MECCANO Era "Confused" BAYKO Leaflet

This concerns a document dating from 1960, shortly after the 1959 MECCANO take-over, was printed in time for the BAYKO relaunch, but has features that are difficult to understand - or to explain - but I'll try!

Left - the relevant Plimpton era parts.

Right - the MECCANO era equivalent.

When MECCANO took over BAYKO, they changed all the windows from the "cruciform" style in green to a 2-pane style in yellow...

...this document only got half way!

The Bay Window Cover was also changed from red to light green...

...but not in this document!

So why did this happen?

What lead MECCANO to produce such an inaccurate flyer which effectively advertises a product which never existed?

The most likely explanation is probably time pressures - but, during the MECCANO take-over period, BAYKO was effectively off the market for not far off a year, leaving ample time, with a craft knife and paint brush, to have done a much more convincing job - even if the pukka product wasn't available.

If you look at the windows in the 5 models shown on the flier, and also the one depicted on the set lid, they are all the correct MECCANO era moulding and colour - which makes it all the more confusing to my mind.

[Almost] unbelievably, MECCANO were still repeating this error in their first full colour BAYKO advert in 'MECCANO Magazine' in February, 1961.

In most cases I tend to support the 'cock-up' theory of life rather than the 'conspiracy' theory and that's probably what applies here too - but you've got to admit it's odd!

Perhaps it's best viewed as an early pointer to the troubled history of BAYKO under MECCANO control, a period which, form a BAYKO perspective, was riddled with inconsistent decisions.

This document is, almost certainly, the one referred to in a similarly confused MECCANO brochure from 1960...