Minic 58ME Daimler sunshine saloon with electric headlamps and battery : I see the light

 From all the Minic line, the electric ones are the top collector items, they were more expensive than the others at the time and they still are. I've been told by Parisian shop keeper Vincent Espinasse some MIB sedancas had sell for 1500 euro in the late eighty's; at the time it was a very huge price, it would be something between 3000 and 4000 euro. In fact prices have dropped rather than increase and even if their price are the same than ten years ago, the cost of living increases year after year and that's a good thing for collectors.

At first, I said to myself that I wouldn't buy any Electric Minic, but when I noticed a beautiful Sunshine saloon (my favourite body of the three available) in a sale at auction a few months ago, I plunged.

It was fitted with repro black tyres a bit to large, I know as that model was first advertised in august 1938, it certainly didn't meet white tyres for long. The black ones seem to have been introduced in 1939, but I always disliked black tyres and preferred the more "toy-ish" white ones.
So I "aged" two couples of white reproduction white tyres and... here go.

Opening roof on the sunshine saloon, on the right picture one can see there are no rear seats...

Yes, no rear seats, because what's behind the opening boot ? The place to put the battery.

Note the brass screw used to turn on the light.

At that point I got very embarrassed, I had to do a lot of research do know the voltage of the headlamps. I eventually found that their tension is 2,5 volts... I wasn't more clever after that, where would I find a 2,5 battery, after research I read this type of battery wasn't produced any longer for many years...

Soon I thought of putting two 1,5 batteries with a little piece of tin and some tape. And it works. Another thing is that it was missing a headlamp cowl, fortunately Richard Elliott-Smith a very kind former vintage toy dealer provided me one he had still in his stock. May he be thanked for ever and God bless him until the seventh generation !

Fiat lux !

And last picture, all the majesty of a sublime car that goes in the nightfall with the splendid thirties touch, the little witness lights on the top of the headlamp cowls...

"I see the light" doesn't refer here to the american psych / pop song of the sixties but to a more obscure song by a British band called the Ugly's. If the scene shot above seems to be from 1965 (which I doubt), the track itself is a massively rare 7" single (less than a dozen copies would have been pressed) recorded in late 1968. It's sad because the song is brilliant with its à la Bowie verse..