John Gay

Designer

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Almost all model bus collectors around the world will know the name John Gay. John’s lists of buses for sale are legendary, and his knowledge of the bus scene is limitless.

It’s not surprising therefore, that the first toy he remembers being given by his parents for Christmas in 1944 was the Dinky Toy 29c pre-war double decker. He was 6 years old at the time and living in Pembury. The shop where it was bought in Tunbridge Wells was apparently rationing the toys they sold, so he was lucky to get it! John remembers that he carved the rear stairs out as he felt they were unsightly, and did the same with the next 29c.

Subject ID: 81095

Almost all model bus collectors around the world will know the name John Gay. John’s lists of buses for sale are legendary, and his knowledge of the bus scene is limitless.

As with many other children in those days, John travelled to school by bus, and it was this daily exposure to omnibus pleasure on AEC Regents that fuelled his growing enjoyment for collecting, along with the fact that his father worked for Maidstone and District. In 1949, on moving to Tunbridge Wells, five Brimtoy buses were disposed of by his parents, probably because they were never played with but most of the Dinky survived. John would often buy another toy cheaply, in order to swap it for yet another model bus at school. John has kept a record of these early exchanges through his personal notebooks. By the early 1950s, while still at school, John had around 80 die-cast model buses and 30 cars/trucks in his collection, mostly Dinky.

He began his working career with a shipping company in London, moving on after a year into commodities, and then into the Royal Air Force for National Service, where he trained as a typist. He returned to the city to the same company and at the age of 21 became the youngest member of the London Commodity Exchange, trading in coffee. In the early 1970s the city was changing and after 3 different jobs he left in1974. By this time John’s collection had reached well over four figures for buses plus even more cars and commercial vehicles.

His experience of trading models for his own collection determined this as a possible career path, creating a business out of his hobby. He became self employed in 1975 with his wife Valerie joining him in the business in 1976 taking over production of price lists and all the back office work essential to making everything run smoothly. One of his first purchases was not toys but a large second-hand commercial size Roneo duplicator, which ended up lasting nearly 30 years! It was only when they found it increasingly impossible to buy ink for it that they decided to bin it in 2004, join the 21st century and computerise their lists!

Around 1976, with magazines promoting the hobby worldwide, John found that his export business really took off. It was not long before well over 50% of models were exported every year, including a large proportion of buses. Domestically bus kits featured strongly in sales right through to the late 1990s. During the 1980s, as many customers were from the USA, annual business trips were made to ensure good relationships were maintained.

John recalls that when EFE were launched in 1989 this was a bad day for kit makers of buses. The market became very competitive, evidenced by Corgi using many of John's models as a guide for their new products, this work being carried out by Bassett Lowke. John was all set to buy the Bassett Lowke company for £25,000, the seller's price, when it suddenly fell through without explanation and the next thing there was an announcement that Corgi had purchased them.

John began stocking white metal kits right from the outset, including early ranges such as Anbrico, Brackenborough, Pirate and Westward. In 1992 John bought Pirate, soon followed in 1994 by buying Lowland from Barry Lester. John immediately commissioned new models and these started to come into production in 1993. By 1996 this had doubled turnover for Pirate. Most new models were “OO” except for five “HO” French models for Paris. The Wistow Company came into John’s ownership in 1997, with its 7mm lines of buses and trams. After acquiring the white metal bus companies, John continued to work with Ron Charlton, who had always made the majority of bus castings and also used Barry Lester as his pattern maker.

Partly inspired by a visit there in 1982, John decided to expand his kit range to include Hong Kong buses, the first being 2 Seddon Pennines based on existing UK kits. They only needed new fronts/rears and proved very successful. This immediately prompted John to commission new kits and these started to come into production in 1996. These were the first accurate scale kits by any maker for Hong Kong and developed rapidly into a range of over 60 variations. Sales fell away quickly as most were immediately copied by volume manufacturers, with ABC using the Pirate Guy long dragon in their advertisements. At this stage John feels that it was a tribute to the expertise of Barry Lester, in his view a brilliant pattern maker, who only had measurements and photos to work from to produce the patterns for Hong Kong buses.

The Pirate “OO” range has been added to every year, accounting for some 80 new kits plus many more variations. Barry Lester produced high quality patterns for Pirate which john feels are among the best in the range. Working closely with John, kits were greatly improved with detail and weight. The original RT bus for instance was reduced in weight by 25% when the pre-war and coach versions were introduced. Manufacturing of Pirate kits from 1968 was in the hands of Ron Charlton whose dedication and expertise over the years has assured the success of Pirate, and he continued casting until his retirement in 2002. Since then Dave Ellis of South Eastern Finecast has been providing an excellent service.

In 2007 several new “HO” kits were issued for the USA, bringing the total to 33 variants.

Subject ID: 81095

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Subject ID: 81095