Hi all, coming across a scan which I made from the base plates of my British and French Rolls Royce examples some time ago, I thought it might be worthwhile for a remake of a contribution to the formerly very active Talkmodeltoys forum and post it here.

This ‘French’ Rolls Royce, is one of these remarkable examples in the relation between Meccano Liverpool and Meccano Bobigny. The parts were produced in England, shipped to France and assembled for the French market over there, in the Bobigny plant.

As far as I know these Bobigny assemblies were not available anywhere else: the UK, the Commonwealth countries and the other export markets saw the original Liverpool products only. Some other complete British Dinky products were packed in (scarce) French boxes only, a simple way to expand the far smaller range of French Dinkies more quickly in the early 1950s. The easily exchangeable, more or less ‘anonymous’ large commercials (i.a. the Coventry Climax 14c-401>597, the Blaw Knox Bulldozer 561-961>885, the Muir-Hill Dumper 562-962>887, the Coles 20t Lorry Mounted Crane 972>571) were in majority in this category (imported from England, or assembled and painted in France), as the distinct British cars were less suitable for the French market, because they were not that familiar on the French roads, like their own Citroëns, Renaults, Simcas etc.

But the prestigious, universally admired Rolls Royce was a rather lonely exception in the cars range in 1959. The Liverpool made parts were assembled in France, showing a distinct French base plate stamped ‘assemblé en France’. The shades of grey are exactly the same, so, was the body possibly painted in Liverpool already? It looks if the patent statement in the smaller engraved characters at the rear of the base plate is exactly the same, so perhaps that sub-job was also done in Liverpool already?

The model was packed in its own deviating French box, plain, lacking a picture of the model, and clearly stating ‘Assemblé en France’. Both the box and the base plate showed the individual French catalogue number: 551. Probably this product was limited to one batch only. It was available in France (and its overseas territories?) only, a little shorter than the Liverpool example (it was introduced there in February 1959 already).

Many more batches of the very common British made Rolls Royces no. 150 must have been produced by Meccano Binns Road for a much bigger market, because those are still very common and easily found.

In France this model car, introduced in October 1959, was – like the British one – the first Dinky with suspension. The suspension idea must have come up rather shortly before its introduction, as this adaption in the design was made as late as December 1958!

The catalogue representation of the French Rolls Royce was rather confusing. In 1960 it was referred to as number 551, in 1961 both the French and British numbers - 150-551 - were shown, and in 1963 a new designation was used: 150L, the L meaning ‘Liverpool’. The catalogues explain that these latter models were an ‘article importé en quantités limitées’.

The 551 number neatly fits within the surrounding French numbers 550 of the Chrysler Saratoga and 552 of the Chevrolet Corvair. Or the other way round of course: the 550 and 552 etc. filled the range around the earlier introduced number 551 of the Rolls Royce.

So, finally the Rolls Royce in the French catalogues was not a French assembly anymore, but just an English import, like so many others in that period. The other way round, many French made products were also sold on the British and other markets, both pre- (1938-1940) and post-war, (especially early and mid-sixties), and sometimes even assembled in Liverpool, like the (somewhat adapted) British version of the Caravelle (60f/891>997). Important other exceptions were of course the French Dinkies which were assembled in South-Africa in the first half of the 1960s.

Although the French had their own Rolls Royce, the windows specification on the end flaps of the British boxes was – next to Spanish, Dutch and German – also in French. That was to apparently serve the French speaking people outside the French territories, like in Belgium, Quebec, Switzerland etc. By the way: it can be observed that the French Rolls was more tightly stored in its smaller box than its British counterparts. Kind regards, Jan