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Hi All:

Inspired by the Matthew Wharmby book on the London DMS, I repainted a Dinky Atlantean. The adverts somewhat predate the bus by almost a decade, but it's one of my favorite Sci-Fi movies. Anyway enjoy.

Sunning itself in front of my fictitious "East Hackney Garage."


A view of the rear, need a little more detail around the lights and perhaps some stickers on the back. Note the Matchbox k-15 awaiting my attention. That was Matchbox's tribute to the DM/DMS bus.

Looks great to me. Looks like quite a collection of buses.

Bob

Thanks Bob. Yes, this is only the tip of the iceberg of my collection.

Love what you have done to the Dinky and the film signage could always be for a 'Classic' showing of the film in the local Cinema. I think your East Hackney Garage is great, wish I had the room (and spare time!!), to do something similar.

If you haven't already can we see some more of your Bus(s), collection in any size or material here...viewforum.php?f=31

Ghosthunter.

Thanks Ghosty. Will do on the collection post. The garage is a shoe box and a few hours of time. Named in honor of east London and the birthplace of Matchbox cars -- Hackney.

Regards,
Tito

Very nicely done with the adverts, I like the bus depo too

zBret

Just finished another Atlantean (2912) and closest to the camera. Pictured with a recent e-bay find, which I am thinking of also re-painting and customizing (although it seems somewhat of a pity). Far end, Corgi 468 unmodified and sans jeweled headlights.

Very nice! That one in Citybus livery brings back memories of my local Southampton Citybus Atlanteans.

One of the very first toys I remember is the Dinky Yellow Pages bus, which lost large amounts of its paint and is now long gone (but since replaced ). I also had a Superkings DMS, but Matchbox didn't make a very good job of that one. Having said that, I don't remember noticing the dubious modelling when playing with it in the sandpit. The small No.17 bus was a much nicer model, but too small to go with any of my other toys. Zylmex made a nice toy, spoilt only by the heavy front end, and the strange sliding door on later issues.

For a toy, the Dinky was very reasonable, even if the engine cover looks like a Daimler Fleetline, rather than a Leyland Atlantean, and they seem to have been popular with bus collectors in the 70s, no doubt due to the 1/76 scale. I recently bought one at a car boot sale, painted as an early 70s London Country AN class Atlantean. What impressed me was the fact that the staircase had been moved to match the real bus - quite a major job! The windscreen and front panels have also been altered to better match this particular bus. One problem with modelling buses is all those detail differences between different body builders and even different batches. Britbus make a very nice detailed model of the same bus, but I like the effort which has been put into this old Dinky (and it is unlikely to get metal fatigue, unlike a couple of my Britbus Atlanteans ). The overall advert bus is another conversion I bought, also with repositioned stairs. The front detailing is different on this one, as it represents one of a batch of 30 with MCW bodies which were diverted from Midland Red to London Country. A lot of the advert details are hand-painted, so someone spent a lot of time and care on this. I have some destination blinds to add to it, but I'm not sure what to do about those oversized boxes which have been painted on. Dinky did make this advert, but it's a very rare promotional so not likely to make its way to my collection!
Here are a couple of original Dinkies for comparison. The staircase is half a window bay further forward. These were another lucky boot sale find, as they were specials commissioned by John Gay.

I like the look of ''tito's'' Thrre Atlanteans in his last picture. Remind me so much of Bus depots with parked up Busses waiting for repairs after a hard Weeks use!

Some nice detailing on ''Fred7a's'' Buses and what a simple detail like painting the 'Speedwheels' in matching body colour has made to the overall look if replacements are not ready or available.

Ghosthunter.

Nice posts Fred. Love what was done with the Dinky, especially the wheels on the one with the adverts. While the light blue Atlanteans don't strike my fancy, I wish I could come across a boot sale with such items available.

I do have a few Zylmex DMSs and I agree that they are a closer likeness to the real London Transport bus, although whoever introduced the sliding doors killed the likeness. I would work on them, but there is one pin holding the baseplate and it looks like a job of work removing it.

Matchbox missed the boat with their DMS (aka "The Londoner"), which was a little too fat. However, I have a soft spot for it. As I might have mentioned, the one pictured at the bus garage will soon undergo restoration into a Yellow Pages bus.

Tito