My Dinky 104 Spec­trum Pur­suit vehi­cle, or SPV, was pur­chased for me by my mom around 1975 from either Bloom­ing­dale’s in Hack­en­sack, NJ, which had a love­ly toy depart­ment, or Five Cor­ners Toy and Gift in West­wood, NJ. My SPV was played with often but had been packed away with the rest of my sur­viv­ing child­hood diecasts since 1986. I dug it out a few years ago.

Like most late-1960s and 1970s Dinky Toys, the Dinky 104 SPV was packed with fea­tures that made it a very fun toy. The front hatch fired a mis­sile when the front of the mod­el was pressed down, and the rooftop anten­na low­ered and raised with a fin­ger­tip knob. At the rear were four retractable rub­ber tank-like treads for extra trac­tion. The operator’s door had a spring release acti­vat­ed by press­ing the white but­ton on the roof, reveal­ing a minia­ture Cap­tain Scar­let dri­ver fig­ure. The design­ers at Mec­ca­no did a very good job mod­el­ling the toy after the actu­al SPV from Ger­ry Anderson’s hit TV show Cap­tain Scar­let and the Mys­terons.

Although this toy sur­vived my child­hood some­what intact and with min­i­mal paint loss, it looked as though it had actu­al­ly seen heavy com­bat with Cap­tain Black and the Mys­terons. It was miss­ing the rear track assem­bly, the rooftop anten­na was bro­ken, and pieces had fall­en inside the mod­el.

The release pin that opened the front hatch to fire the mis­sile was jammed and some of the decals were gone. The white front rub­ber bumper had split and the Cap­tain Scar­let fig­ure was miss­ing. As a kid, I would take apart some of my screwed-togeth­er toys, much to the dis­may of my par­ents. But it was hard to resist, and fun! As a result, mine was also miss­ing one of the screws that held the mod­el togeth­er.

I don’t “restore” my old toys, as that involves strip­ping and repaint­ing, drilling out riv­ets, and a host of oth­er tasks. Instead, I enjoy refur­bish­ing them, which to me means giv­ing them a thor­ough clean­ing and pol­ish­ing, and then replac­ing any bro­ken parts and decals. Luck­i­ly, the driver’s door and front mis­sile hatch were intact and ful­ly oper­a­tional. I still had a few of the orig­i­nal mis­siles, too. Many Dinky toys from my 1970s child­hood era were screwed togeth­er, so they are eas­i­ly dis­as­sem­bled for refur­bish­ing.

Although mod­ern repro­duc­tions of the miss­ing parts and decals are cur­rent­ly avail­able, they can be expen­sive. Almost all have to be sourced from the U.K., so ship­ping can be very high for these small items, espe­cial­ly when list­ed on eBay with the dread­ed Glob­al Ship­ping Pro­gram. I decid­ed to instead look for a “parts queen” SPV, as there are often many avail­able on eBay, and one prefer­ably sold by a U.S. sell­er in order to save on ship­ping. Over a peri­od of a few months, I pur­chased two for a total of about $30, includ­ing ship­ping.

My search took a bit longer than expect­ed, as many of these mod­els are fit­ted with the very incor­rect and unat­trac­tive black bumper. The actu­al SPV in the show had a white bumper, as did mine. The two I found pro­vid­ed the anten­na, rear track assem­bly and an intact white front bumper. Using these orig­i­nal play worn mod­els was much cheap­er than pur­chas­ing repro­duc­tion parts, which are often not quite right in terms of fit. I lat­er was able to resell the two parts queens on eBay, recoup­ing almost half of what I paid for them, which was a bonus.

The only new parts I bought from the U.K. were the Cap­tain Scar­let fig­ure and a set of beau­ti­ful­ly repro­duced pre-cut decals. Luck­i­ly, nei­ther sell­er used the extreme­ly over­priced eBay Glob­al Ship­ping Pro­gram but instead shipped via Roy­al Mail, and the cost was quite mod­est.

Refur­bish­ing began by unscrew­ing the mod­el to sep­a­rate the upper and low­er body pieces. The inte­ri­or of the low­er body was quite dusty and need­ed a good clean­ing. A dry paint­brush and a few blasts of com­pressed air did the trick. The low­er body was then pol­ished, with clean­ing around the ten wheels tak­ing the most time.

The upper body received the same treat­ment, leav­ing the sil­ver-blue paint with a love­ly sheen. Two of the three round Spec­trum decals were miss­ing, and the third was peel­ing off. The old glue had left a hard residue, so this had to be care­ful­ly com­pound­ed away before new ones could be applied. Two of the three square SPV decals were still quite pre­sentable, so only the front one had to be replaced. Over the years, this decal had slid down­ward and was jam­ming the front mis­sile hatch.

It took some research to find high qual­i­ty pre-cut decals. I’m amazed that in the 21st cen­tu­ry, some ven­dors still sell decals that have to be cut out, which I think is ridicu­lous. The orig­i­nal 50 year old decals were pre-cut by Meccano’s ven­dor, so one would think they all would be by now. Instead, some sup­pli­ers are print­ing decal sheets at home and lack the com­mer­cial equip­ment to pro­duce them pre-cut.

The donor SPVs pro­vid­ed a com­plete and unbro­ken track assem­bly with still flex­i­ble orig­i­nal tracks, which eas­i­ly snapped into a slot at the rear. They also pro­vid­ed the anten­na that was insert­ed back into place, and the white rub­ber bumper which also snapped into posi­tion. The rub­ber tracks were very dirty, as was the bumper, so I soaked them in Dawn dish soap for a few hours. I then gen­tly scrubbed them with a soft tooth­brush, and they came out look­ing new again. The release pin that opens the front hatch when pres­sure is applied was jammed, so it was freed.

The Cap­tain Scar­let dri­ver fig­ure had long been miss­ing from my mod­el, so a good replace­ment was sourced from Steve Flow­ers’ Mod­el Sup­plies in the UK. This part fits sur­pris­ing­ly well into the hole in the driver’s seat back and was secured with a small dab of Weld­bond, a strong non-sol­vent white glue that won’t attack plas­tic parts.

The SPV is now ful­ly assem­bled, cleaned, and look­ing almost new again, with the tracks, decals, anten­na, and bumper all installed.

This was a fun lit­tle win­ter project, and I’m extreme­ly pleased with the result. The fin­ished SPV now looks almost new as if it just came out of the Spec­trum work­shops, and func­tions as it should — more than 50 years lat­er. Since its rebirth, the SPV puts a smile on my face every time I see it.