39b and 893 Tracteur Unic saharien [Unic Sahara Pipe Transporter] (1959-70)

Hi Jan. Here are my Unic Saharien all together, with my new arrival. On the left : 1st issue (convex hubs at the front) In the middle : 2nd issue (concave hubs at the front) on the right : 3rd and last issue (concave hubs and the filled trailer-girder) and on the stage, like a star, the cabin with the white roof ! And the two different boxes. Kind regards Richard

All those beauties, Richard! And the one with the white roof is exceptional, perhaps a prototype, a star indeed! Kind regards, Jan

Hi Jan. Following my message in the 'new arrival' topic the particularity of my new tractor is .... the colours ! It has been painted with two different batches ! The cabin is painted in sand color and, the chassis and the trailer are in almost salmon color, as the last versions. Friendly yours Richard

Very peculiar indeed, Richard! I have a Euclid Rear Dump Truck, showing a slighter difference in shades. Yours is obvious and remarkable. Anyway, this proves that these parts of the Unic Tractor used to be painted before and not after assembly. You are indefigatable in searching and finding new variants and anomalies! Kind regards, Jan

Richard & Jan----Wow, that is both amazing and unique....have we ever seen an example of that before? And I certainly agree with Jan's observation: you are the undisputed king of Dinky variations and anomalies.......very nice additions to your already wonderful collection.Best regard, Terry

With reference to Jacques' recent request for a picture of the 1960 Dutch or Swiss catalogue, showing both the new number and the obsolete, never used old number 39B: a picture of page 39 of the Dutch catalogue below, a photo of the Unic tractor included, showing the 'eternal' no. 39 below, cast into the diecast base plate. Kind regards, Jan

Three more pictures of the French Unic pipe truck and its contemporary relatives:

700 440An other type of pipe transporter. 500 539and an other one

The tubes connected produce a 90 cm (or, in reality, 49.5 m) long pipeline!

Meccano planed to make bends for these tubes but they did not.

Back to the first post on this page by Richard, it seems that questions about the white roof cab have not been answered.It is almost certainly a pre-production sample made to check if all the parts fit properly and to test the mask for the white roof which was planed but not made in production for price reasons. This is the model which was used by Jean Mass to make the drawings for the catalogues and boxes.Amazingly the spare wheels are white on this sample. Why were the next models made with more expansive sand colour spare wheels and later white wheels were fitted again ? This could be because the tyres were too difficult to fit and the sand washers were riveted after the tyres had been placed on the white roof rack part.The plain pipes were probably samples used for the drawings before the plastic mould was made.Richard asked for the window poster of June 1959, here it is. the cab's roof is not white. It is not either on the rear cover of the June 1959 Meccano Magazine but it is white on the February 1962 English Meccano Magazine page vi.