These  very rare Volvo P 1800 miniatures, the manufacturer Maxwell called them "precision die cast" (!), came from Calcutta in India. They have been seen on toy fairs several times during the late 80ties but their date of production is not known.

These ugly but for that reason very lovely cars came with different wheels and different simple bottom plate versions.

Obviously the first version has very strange wheels and white or brown bottom plates.

The version with the golden painted spokes on the better formed wheels have bottom plates in the colour of the car and the plate design is otherwise than the first versions plates, they all have no makes or brands.

But all of these silly miniatures have yellow or red flower stickers on the bonnet.

I know the following colours, but there may have been more:

Red, dark red, dark red metallic all with yellow flowers, light blue with yellow or red flower, light green with yellow or red flower, petrol blue with yellow flower, violet with yellow flower, dark green with yellow flower, and the last version in yellow with red flower or orange brown with yellow flower.

Another bizarreness are their boxes.

The indish manufacturer Maxwell was very economical. They printed a box for two different cars. Two large sides of the box show the Volvo P 1800 and the other two large sides show the Vauxhall Guildsman.

On one short side you can see the logo of Maxwell Toys, manufactured by Maxwell Co. Calcutta and the No. 512 for the Volvo, on the second short side "Maxwell mini" is printed and you find a small round sticker for the respective cars colour version.

Peter 29/01/06