Silver City 34a Volkswagen promotional?

[Maestro]

Can anyone please help me on information on this "Silver City" 34a Volkswagen I recently bought on Ebay?













Seller informed me that he received the model approx. 15 years ago from a representative of Silver City Airways who said the model had been a promotional
of Silver City Airways at the end of the 1950's / first years of the sixties.

The decals appear to be of that period, the characters are somewhat convex, and are not flat as the nowadays printed repro decals.
But somehow I mean to spot remains of the Original "Matchbox International" decals just underneath/besides the Y?
Could they have removed the original decals back then to make it a promo model? And how many have been made?

A fellow collector on the Dutch 3-inch model car forum http://3inchforum.nl/ told me he also owned an identical "Silver City" 34a Volkswagen
in the 1970's, which he swapped with the late Mike Richardson, who back then confirmed it to be a genuine promotional model.
Apparantly some years later another "Silver City" had been spotted on Ebay.

On Silver City Airways documentation can be found on http://www.silvercityairways.com/.

Thanks for helping me out on this curious model!

Maarten

[Idris]

I looked at this when it was up for auction and came to the conclusion that it was a period code 3.

[Tinman]

I came to the same conclusion, an old code 3. I wonder how many are out there.

[DrJeep]

I came to the same conclusion, an old code 3. I wonder how many are out there.

I looked at this when it was up for auction and came to the conclusion that it was a period code 3.

Yes, I saw it too and decided the same. Do you think it was a promotional for Silver City or a home-made one-off, perhaps with decals from an aeroplane kit? I like it anyway, and it was interesting to read the history of the airline.

[Idris]

I came to the same conclusion, an old code 3. I wonder how many are out there.

I looked at this when it was up for auction and came to the conclusion that it was a period code 3.

Yes, I saw it too and decided the same. Do you think it was a promotional for Silver City or a home-made one-off, perhaps with decals from an aeroplane kit? I like it anyway, and it was interesting to read the history of the airline.

I've found some evidence supporting the view that it could be a home-made code 3 using decals sourced from elsewhere. (Note that these decals appear to have black lettering.)

Silver City.jpg (14.92 KiB) Viewed 5049 times

(There's a 42a somewhere underneath all that paint!)