Sindy doll’s MGB roadster

Your Action Man might have made a daring assault on your sister’s bedroom to get his grippy little hands on this little beauty. At 1:6 scale, the pint-sized warmonger was compatible with British dream-girl Sindy, so he could have squeezed behind the wheel of her MGB.

Sindy was launched by Pedigree Dolls in 1963 as a British answer to Barbie. To be strictly accurate, Sindy was actually a licence-made version of American Barbie-wannabe Tammy, but more Carnaby Street than Sunset Strip.

Sindy was a hit, and in ’65 her world broadened with big-ticket ‘Scenesetters’ accessories such as a wardrobe and a natty sports car – this moulded plastic MGB. Even then, though, the car had US origins – Tammy gained a blue MGB in 1963 as a response to Barbie’s own roadster, an Austin-Healey 3000 that is astonishingly rare today.

Sindy’s MGB cost 29 shillings and sixpence. It had a fairly accurate plastic body with turning wheels and a plethora of plastic details such as chrome-effect grille, hubcaps and bumpers, and a radio aerial with a Sindy banner on the end. Two dolls could be inserted into the snug cockpit, prime candidate for the passenger seat being boyfriend Paul.

Sindy MGBs were brittle, with trim easily broken or lost. To find a pristine survivor like the one in our photo from Vectis Auctions (www.vectis.co.uk) will entail a long search. Boxes are rare, aerials very hard-to-find, and one without a buckled windscreen near-impossible.

Understandably, they make decent money at auction, this example having sold for £48 in 2013. This MGB has bags of character and certainly makes a prominent talking point in any collection. You might like to pair it up with Sindy’s 1980s wheels, a two-door Range Rover Classic. Explaining that they’re dolls’ accoutrements might be the tricky part.