At this moment, there are 7 entries dealing with Mercury toys. 6 old ones and the present one. It may seem a lot, but there is a trick... The first three dealt with motorbikes in 1:24 scale (although two of them were made by Guiloy, not by Mercury), and the 4th and 5th entries show the same car, a Ferrari 512S. The sixth entry commented the "Speedy Velox" series (1:64 scale).
But until now I had not the chance to show any pictures of more common models in 1:43 scale. The Ferrari 512S is ok, but I cannot really compare how accurate the model is, since I never saw this car in a museum or wherever.
These two models are much more common cars. There used too be a lot of them in the early 80s in Spain, the Fiat 850 was Seat 850 and the Fiat 125 was never available in Spain, but a close "relative", the Seat 124D, similar in appearance except for the head and rearlights.
Because I have seen many 850s and 124s, I can appretiate how well casted and how accurate the dimensions are. Had Mercury the original blueprints from Fiat? I think it would be possible, or maybe some worker of the company drove these cars and they took the dimensions directly from a real car... which, I think, was not the case in the Ferrari mentioned above.
The Fiat 850 was available from 1964 to 1971 and the Fiat 124 between 1967 and 1972, so I guess these models might have been manufactured by the late 60s: maybe 1968. The 850 comes with rally stickers, and is probably a later version of a car that was also avaible years before in other colours. The 124 was also produced by Mebetoys.
The models 850 and 124 were also available by some Spanish manufacturers like Joal and Guiloy. I wish I had these to be able to compare the casts. Mercury and Guiloy sold the same motorbikes in the early 70s, so it is not crazy to think that they also shared some casts that might be interesting for the Spanish market. Fiat models are on average a few years older than their Seat versions...
FACTS AND FIGURES:
- Name: FIAT 125 and FIAT 850
- Scale: 1:43
- Year: Around 1968
- Company: MERCURY (Italy)
- Size: approx. 9 cm
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