Steve P

My new britains John Deere 3350, very impressed with it 10 out of 10 for britains. certainly a major step forward for the company, my only complaint is these new models are starting to make my collection of older britains models look more and more dodgey!!.

Ordered a new britains 3350 from G@M models on thursday was delivered on saturday that is super fast, good work G@M, have to pick it up monday though from the sorting office as nobody was home, aaaarrrggggghhh.

Britains has made me a very happy bloke indeed, it just so happens the 50 series John Deere and the TW series Ford are 2 of my all time favourite tractor ranges so without doubt ill be purchasing them this year, also that classic JCB backhoe will be hard to resist. Better start saving my pennys i suppose. Happy days...

Some interesting points in this thread, personally i am a big Britains fan and i collect both obsolete and current models. I think the company has come a long way when i compare a model made in the 1980s/90s to one of there more up to date relaeses, the build quality and accuarcy is much much better today though they are still available at a reasonable price, it is true that other firms make better products but they tend to be much more expensive to purchase. My Britains Ford 7600 and Universal Hobbies Ford 7810 are currently parked next to one another in my display cabinet and in my opinion they look good together and it takes a very close look to see the UH model is slightly better detailed, my 7600 cost £17.99p while the 7810 cost £28.99p so i think Britains models are still very good value for money. I find the current Britains range ok though i would agree a more diverse selection of models would be nice, saying that i have always thought this. When i was a child i was amazed as to why Britains made models like Volvo BMs and Duetz-Fahr, machines i hardly ever seen working on farms around my neck of the woods back then but they never made a Leyland, David Brown, International or even a John Deere, machines i watched almost every day, so one could imagine my amazement when the Same Galaxy, Lamborghini and Landini was realesed, tractors i had never seen before. So i think the answer is Britains cannot please everyone they never have and never will, but they have done a pretty good job in pleasing most people during there long history producing decent quality, no thrills models that are fairly cheap to buy and do not look too far out of place when compard with there more costly competiters.. Keep up the good work Britains.. PS. I do have one little complaint about Britains though, i think the company should tighten up a little in there quality control procedueres, when i purchased a International 956XL i noticed the red centres in the front wheels was missing and when opening my New Holland T.9 670 a few weeks ago i noiticed one of the rear tyres was on the wrong way round, such silly little mistakes but these mistakes can give a company a bad reputation, Britains just take a little bit more care as these silly mistakes are avoidable..

Best of luck with your 4600 convo Justin and would love to see the finished result, it was a 4600 in fact that started my facination with the range, a nearly new example used to be hired in with many other older tractors for the hop harvest at the farm in Hereford where my father used to work, i was only a child at the time and the Ford obviously stood out amougst the old Massey 135s, Dextas, Majors and Nuffields that was also brought in to cart the vines from the yards to the picking sheds, the farm was 100% massey for the rest of the year so i always looked forward to the arrival of the shiney bubble cabbed Ford during hop picking, that was one reason why i got frustrated with the Britains Ford 6600 i had as a toy at the time as the cab was different, 30 years later Britains have fianlly got it right...

Bloody hell this topic had become a slanging match!!!, whats wrong with Masseys Justin?? my dad drove them for years and he loved them, ive always been a Ford fan and my dad and i had many interesting chats about our differences!!, though my dad would admit how he loved the Fordson Major. Anyway back to the piont why are some of us complaining about a main stream model producer who have finally produced a 600 series Ford with a bubble cab??, ok its not perfect but its not that bad either. Personally i am a big fan of the Ford 600/700 series,childhood memories and all that so i can say stop bloody moaning and enjoy this leap in model production, if we all wish a bit harder then maybe Britains and the likes might produce a JD 3650 or even a DB 996 then we can moan about the join in the cabs of them !!!!.

I agree, i have a wide range of Britains models from 1968 to the present and i can see for myself that the new models are much better then the old, i am a huge fan of the old Britains classics though the newer releases look far better to be fair, the cab join on the new 600 series Fords dont really matter in my opinion though i did notice it, i dont think it spoils the models in any way, on the whole i think they are fantastic models for the price, my 7600 parked next to my much more expensive uh 7810 and County 1474 does not look out of place, personally i think Britains today have left SIKU well behind and are challenging the likes of uh for a cheaper almost as good alternative and that suits collectors like me who cannot justify spending 60 quid or more on a model, bloody well done Britains keep up the good work..

Well urm maybe!!!, i agree mate they are stunning, looking at your old 6600 and new 6600 photo and looking at my own i can see that Britains have come a long way in the past 30 or so years, where can Briains go next i wonder, more classics i hope.

Not sure what happend there but i replied to this post, though still in quote!!

In real life machines the TW 20 and TW 10/15 was identical apart from engine power, Ford just gave the TW 25 the longer TW 30 style bonnet that housed the larger fuel tank, also the new TWs and the 10 series was basically re-vamped versions of older Ford machines only the TW 30 was all new with its aftercooled engine and long bonnet that housed a larger capacity fuel tank in front of the engine, origainlly the TW 10 and TW 20 was basically the same as the 8700 and 9700, Fords previous high horsepower offerings ok with a slight increase in power, the 7710 was itself a re-vamped 7700 that was a long wheel base, flat floor cab version of the 7600 that was indeed a modified Ford 7000, needless to say the TW series family tree can be traced back to the american built ford 8000 that was modified and improved, while the 7710s tree starts at Basildon in good old blighty with a Ford 5000 and a turbo!!...

Im not a huge fan of the old ERTL models either, i have a Ford 8630 and a Case ih 1056xl in my collection from ERTL plus a few early Britiains merger jds and to me they just have not quite got the presence of a Britains model, im sorry but they just look a bit chunky and the huge rear hitch is a bit urm huge!!!, In some detail aspects i think ERTL was better then Britains like wheels for instance, i think looking at the bigger picture it was a good thing that Britains and ERTL merged as 2 average model makers have turned into 1 very good model maker who produces products like the new 600 series Fords that look stunning, im still blown away with my 7600, we can all moan and groan about models from the past that wasnt quite right but when a old Britains County still sells for over twice as much on ebay as a brand new and much better UH County 1474 i think most collectors are not really that interested in how realistic the model looks, are we mad or what??.

It would be facinating to know how accurate models are from the past and present and what are true 1/32 scale, comparing my old powerfarm County 1884 to the UH County 1474 is interesting, though both appear roughly the same size the Britains model looks more chunky, the bonnet for instance is a lot wider and the front and rear wheels are slightly wider apart, this i think gives the impression the Britains model is a bit bigger, i think we all know that Britains models from the past was not made in 100% 1/32 scale at least in some of there models. Saying that i do agree with Justin on the old TW-20/7710 issue, Britains introduced a new casting for the TW 20 introduced in 1981, the model was re-branded as the smaller 7710 in 1984 to reflect Fords new 10 series launched a few years earlier though the casting was identical, this again was re-branded with a new bonnet, floorplan and cab as a smaller still 5610 in 1987 the same year Britains released the TW 35, maybe Britains realised they got the scale wrong with the original TW 20 that is why they fairly quickly re-branded it as a 4 cly 7710 but did they loose there way when they changed that into a smaller 5610??, as Justin says i think a 8210 or even a 7910 would have been a much better change, or is it we are looking into what was originally toys far too deeply, they are all lovely classic models i think and even the 5610 has a place in my collection as i have 2, i just dont park them by my UH 7810!!!!...

Other way aroud mate, the original TW-20 was about right in terms of scale, the following 7710 and 5610 that used the same casting was wrong, put a TW-20 bonnet floor plan and cab on a late 5610 and you will see what i mean, my big booted! TW-20 looks ok when comapred to my new 7600, UH Ford 7810 and County 1474..

I agree Justin the old 6600 was i think under-scaled, the Britains 6600 of the 70-80s was basically a re-vamped Ford 5000 of the late 60s-70s whoes csating was only slightly modified in terms of scale from the Super Major issued from the late 50s, saying that my old 1968 Britains Ford 5000 Super Major looks around spot on in scale compared to my much more recent UH Massey 135, we all know about the blunder Britains made with the 5610 that was originally a TW-20??? bless them...

I have an example of the old Britains 6600 from the 70s-early 80s and i have compared it to my new 7600, a few pionts sprang to mind, the new 7600 seems a much larger model i know the q-cab is much taller then the earlier cab fitted to the older model, i thought the 6600 and 7600 in real life are about the same size so i wonder if the older model is more accurate in size or the new one, which one is ture 1/32 scale i wonder. Comparing the bulid quilty and detail is very one sided for obvious reasons the new model is so much better in almost every aspect, i say almost as i still think the jewelled headlights on the old 6600 look much better then the painted headlights on the 7600, at least i think Britains should look at the likes of UH who use separate clear plastic headlights in similar fashon to the brilliant old Britains Jewelled lights. Also im still not won over with Britains new rear hitch, some of my old Britains implements wont fit on my 7600 and it just looks a bit chaep and poorly thought out, i still think you cannot beat the old Britains style rear hitch. I am not moaning about the new Fords they look brilliant im just saying if they had decent looking headlights and a more uesful rear hitch they would be almost perfect...

heres some pics Sorry i tried to post some pics but it didnt work!!, has anyone else had trouble with photobucket lately??, i cannot seem to copy and paste pics from there anymore.

So whats your opinion on the new Britains Ford 6600/7600?, i have recently purchased the 7600 and i am very impressed, it just looks right and the detail is almost on-par with UH modles. I say almost and i admit when comparing my uh 7810 to the 7600 i can see the 7810 is slightly better made "no join at the front of the cab" for instance and the wheels on the uh model look more realistic but apart from that Britains have done a wonderful job when i think my 7600 cost about half as much as my 7810. Well done Britains i say, it took over 30 years for them to produce a proper 600 series Ford but looking at my 7600 it was sort of worth the wait, in fact im so impressed i may even get the 6600 ..

Many thanks SPN, that is brilliant..

Can someone please tell me if this steering type is interchangable between different models, i have a old 1960s Ford 5000 6X type and the steering is broken, can i replace the broken internal pin-steering wheel with one from a later model ie Ford 5610, any help would be brilliant..

I think a TW 10/15, TW 20, 8210 etc etc will be the next, this body style holds many options for a model producer with slight modifications a Gen 3 8210 could be a earlier 7710 or even a 8700 like UH are currently doing with the long nosed TW range!, i would certainly purchase a 8210 and a TW 15 if they was on the market..

CT is without doubt the best tractor mag you can buy and i have in my time purhased them all, i purchased the very first issue way back in 2001 and just about got every issue since, if you like tractors from the 70s era onwards then you will love it.

I think Britains have come a long way in the last 20 years or so, i recently purchased a NH T8 and i am very pleased with it a fantastic model for the price though some may say not perfect, if you compare the price of a Britains product to say the likes of UH product then they are pretty good value for the much lower price tag, i have many Britains models in my collection from the 70s,80s,90s to the present so i can see first hand how much better the new models are compared to the older ones, i think the company is doing a good job in producing fairly good models at compared to there competion much cheaper prices. I still like Britains stuff as they are good no nonsence products that dosent cost an arm and a leg and you can let your 5yr old son play with them.

Fantastic cannot wait for the 4 cylinder Ford 10 series , the early 2wd 5610 and the gen 3 7610 will be a must have for me along with the 4wd TW 30, the Massey 390, 690 and 2640 are models i would like to have also, better start saving my pennies!!!! Also how long have UH produced a grey cabbed Massey 590??, in my opinion the grey cabbed 500 series looked better then the all red ones!!..