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Idris wrote:

We have no evidence that they don't fall out under gravity. Unpainted, they might well do. Painted, they are held in by...er....paint!

SMS88 wrote:As I have said earlier in this thread, ERF , (like the RW71a) was a brand of truck known for vertical spare wheel behind the cab NOT horizontal under the tray back so i stick with my assessment that this was a planned detail eliminated from production most likely after the trial assembly run made before volume production began -just like the maroon base 23cs!

You have made this statement before but, in spite of being challenged, have failed to produce any evidence to back it up.

SMS88 wrote:I have no idea why Jack Odell chose this elderly 1950 model ERF truck for the 1-75 series HOWEVER odds are it was because Lesney owned some for deliveries and that they had spare wheels behind the cab

Pure, unadulterated supposition!

1. We have plenty of evidence that these spare wheels DID NOT fall out under gravity - they would never have survived the tumbling and painting processes in place if they were loose enough to roll out.And George has shown us that its possible to find #20a that were painted with wheels in place but have lost them over time,childish fingers statistically most likely cause for loss of wheel! The #20A in my collection has small un-numbered MW so I am sure that they were not cast in same tool that made the body.And details like the twin fuel tanks which had to be silvered - not just the common 1 but 2 tanks is evidence of details observed & regarded as significant by Jack Odell on a handy 1:1 truck

2. No need to take my word for it, pull your finger out ,do what i did an google up or flickr search for photos of vintage ERF trucks - on those on rare occasions where a spare wheel is visible it is always vertical and sometimes behind the cab in front of the load bed.

3. Most 1-75 series were new models of 1:1 vehicles currently in production. Idris can believe anything he chooses to believe however Jack Odell Lesney made a very odd choice to produce the obsolete 1947-1953 ERF V type as the #20A instead of the current 1954 to 1961 ERF KV which was to become the #20b.however its not an odd choice but a completely natural choice for Jack Odell to model an ERF V type if he owned a bunch of them for delivering Lesney products -and we already know that he enjoyed making toys of 1:1 that he liked and owned (53a,53b).

Diecast wrote:I noticed that one model has more treads and the wheel is a little bit larger.

Very interesting! I've wondered about this point many times on different models whilst looking at Ebay listings and now here's proof
I can confirm that mt spare whel 20a has the smaller diameter wheels.

SMS88 wrote:
1. We have plenty of evidence that these spare wheels DID NOT fall out under gravity - they would never have survived the tumbling and painting processes in place if they were loose enough to roll out.And George has shown us that its possible to find #20a that were painted with wheels in place but have lost them over time,childish fingers statistically most likely cause for loss of wheel! The #20A in my collection has small un-numbered MW so I am sure that they were not cast in same tool that made the body

2. No need to take my word for it, pull your finger out ,do what i did an google up or flickr search for photos of vintage ERF trucks - on those on rare occasions where a spare wheel is visible it is always vertical and sometimes behind the cab in front of the load bed.

3. Most 1-75 series were new models of 1:1 vehicles currently in production. Idris can believe anything he chooses to believe however Jack Odell Lesney made a very odd choice to produce the obsolete 1947-1953 ERF V type as the #20A instead of the current 1954 to 1961 ERF KV which was to become the #20b.however its not an odd choice but a completely natural choice for Jack Odell to model an ERF V type if he owned a bunch of them for delivering Lesney products -and we already know that he enjoyed making toys of 1:1 that he liked and owned (53a,53b).

Re Point 1: The only evidence we have is those wheels which did not fall out again and which are now 'glued' firmly in place by paint. How can we ever prove that the wheels do not fall out under gravity when all those which were not wedged in firmly enough have already fallen out?

Re Point 2: If there are so many images out there, please post one. (This is now the third time you've been asked to put your money where your mouth is!)

Re Point 3: If we're indulging in completely baseless flights of fancy, why not propose that the 9a Dennis was based on the Works own Fire Engine?

At what point does this 'Wheel behind the cab' model become a deliberate variation?

If a handful turn up in collections, say no more than four or five examples, they may still be classed as 'Error' models, but if more are found, is it not correct to class them as normal production models and the idea behind putting the wheel there on purpose to help with the rigidity of the model, is valid. The brace may have been put there to do this instead of the wheel, saving on components, but the operators carried-on adding the wheel not realising they did not need to and carried on doing it until they were told the brace is fine, leave the wheel out.

Just a thought,

GHOSTHUNTER.

There is a lot we don't know, or can only speculate on these "spare tire" ERF's but there are a few things we do know:
1. Lesney was cheap (cheap enough to want to save the cost involved with an extra wheel, and labor that could easily have been molded into the casting)
2. The wheels are held in with either paint (doubtful) or pressure (more likely) and not any sort of hardware that would prove they were suppossed to be there.
3. There was a tumbling process at Lesney
4. Quality control would not have allowed for every model to be hand inspected

Without knowing anything more as fact, the knowledge we do have points to these as being nothing more than an error. The interesting thing though is the possibility that these errors were created in a machine (the tumbler) as oppossed to a tired worker putting on mismatched wheels or backwards windscreens.

ford_a_30 wrote:There is a lot we don't know, or can only speculate on these "spare tire" ERF's but there are a few things we do know:
1. Lesney was cheap (cheap enough to want to save the cost involved with an extra wheel, and labor that could easily have been molded into the casting)
2. The wheels are held in with either paint (doubtful) or pressure (more likely) and not any sort of hardware that would prove they were suppossed to be there.
3. There was a tumbling process at Lesney
4. Quality control would not have allowed for every model to be hand inspected

Without knowing anything more as fact, the knowledge we do have points to these as being nothing more than an error. The interesting thing though is the possibility that these errors were created in a machine (the tumbler) as oppossed to a tired worker putting on mismatched wheels or backwards windscreens.

Lesney wasnt cheap -there is plenty of evidence that Jack Odell built as much quality into his toys as possible for the budgeted cost,and details survived on models as long as they remained within budget -RW & YY were never dumbed down as much as they could have been if Lesney had been a really greedy company.