No diecast today 3/16/22 - Instead, a tale of three Chryslers

A few years back I was updating pics of my Western models, including the 1933 Chrysler Indy pace car made for Toys for Collectors. The radiator ornament had been maintained in its plastic bag but I took it out for photos. When I went to put the model back, it had fallen somewhere, lost forever. Drat! Only i didn't say drat.

So ever since, I've been looking for a cheap Western or even considered the Ixo Museum series Chrysler that I could hack the part off of. In the meantime, I messed up another Chrysler, the GLM 1931 Imperial sedan. A nice model, but this early GLM had hand-painted whitewalls. I guess they had not perfected two-piece or printed tires yet. Anyway, the paint had visibly strayed onto the chrome outer wheel part here and there and I could not find a non-destructive way to remove it. Plus they just didn't look good. So I thought I'll just turn the tires around and have blackwalls, then touch up the chrome. It worked - once. By the second tire I heard a crunching noise and realized just how frail those plastic wire wheels are. Great. Only I didn't say great. I considered the model destined for the parts bin.

Then one day while searching for something else on ebay I found a Western Chrysler Phaeton (top up) that had been a bit squashed with several parts broken off. But it had the ornament and was reasonably cheap. So I got it. One thing I noticed on receipt was that the phaeton got a bit more detailing than my TfC model, like blackwashed grille. So I swapped out the whole radiator/light/horn assembly. I also swapped the dash, which at least had minimal painted details vs. the all-brown TfC unit. So my pace car is back up to speed.

Then I started looking at the mid-brown wheels with nice whitewalls on the now-disassembled Western. They are of a steel spoke design, not wires, but with a few very minor mods they fitted right in. They clash with the spoked spares, but sitting on a shelf they look OK if you don't look too close. I thought about swapping the spares, but they are glued tight to the Western. Of coures, the hood ornament on this one fell off somewhere. I won't repeat what I said this time.

Now who needs parts from the carcass of a Western Imperial Phaeton? And it beats me how it ended up in a pace car box.