Ford Consul

The 200 Ford Consul was the first of the first. The first car in the first ever Corgi range released in 1956. They hung on to this casting though for too long I remember. When I was a kid I really wanted a toy Ford Consul, as I thought they were a really splendid car - but this was the old one. In 1957 it was replaced with a Yankee style beauty that shared a body shell with the uber-glamorous Zephyr and Zodiac, the MkII 'Three Graces'. I was offered one of these old Consuls more than once and turned it down! I really like it now.

The 1956 release as No.200 was in plain colour without the flywheel motor. The colours were; cream, dark, bright or pale green, tan, blue or grey/brown. This is an historic die-cast and will always get a good price. There is no real price variation down to colour. It remained in the range until 1961

The 200M motorised Consul was released concurrently in 1956 with the non-flywheel version, remaining in the range until 1959. Several of the early Corgi cars were available with friction flywheel motors. They are usually seized solid when you find them now.

The motorised car was available in blue and in shades of green. Blue cars are rarer than green ones and as such get a small premium on the price. All of them though are valued quite well.

All the 1956 releases of both versions were painted in a single colour. In 1959 it was given a facelift by adding a second colour. Cars were quite often two-tone then, I quite like it and sort of wish you could still get a two-tone option on full size cars, I guess you can on some.

The two-tone Consuls were two-tone green, green & cream, silver & cream and pale grey over green

There have also been a few later re-releases to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Corgi brand in 2006