Mystery wagon kit

A few months ago I lashed out a whole £2(!) on a plastic van kit at Jane's Trains in Tooting; it was obviously old, perhaps acquired from someone who'd had a clear-out of stuff that was never ever going to get built, or perhaps passed on from someone who's sadly no longer modelling in this world.

It came in a plastic bag - more like a sandwich bag than anything else

- with a gold Able-label-type sticker on it proclaiming that it's a 'Super Kit' and that it contains metal buffers and Ken-Maygib wheels. The kit itself is moulded in light grey styrene; the side and end mouldings are very nicely done indeed, the floor has a quite terrible reproduction of a vacuum cylinder and nothing else, and the roof (if there ever was one) is missing, though it was no trouble to knock up one in Plasticard; the buffers are indeed turned and blacked metal.

It's made up into a very nice free-running model, but I'm not sure either what the prototype is or who the manufacturer might be. The van has two doors each side, outside angle-bracing in a 'Z' pattern (though with a St. Andrew's Cross pattern on the panel between the two doors); the wheelbase scales at 12' 0" and length over headstocks is 21' 3".

So here are the questions: what could the prototype be - a Utility Van of some sort, perhaps? What would its BR livery and lettering have been? And who could have made it? Answers to any one of these questions would presumably help me to find the rest of the information more easily!

TIA folks!

John M Hughes West and Wales Web at

like some sort of GW Fruit Van- a Fruit C, perhaps. The 'Able-label' sounds like something that was to be found on an Ian Kirk or perhaps Parkside model. Brian

Got it - a Mink 'C' seems to match completely! Anyone got any idea who the manufacturer could have been?

The Able-label read 'Super Series Kit' BTW - I left out the word 'Series' in the original post.

Thanks to those who emailed me as well as to posters here!

John M Hughes West and Wales eb at

Parkside, or perhaps Ian Kirk / Coopercraft- sadly, I don't seem to be able to access any of the web pages for either. The 'Mainly Trains' site lists Mink D and G, Fruit D and Bloater, but all of these are too long. The link below should give you a photo of the van you've got during its later career :-

's from Paul Bartlett's excellent site. Brian

Sounds like a GWR Dia V7 Mink-C. 4mm Plastic kits were marketed at different times by both Ian Kirk and Colin Ashby - possibly from the same moulds ? Both have long since been discontinued AFAIK.

David

The excellent prototype picture shows both end ventilators and foot-boards, both of which are missing from the model, though I suppose that either could have been added later. It's amazing how long some of these wagons lasted!

Thanks!

John

I've come to exactly the same conclusion - thanks for the reference to both Ian Kirk and Colin Ashby - the latter simply hadn't occurred to me.

John