Neil’s 1970’s Models

This is me around 1976, aged about 11 at a craft show in my local Church. I built a Showman’s Road Locomotive copied from one in the smaller book by Bert Love. This was a very complicated build for me at that time but I was mad-keen on Meccano and always struggling to make my stock of parts stretch to meet my ambitions. This model worked very well.

One year later I was just starting to get to grips with remote control via a trailing cable – my own design for a multi-motor, tracked grab vehicle. This one was not especially elegant and I remember that it did not work terribly well either - not helped by my lack of decent motors.

I was about 14 when I built this model. I remember getting the majority of those 20 tyres for my birthday. The whole aim in those days, was to build the largest models possible, ideally utilising my entire Meccano collection and this one must have used every last nut and bolt. Drive, steering, tipper and lowering of the lifting wheels for the trailer were all motorised and controlled remotely. The lights also worked and the tailgate of the tipper was controlled by an electromagnet. A single powerdrive motor dragged this model along.

Aged about 15 this more sophisticated model was part of my last major build before the ‘Girls and Cars’ stage of my life started and my Meccano collection was carefully put to one side (I always knew that it would be needed again). This Scorpion tank had independent suspension on each wheel, drive to each track, revolving turret, elevating gun and working lights. I also built a huge articulated low-loader to carry this tank – again under the misguided impression that a bigger model would automatically mean a better one.