Bill Ev's Corgi Cadillac Ambulance Restoration

Sometime around 1966, I bought a Corgi Cadillac Ambulance.  As a little kid, I was attracted to the flashing light on the roof, and didn't consider the colour scheme.  By 1967, I had decided that I really did not like the Red and White livery and did something about it with a newly acquired can of white spray paint.

Sometime later, I discovered how to mask painted areas and added some nifty orange stripes and shapes.  By 1969/1970, I had tired of most of my toy cars, so into the toy box it was consigned.

Now, nearly 60 years have passed since I parted with my pocket money to buy the ambulance.  When I discovered it alongside the SHADO Interceptor, James Bond DB5 and the Thrushbuster, it was clearly another candidate for restoration.  To begin with, I resisted the temptation to jazz it up like the Ghostbusters Ecto-1 Ectomobile.  But I did research up if it was sold in a different livery.  I quite liked the White and Light Blue scheme, so I pressed ahead with that.  To begin with, it had a good soaking in a cellulose paint thinners, and after 24 hours all the paint had gone.

Next, it was sprayed white with a cadmium white colour spray paint.

The last process was somewhat fiddly masking off the areas to be pained blue and silver.  But the job was completed without much fuss, and it was on to putting the water slide transfer's on. These were incredibly fiddly, and it took a bit of positioning to get them close to right.

And then I attempted to lacquer it. God knows what was in the Plastikote clear lacquer, as it turned everything to crazy paving and dissolved the printing on both the transfer's and the number plates which Terranova had kindly sent from America to me, to complete the project!

I was gutted...

But, I'd spent some money to complete this damn thing. So back into the cellulose thinners it went, to repeat the whole process from scratch. However, I was not prepared to spend even more money on correcting this mistake. So I designed my own Red Cross bonnet transfer, and replicated the lettering to print both on my own water slide paper.

There was no way, that I was risking spraying clear lacquer again, [even a different brand] so I turned to my vintage supply of trusty Johnson's Klear.  Many people think this is floor polish, but its actually a water based acrylic varnish, which once dry can only be removed with ammonia! It also dries to a completely brushless shiny finish.

After an overnight stay in the warm conditions of my studio, and I finally had the completed upper chassis.  This was then bolted to the cleaned lower wheelbase, and the final work started on the battery case.  The original had long gone, so I sourced one off eBay.

And now, the end result, joining its siblings in the display case, with a replicated Terranova number plate.

And yes, I do have a Dinky FAB1 - I'll need to get some replacement parts for this, including Parker, who has gone AWOL since 1966. A restoration of this will be following.

And a question for the readers.  What brand/exact colour will be needed to accurately repaint FAB1? - I heard that the colour is called "Shocking Pink", but locating it is proving to be difficult.  Can the readers help and advise?