Rover 3500 Collection

[motorman]

Knowing Mathias, it's probably the only one in existance!!!

[RacingFreak]

Oh well I myself am not an expert in the Rover 3500 models and the Matchbox as whole either, I mainly used CFalken's site to see the main variations on both the Lesney and MB Intl. pages

The model looks a bit strange with the maltesecross wheels to me personally to say honest.

[mbox75]

and here with black Interior.Cheers Mathias.

[RacingFreak]

Thanks Mathias, now this is a version I have seen recently, but not of my taste due to the chromed siren.. however the normal version with black interior and black siren must be insanely rare!

[David Tilley]

The Rover 3500 holds a special place in my collection. It is the model that turned me into a pure Matchbox collector. I have enjoyed picking up some variations on the bronze version.

With so little to go for in the way of regular models (officially it was only ever bronze before turning into a Police Car) I did pick up the rare yellow that I have heard was found in Car Transporter sets in the UK, and therefore should not be a prepro, and a prepro silver version. I then went nuts getting shade and interior variations on the bronze.

[RacingFreak]

Wow.. nice David, I kinda have expected you to post here!

BTW - not sure if you noticed, but the lighter bronze version has kinda error in the casting in front down - left and however, on both, the interiors have the steering wheel with extra filled plastic! Nice mint pieces anyway

Please please, post pics of all rovers you have, lined up, that will be awesome to see

I have yet to find a mint with brown interior however, recently had the chance but price was quite high (and from Australia), it aswell had error on the base itself so I just had to pass - turns out for good as I won a mint normal tan interior one a few days later. Unfortunately, got outbid for just £1.00 more on another one, which infact wasn't so minty, but it does always suck when you're hyped in for something and lose it in the end!

Once the tan interior one is in me I will post pics. Cheers

[mbox75]

Hi All
two diffrent Castingslines under the NR Plate.Cheers Mathias.

[David Tilley]

Wow.. nice David, I kinda have expected you to post here!

BTW - not sure if you noticed, but the lighter bronze version has kinda error in the casting in front down - left and however, on both, the interiors have the steering wheel with extra filled plastic! Nice mint pieces anyway

Please please, post pics of all rovers you have, lined up, that will be awesome to see

I have yet to find a mint with brown interior however, recently had the chance but price was quite high (and from Australia), it aswell had error on the base itself so I just had to pass - turns out for good as I won a mint normal tan interior one a few days later. Unfortunately, got outbid for just £1.00 more on another one, which infact wasn't so minty, but it does always suck when you're hyped in for something and lose it in the end!

Once the tan interior one is in me I will post pics. Cheers

I never noticed the slight error to the model. It is not something I go for, as I am not an error collector. I will try and put up more pictures as and when I have some spare time to hunt the models down.

[RacingFreak]

Yeah, me neither mate - I try to avoid errors as much as possible, because such stuff kinda ruins the overall look of the model to me - I mainly go for perfect - near perfect ones from now on, which is quite hard, but I am also avoiding the white interior and the police version with chromed siren, because I just don't like them as variations

Yeah, please take your time. I know you are master when it comes to different variations and shades, as so far I noticed there are pretty much no Rovers in exactly the same shade (albeit I might be wrong), this will be very neat to see!


Mathias, this is a nice find - thanks for sharing!

And here's what I received today from Rockertron - very happy!













Managed to form quite the trio, each of them quite different and all of them came in slightly different boxes. Atleast the stripes on them are correctly tampo-ed, with most accurate being the one on the right

[RacingFreak]

And here I will post some "anatomy"

Here is what the civilian version consists of when took apart:


Police version (Ugh!! Don't mind the "rust" on it, managed to clean it out as much I could later on, but would this be a tip for anyone of you to not wash your models in water! ):

And some comparisons between the civilian and the police versions:



The interior on the police one is darker (brown).. as compared to the dark tan on the civilian:

The Police interior is also much more lifted at front than the civilian one:






Interestingly enough it looks like the siren itself is chrome but then painted over in black?!



And the purpose of the block between the front seats:


----

Also interesting - when I put in the civ interior and windows it looked like that (of course put in another base thats more preserved!):


Note the gap!

Then I put in the police interior, that's why it has the dashboard lifted..



Sure looks cool, now to find some beacons, new paint and livery and that will be one fine realistic Rover SD1 Police car

That's all for now folks - more later