalogue appearance for the Capri and with sales of the Flyers range likely in decline any further development of the model was probably halted. 

Impy model No. 26 would emerge as a Foden petrol (gasoline) tanker but early model listings included it as a Bulk Sugar Tanker. There’s plenty of evidence that Lone Star were looking to Lesney’s Matchbox range as a source of inspiration so it’s likely Lone Star simply copied the idea for a tanker truck from Matchbox’s similar No.10; Foden ‘Tate & Lyle’ tanker lorry.

Indeed an early drawing of Impy No.26 showed the model finished in BP colours, this time copied from Matchbox’s No. 25 Bedford BP Tanker! Neither the ‘Bulk Sugar’ or ‘BP’ versions were ever produced by Lone Star with ‘Mobil’ being the chosen livery.

Someone at Lone Star must have had a fondness for this iconic French car with Citroen DS models appearing in the Gulliver County Series, Tuf-Tots range and 1:50 scale series of Roadmaster cars. However, the Citroen DS could have also been destined to appear in the Impy line-up. The brief appearance of an Impy Citroen DS was in a 1966 trade price list where it was included as No.28. The model was not illustrated, nor did it ever appear in any trade catalogues. It seems likely that, for whatever reason, the proposed Impy Citroen DS instead appeared in the larger scale Roadmasters range immerging as No.1482.

This was a strange final addition to a range which by this time was already in decline. Perhaps the Citroen enthusiast at Lone Star though the DS was worthy of appearing in the larger 1:50 scale range. No.28 in the Impy range was instead allocated to another French model, the Peugeot 404.

This proposed model was listed as No.29 in the 1966 trade catalogue, in trade price lists (see above), and on Impy packaging (sometimes appearing as No.28). Unlike the other lorries in the Impy range, it was never described as a Foden although it seems likely this Cement Mixer model would be based on the existing Impy Foden cab and 8-wheel chassis. It’s probable this lorry did not join the Impy range due to the probable high production costs.

The Impy trucks were priced the same as the smaller Impy cars which must have therefore restricted the choice of lorries to those with a basic body design. Indeed the Impy Foden Tanker and Express Freight trucks both had simple one piece plastic bodies. A cement mixer body would have required the production and assembly of several components. Alternatively, the Cement Mixer may have been dropped as Matchbox soon modelled the same 8-wheel Foden S24, as a concrete mixer. This would have been very similar in appearance to Lone Star’s proposed model.

This model was always going to be an unlikely choice simply because it would require unique packaging larger than the other Impy commercial models which all fitted the same size box or carded packaging. There was no mention of what model of truck this articulated lorry would be based on and its likely it didn’t get much further than the ideas board.

A Horse Box model was mentioned in an Impy leaflet where it was described as ‘on the drawing board’ but with no mention anywhere else it seems this was as far as it got.