Original Concept & with Permission of:- Dr Dinky
Creator: Dr Dinky

All courtesy goes to Wim van den Berg, Dr Dinky, who lives in the USA but come from the Netherlands for allowing his concept to be turned into this page.

Dr Dinky says :

In March 1968, the Golden Jacks or Take Off Wheels were introduced.
This gimmick is well described in the Great Book of Corgi so I won't go into that. There were two models which were scheduled to have the take off wheels as well: The 344 Ferrari Dino and the 342 Lamborghini Miura.

Due to the pressure from other manufacturers for more free-wheeling cars, Corgi decided (rather unwisely, imo) to re engineer these models to the new Whizzwheels at the last moment. Just imagine what that mistake must have cost. All the revising of molds.

Early boxes were already printed depicting the Golden Jack wheel feature. This was revised by putting a simple sticker over it.

Now comes the question: What would these two models have looked like if they had the Take off Wheels? Could it be done?

I looked at them closely and I discovered that the re-engineering to Whizzwheels only slightly disguised the Golden Jacks. As a matter of fact , the Miura has even a Take Off Wheel under the hood, or bonnet as you Brits say.
I should be possible to reverse engineer it back to Golden Jacks originally intended.

Well, I succeeded. With minimal cutting ( the original slots were clearly visible) I could take a good model and put in the Golden Jack bits I removed from a Mini Marcos ( the only ones fitting), which worked nicely. Only I had to stretch the middle a bit as the Miura and the Ferrari were longer. And I did not even have to repaint the models. When anyone notice: the rivets are a development and trademark of Dr Dinky.

Now to make the effect complete I had to reverse the boxes too.
I took carefully the stickers off , made a copy of the box on which I stuck the sticker again, so I ended up with an original box for my Golden Jack models and another for the Whizzwheels one. I did the same thing for the Ferrari as well.

I had done this conversion in 2000, but I did not know of a Corgi forum where I could tell about it. So there you have it. Two historical models as they should have been all along.

I was in the process of making another Golden Jacks conversion from a red Miura which just came in. I noted there was a completely different wheelstyle in the spare bay under the hood. No other model ever had this type. My original like in the first picture came with the wheel used for the Hillman.
This new style wheel I have seen in pictures of the yellow Miura. Would it be possible they designed a new wheel for the Miura with Take-of-Wheels? This wheelstyle is clearly visible so I thought this would have been the style they were going to use.
What is the Corgi community take on this?

Well, here is a closer look in Dr Dinky's workshop.
It is actually not to difficult of a job, just a bit hand steadyness.
Probably took about less than an hour. The only thing is to take it apart, cut the slots and put it back together. Everything is there already, you just have to reveal it.

Cut the Mini Marcos suspention in half

Start cutting with the blade to make the initial cut on all four corners.

Square the slots off with a carbide bit which is the perfect width. Do it at this angle for all sides

Then the other sides.

Now the most is done, rest is just reassemble.

Glue the suspention parts in place, carefully to allign them good. I used superglue, but anything strong will do.

And there you have it.

Just to continue with this story:

I just got in a red Miura and low and behold it had another Miura wheel.

In the same deal I got a silver one, which as we have seen has been further "cheapened" by taking out the spare wheel and cast one in.

So I was dying to see if the plastic holder which is part of the interior, was still there. And yes! So, now I can make the silver version in Take off wheels aswell. The other change was the filled in opening behind the engine, but that does not influence the conversion.

Besides the usual cutting, I need to cut out the cast spare and put a regular in its place.

Nice thing is that the silver ones are easier to get.

I finally got a set of those Miura wheels and boy do they look nice on it. Just for kicks I put red-dots on one and even that is a great improvement.

My dream for a complete conversion WITH wheels even finally materialised.

I like to anounce my new batch of Miura wheels, made by BTS.
Barry did a splendid job. I bought his whole production.
So if any of you wants some, let me know. They will fit nicely on other Golden Jacks models too. Just a real pretty wheel.

Another one :