Friday, September 28, 2012

How not to buy a Beetle

BeelteKiteBay is bad sometimes. I love the Volkswagen Beetle. I've even got one in the garage awaiting restoration. I also love making things. So when I spotted a Meccano Beetle up for auction and cheap, I bid and won it.

After a few days, the box arrived and I settled down with a cup of tea and bar of chocolate, for a happy evening making it up.

Now the listing did say:

On offer is my son's unused but opened Maccano Beetle car set.

He opened the box, realised it didn't involve sitting in front of the TV with a game controller in his hand so lost interest straight away.

As a result I have no idea how many little bolts and nuts may be missimg, (if any)
There are a shed load of them in the boxes and everything appears to be there but i'm not 100%

some of the stuff is still in unopened bags in the box.

I really should have noted the Comic Sans, the font of doom. Once I started building, I realised that there were several parts missing. A seat for instance. Then the running boards. And some tabs that would hold part of the "bonnet".

Basically, I bought a pup. I can't complain, after all the listing was accurate.

The other thing I discovered was that I don't really like Meccano. Doing up all those nuts and bolts seemed to be fiddly and take ages. There's probably an hours work in the bits you see in the photo.

Perhaps I need to be developing my own model. Maybe that would be a lot more interesting. What I was doing wasn't much more than making a metal version of the wooden Beetle I constructed last year. Even if I'd finished it, the result would have been a toy car that was big enough to be a nuisance to store and yet I wouldn't have wanted to reduce it to component parts.

Mind you, it is frustrating not to finish it.

Never mind. For the tiny amount I paid, I've got a pile of useful Meccano bits for projects. I know I've wanted the odd bracket in the past and now I have a supply.

3 comments:

Andy Callaway said...

So basically, what you're saying is, since you realised it didn't involve sitting in front of the TV with a game controller in your hand you lost interest straight away.
(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Phil Parker said...

You're right. How could I have known ?

Jackofallhobbies said...

As a modeler, I have way to many unfinished projects--from trains, to cars, to display shelves, to yardwork..... and the weekend has just begun.
Enjoy your box of brackets.