25c Bedford petrol tanker

[Dr Jazz]

Checked all 10, all thicker cab. 5 ARAL, 4 normal BP and GPW BP.

[mike]

Hi Jason.
Very interesting contribution.
Also a comparison with the blue model, sharing no differences.

[nearlymint]

Leave it to you Jason to find an odd variation on a model I have lots of spares to look through. If this was not so much fun, I could get upset over your being so sharp on our 'common' early regular wheels. Nice spot on this one yet again. I am after only one of Nick's tomorrow, so mind your manners this time! LOL.....kwakers

Sorry about that kwakers, just one I have wanted for ages. I will keep an eye out for you over here.
I am not sure if I am bidding at the moment a bit close to christmas for me, goodluck on what ever you go for he has some great models. J

[nearlymint]

I have checked some of my spares quickly and also our collection, but all have the thicker rear cab on them. If I were to take a wild guess Jason, I would say yours has the silver trim on the front grill, and it is in fact very early production. It may in fact be the first (?) casting design that snuck out to the stores in very small numbers. I did check our GPW version and it does not have the silver grill or this thin cab. Great piece! kwakers

Yes is does have the silver to the front grill(good guess), bought this in a job lot with a GPW version which is the same as yours(noticed that both my GPW version,s do not have silver grill or thin cabs).
Jason

[nearlymint]

Maybe easier to view through the cab, as it shows a cast line across the back(later one is smooth all the way down to the bottom of the cab).

25c.jpg (67.31 KiB) Viewed 3485 times

Jason

[johnboy]

Nicely spotted Jason, I've checked 15 and no luck. So I must look out for this one now

[jsherwood]

my gpw has the thick cab - no silver trim.

Cheers
John

[Idris]

I've been PM-ing with fellow Forum member Sebastian10 about the cabs on the 25c and what he made clear to me is that both the inside face and the outside of the rear wall of the cab were modified early on, but at different times, resulting in not two, but three different versions:
- Version 1: Thin-walled, with internal horizontal casting line.
- Version 2: Thin-walled without internal horizontal casting line.
- Version 3: Thick-walled without internal horizontal casting line.
If the above is correct, then Version 2 must represent a probably extremely short-lived (and presumably unsuccessful) first attempt to strengthen the lower part of the back of the cab. However, it is also possible that if twin tooling were used for this model, then we are simply looking at a detail difference between the dies which disappeared when the external changes were made..

Does any Member besides Sebastian have an example of Version 2 as detailed above?

[DrJeep]

I've finally got round to looking at mine. I have one with the thin wall and the sharp casting line but not the intermediate version that Sebastian showed here. Sebastian's photo is interesting because the base of the cab is very neatly moulded: most have a very poor casting like the one on the left below. I can't see any sign that there are two different cab moulds though with a 1964 date it wouldn't be out of the question.

IMG_7984 (1).jpg (295.9 KiB) Viewed 2840 times

The left-hand tanker here is also early, with a silver grille, but there seem to be two different shades of yellow (thin wall on the right here).

IMG_7985.jpg (335.74 KiB) Viewed 2840 times

[DrJeep]

Thinking about it some more, I can see that the second modification was to curve the back of the cab, and this explains the messy cab base on most 25cs. The first repair, to thicken the inside of the cab wall, was very neatly done. Sebastian’s intermediate version is very interesting. I wonder if it’s really rare or just hard to spot?