257 Canadian Fire Chief's Car (1960-69)

Bruce,Richard and your self have posted some pictures of the red Rambler. Does your's with white tyres have a suspension ? if so there should ne a rivet in the middle of the base plate. Could you please post a picture of that base plate ? All the best.Jacques.

Hello Jacques The answer to your question is : no, my white tyres nash Rambler Fire Chief has no suspension. The models with the same dome light are quite identical except the white and black tyres. The third one has a mat base plate, a biggest dome light and a modification of the body under the front bumpers. Here under, three photos. Friendly yours

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[img]/images/sites/default/files/forum-images/Nash Rambler Fire Chief (a).jpg[/img]
[img]/images/sites/default/files/forum-images/Nash Rambler Fire Chief (b).jpg[/img]

Richard and Bruce, Many thanks for your comments and for showing your models. 700 275 I have no explanation for the two casting variations on the Canadian Fire chief's car. Is this due to die wear ? Both Peter Harington and Dr. Force mention that this model was fitted with suspension and steering from 1967. I can not believe this because otherwise the wheel axles would be above the baseplate but who knows, any thing could happen with Meccano. Has any one got a 257 with suspension ?

Richard and Bruce, Many thanks for your comments and for showing your models. I have no explanation for the two casting variations on the Canadian Fire chief's car although Meccano MAY have planed to extend the base plate forward. The recess is about the same width as the base plate. This variation seems to exist on either one or both sides of the model and with various depth. Bruce, only combat vehicles are fitted with a sight. lol Both Peter Harrington and Dr. Force mention that this model was fitted with suspension and steering from 1967. I can not believe this because otherwise the wheel axles would be above the base plate but who knows, any thing could happen with Meccano. Has any one got a 257 with suspension ?

Jacques and Richard Both my 257 with cast silver wheels (not spun aluminium) has a casting change under the front bumper but not the same as Richard's. Both my examples have a slight addition/deletion under and behind the front bumper in front of the driver's (assuming the model is left hand drive as it would be in Canada) as shown on the following images. Richard's example has this on both sides when the image is enlarged. His models's base plate is matt whereas mine are both glossy. And of course, this model does not have cast silver hubs, but the normal spun hubs. Jacques, just with the casting alone this means two casting differences to be added to your listing, not to mention the matt and glossy base plates. Also, neither of my cast silver hub models has suspension as shown with the images below. Kind regards Bruce (#150) 5 December 2015

Jacques Did not understand your joke about combat vehicles until I re-read my post and changed the word 'sight' to 'slight'. This d

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ed website does have a glitch in it or at least my computer must have, as I have to go back and add letters that do not appear. I mentioned this ages ago and was put down by 'someone' who considered the problem was me - and yet I spent 10 years in the Museum in Port Moresby typing my own correspondence, letters, memos, reports, etc, plus I had no problem with the old dtcaweb.net site in typing toe 699 posts. (Right now I have to go back and add letters missing from nine words and two non-existent spaces! I certainly had no problems with the old website and with the new site I still cannot figure out how to type a paragraph, add an image and then resume typing, then add another image and so on. All I can do is add all my images at the end that does not really make sense. Bruce 5 December 2015

With the old version of the dtca website, I think it was conventional, as was the case at TMT, to 'hotlink' images from places like photobucket, flickr and other image storage places, and drop these links between paragraphs to format a post in the way you describe. In this version of the website, it is recommended to upload images from your computer to here and not link images from other websites. There are two ways to upload images now. The easy way is the method you mention. The second method, to upload images between text, goes as follows; Click the icon in the text editor window for Images. This icon is second row, second left. A dialogue box titled Image Properties appears with a button to 'Browse server'. Click this and another dialogue box appears. Please ignore the warning message about file browsing. Click the button labelled Upload. Browse to the particular file on your computer that you want to upload, then click Upload. This action uploads the image. Now click the button 'Insert', which dismisses the dialogue box and then click OK to dismiss the previous dialogue box and then you will see the uploaded image placed into your post. You can continue typing and add more images in a similar fashion. Although this might seem complicated, it is a very linear process and, after couple of attempts, should become familiar. 652 586 *** The issue of missing characters is not one that I've come across before. If you have another post that has apparently dropped characters, please can you let me know before you change anything and I will be better able to investigate. al

Thanks Al for your words of wisdom with imags and txt. I will try it out the next time I embark on a long Post with words and pictures the same as i made many times before wth the old site. Incidentall, I only have pictures in my computer and haveneer used an external source. A frind uses a external means but found when returning to his email several months late, the images were no longer available. As for he missing letters and spaces, I have don a Post on the 702 Thrad and redid i with all the corrections. I a als leaving tis Post as my computer shows it, whih on reading back, is likened to reading hieroglyphics! Dave K. on having this problem raised identified the source as the typist!! Hope you can come up ith a solution apart frm shootin the messenger! Bruce (#150) 7 December 2015

With a sight. lol

The word hieroglyphics makes me wonder if this is a missing font issue. A browser is the software that you use to look at the internet and some versions of some browsers have been known to demonstrate font problems in that what you end up seeing is a lot of weird greek characters and symbols rendered in place of the expected text. So you might see things like this lub day. Normally a font substitution problem means that other areas of text, not just yours, are also improperly rendered - so I'm just having a preliminary guess here. Could you let me know a little bit more about your equipment. What version of windows do you have? (should tell you when you start the computer). What browser do you use? Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari?Do you have this problem only here, or on other websites also? Do you type in a program like Word, then copy/paste the text into the dtca website?

Jacques et al, Having now moved across to Google Chrome and away from Internet Explorer, I no longer have a problem typing into this forum! So no more machine guns with a sight when it should be slight, with reference to #5 above. I should have realized this was the problem, as I now recall that I had a problem using Internet Explorer with the old website, as the right hand column was always missing. I then changed to Chrome, and VOILA, the right-hand column appeared as well as other features were far better. My brain must have had the pause or delete button pressed! Cheers to all Bruce 150 9 December 2015

I just received a recently purchased example of the 257 Rambler Canadian Fire Chief's car, and thought I would post a few photos of this interesting model, as it appears that there were a few variations along the way. Mine does have the later matt finish base plate, and also came in a gold Vis a Pac box. It has black tires, but does not have the casting variation below the front bumper, as others have shown a few examples. It also has the larger roof mounted emergency light. So I am assuming that with the matt base plate, this is a somewhat later issue? But as a late issue, it also does not share the casting variation, which I thought it might. And the box clearly states that it comes with suspension.....I see that no one has posted a photo of one with it. Are there any Dinky models that were made first without it, then later with suspension? Like Jacques, I am somewhat dubious that it was ever made that way, but........ Regards, Terry