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Mike is talking about his #74 Daimler Bus with cream interior which has a rear rivet holding the base to the body that Tinman had to point out to me months ago. They don't come apart to inspect his cream interior without destroying the model, so his wheelwell pictures are the best we can see of the bottom of his interior.
The 68B Bus with cream interior George has shown us here comes apart easily to inspect that interior bottom, and George's Great pictures have shown it's uniform color there. I also have interiors colored just like George's, as well as roofs on this 68B in that same color plastic as well. Both odd colored components are a factory variant that we have discussed on this Forum before, but not a lot of people collect plastic colors like this that are definitely NOT sunfade. These odd 68B interiors and roofs show uniform color even when scraped with a knife Idris, just as on the stations Nick has pointed out that used similar cream colors from the factory. I have shown Kay a Lesney Fire Station with cream front panel and 2 very stock white side panels on it. I found it at a Macungie Penn. Toy show he and I attended late in the afternoon after hundreds of Buyers passed it up for a very cheap price. Just as Nick has prized his odd Cream plastic Lesney buildings, this one is now my favorite odd color variant in our collection. The Fire Station with green roof is nice, but not nearly as unique as this multi-colored wall, red roofed variant.
As with any plastics, I realize there are also sun and environmentally effected plastic components found also, but most models effected will show paint damage and discoloring as well from these exposures. The roofs and interiors are of the same plastic on these 68Bs, so for one component to discolor, the other would also be equally effected by any adverse exposures. kwakers

motorman wrote:

nickjones wrote:nope, we don't have a prayer of getting the bus back together again so I left it out.

Yep your right I forgot......we are talking about Mike with a hammer and a blow torch

Thank you friends.
I will start working.

Dick, I'm not questioning the variation. I'm saying that it's simple to double check the Mercees bus to make sure it's actually a variation and not discolored from external sources.

kwakers wrote:Mike is talking about his #74 Daimler Bus with cream interior which has a rear rivet holding the base to the body that Tinman had to point out to me months ago. They don't come apart to inspect his cream interior without destroying the model, so his wheelwell pictures are the best we can see of the bottom of his interior.
The 68B Bus with cream interior George has shown us here comes apart easily to inspect that interior bottom, and George's Great pictures have shown it's uniform color there. I also have interiors colored just like George's, as well as roofs on this 68B in that same color plastic as well. Both odd colored components are a factory variant that we have discussed on this Forum before, but not a lot of people collect plastic colors like this that are definitely NOT sunfade. These odd 68B interiors and roofs show uniform color even when scraped with a knife Idris, just as on the stations Nick has pointed out that used similar cream colors from the factory. I have shown Kay a Lesney Fire Station with cream front panel and 2 very stock white side panels on it. I found it at a Macungie Penn. Toy show he and I attended late in the afternoon after hundreds of Buyers passed it up for a very cheap price. Just as Nick has prized his odd Cream plastic Lesney buildings, this one is now my favorite odd color variant in our collection. The Fire Station with green roof is nice, but not nearly as unique as this multi-colored wall, red roofed variant.
As with any plastics, I realize there are also sun and environmentally effected plastic components found also, but most models effected will show paint damage and discoloring as well from these exposures. The roofs and interiors are of the same plastic on these 68Bs, so for one component to discolor, the other would also be equally effected by any adverse exposures. kwakers

I hope the bandages are not a routine part of every project!

mike wrote: Thank you friends.
I will start working.

Tinman wrote:I hope the bandages are not a routine part of every project!

mike wrote: Thank you friends.
I will start working.

No No, Tinman, it's all ok.
I'm still at work.
Hope to morning with a success.
Little oops no problem. my wife is a doctor.

...yes, they were and Mike has held off showing the 'After pictures. One of which he has now shown and I managed to get another one from him, shown below.
Ghosty.

Idris wrote:We do need to bear in mind that the off-white/light tan colour may be solely the effect of ageing rather than representing the colour which the plastic left the factory in.

I understood your Post Joe, but I had waited a bit too long before I read Idris' comment above that seemed to reflect his doubting the originality of George's cream interior. I should have quoted that Post in my 'Novel' that was half a response to Idris' Post, and half in support of George's picturing the same interior I have had in 3 of my original 68B Mercedes Buses out of stores in the 1960s.
I had this same type of discussion with Christian a year ago about the number 9 plastic boats coming with either a 'stock' white floor assembly, a Tan floor assembly, or this same color cream floor assembly. Christian had some doubts on these plastics even after he posted a very nice picture of a cream hull on the #9 Boat that he fully accepted as original! It just seemed as though he was not prepared to accept the 2 odd floor colors, and had made the same type of comment as Idris did above to essentialy dismiss them (in his view, so Idris has company here). Just as on this 68B with pure white roof, if the Boat's hull remains bright white, but the interior floor is cream or Tan, it is very hard to understand why someone would suspect that the same plastic formulas would allow one piece to age to a totally different color if the 2 components are exposed to the same environment, light, and smoke conditions, etc on that single model.
George has inspired me with his deck colors of the #9 Boat at Nick's site, so I went a step further in collecting all the different deck, hull, and floor colors I could find that are all original Lesney oddities. I have seen fading, glue discolorations, etc., and have even displayed a couple of those severely damaged models on my 'Fake' shelves (with some repaint mistakes from EBay, LOL!) kwakers

Just in order to clarify, I am not dismissing the tan interior, I am merely suggesting, as a point for further discussion, that the off-white hue may be the result of changes in the plastic post-factory (c.f. dark blue 33a Ford Zodiac).

kerbside wrote:For those who had doubts about the colour under the seats, as you can see it is the same colour a deep cream/ tan.




George T.

For conclusive proof of colour being intentional please take a photo of these seats beside a purple 39b - it looks like the exact same shade on screen and we know that was never ivory!