Category:Primus Engineering motor car models

"The Steering Gear", instructions and diagram [image info]

"Motor Car Building with Primus" [image info]

Primus Motor Chassis Outfit [image info]

The three "special" motor car designs shown across the centrepage spread of the 1923 catalogue (209) use the No.76 pulley, which was a fairly substantial wheel with a thin edge groove and just two face holes. The instructions suggest bolting round "tin box" lids onto these: however, these pulleys made decent wheels as-is, and rubber bands could be put around them to make "grippy" tyres.

The Primus Motor Chassis Outfit

In addition to the models that could be built with the standard sets, Primus also produced the Primus Motor Chassis Outfit with dedicated parts for building nicer model motor cars. The dedicated outfit included four proper spoked car wheels, a radiator grille, a curved car bonnet piece with two curved mudguards, a steering wheel, and various other miscellanous bits and pieces useful to building a working car modekl that coudl be powered by the Primus Clockwork Motor.

With respect to the inevitable comparisons between Primus and Meccano, it's worth noting that Primus Motor Chassis set was definitely available in the early 1920s, while its Meccano counterpart, Meccano Motor Car Constructor, didn't appear until 1932 (by which time the Primus range no longer existed).

PRIMUS MOTOR CHASSIS OUTFIT

This is the outfit for the model maker; it builds up into a complete chassis, upon which bodies of touring cars, lorries, tractors, etc., can be fitted. The Primus Clockwork Motor can easily be built in.

Primus Engineering Motor Chassis Outfit

Here is something new and good - an instructional Toy which is entirely different from anything else on the market, well made, handsomely boxed, and fascinating to a degree which has so far not been reached by any other Educational Toy. No expense has been spared in the manufacture of the various parts which comprise this Motor Chassis Outfit, and as a result, the Model when finished is absolutely correct in the essential and fundamental principles of Motor Car construction, each part having been carefully thought out and developed by Motor Car experts.
Each Motor Chassis Outfit consists of 146 parts, which enables a child to build a magnificent and most realistic model of a Standard Motor car Chassis.
With the aid of a regular Primus Engineering Outfit, or separate Primus parts, a boy can build really beautiful Touring Cars, Motor Buses, Roadsweepers, Lorries, Caravans, etc., as indicated by the accompanying illustration of a four seater coupé.
With each outfit, a handsome manual of instruction is supplied, which contains full particulars and illustrations of dozens of different models which can be built on this Chassis.

— , W. Butcher and Sons, , Primus Engineering instruction manual,