#239 POLITOYS-M – ROLLS ROYCE (Art. 518) (1966)

This car miniature depicts a Silver Cloud III Mulliner-Park Ward 2-door coupé. It is among the oldest Politoys model I own in this scale, together with these two models. Compared to these other models, this one if better finished, with many luxe details. Maybe it’s just it is a Rolls-Royce, while the other are Alfa-Romeos, or maybe it’s just I have this one mint in box, and is in a better condition.

The Silver Cloud III miniature is great as a whole, but let’s check one by one its amazing features:

• Opening bonnet, trunk/boot and doors: Not that rare in a model from 1966, although some years later, this became a very rare feature in a 1:43 model. 
• License plates: A nice sticker represent license plates from Milano.

 

• Jewel headlights on front (plastic on back): Super-realistic headlights, including 6 pieces of jewel. The rear lights are not suitable for jewel headlights, because they’re two groups of three too small lights each, so jewels have been replaced by a plastic part.
• Painted turn signals: Somebody took the effort to paint the turn signals in the front part of the car red to make it even more realistic. This hasn’t been painted by me or its previous owner, this paint was applied during the manufacturing process.
• Chromed bumpers, frontal and motor: also adds a lot of realism to the car. The only negative point I see, it’s that the emblem of RR is not present. Not because it’s broken, but because the cast was made like this. Maybe the part was too complicated to manufacture and would have broken easily.

• Realistic hubcaps and tyres: I think this casts were later reused with different hubcaps. These are the original, Rolls Royce type hubcaps.
• Velvet seats: I’m not kidding! Take a closer look at the pictures, you’ll see that “velvet effect” (some kind of flocked hair) on the seat and the whole interior (also on the boot and rear seats). The dashboard is made in the same colour, which is also a nice detail.

The box is the original one and comes with a window through the buyer could see the actual model.

The car (also the two alfas in entry number #5) belong to the Politoys-M series. That “M” stands for “Metal”, because this series included the first metal models ever produced by Politoys. M-Series were launched around 1965 and all of them were made in 1:43 scale. Before that year, cars were made in 1:41 scale of some plastic or fibreglass compound.

Back to Politoys-M, the first batch of cars comprised 16 references starting with number 500. This model is number 518, released one year after. This series had such a high quality, that only 3 or 4 manufacturers back then could match it.

In 1968, some of the M-models were released not as Politoys-M but as Politoys Export. These models are made with remarkably fewer details and less quality, but they are also numbered 5xx. By 1970, the 100 references (between 500 to 599) were used, and the numbering system was changed to E XX, and even later, EL and HE.

 

All M-models can be opened and disassembled just by unscrewing one or two screws. This is not recommended, because many models are really difficult to reassemble. However, the try is worth if you have two incomplete model and you want to make one of these two. We recommend visiting this site, for more information on Politoys-M.

A similar model in 1:29 scale was shown here. Although both models are RR Silver Cloud III, there are differences among them, maybe there were several versions of this car made.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: ROLLS ROYCE (Art. 518)
• Company: Politoys (Italy)
• Year: 1966 (discontinued 1970)
• Scale: 1:43
• Size: Around 11 cms