Shite in Miniature II

[Split_Pin]

I don't think the Sierra was part of the brief HotWheels mashup. 

Agree with its namesake although the famous BP cars had Corgi boxes and Corgi on the base, I'm sure of it.

[Datsuncog]

52 minutes ago, Tenmil Socket said:

I was thinking perhaps that the moulds were sold off to a company that wasn't Corgi and therefore they had to remove the branding?

Yes, you're right - my understanding was that when parent company Mettoy folded in 1983, a load of Corgi Juniors tooling was sold off to Kiko in Brazil - and the Corgi name was wiped from their bases accordingly.

After the administrators sorted everything out and a management buyout was financed to keep the brand (and the Fforestfach manufacturing site) alive, diecast production resumed in 1984.

Not long after, with a number of big contracts signed to produce promotional models in large numbers (BP, Fina, Rowntrees, Weetabix, Kelloggs), to meet demand the newly reorganised Corgi Toys Ltd bought back some of their old tooling from Kiko and had them shipped back to Wales. It seems that branded-base and non-branded base tooling was used fairly interchangeably, and no-one really cared that much.

[sierraman]

4 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

I don't think the Sierra was part of the brief HotWheels mashup. 

Agree with its namesake although the famous BP cars had Corgi boxes and Corgi on the base, I'm sure of it.

I’m sure I’ve seen one you know. Very brief time they did them for alongside the Autocity branding. 

[sierraman]

Knew it they did one in ‘96

[Split_Pin]

Well whaddyaknow! 😂

[Tenmil Socket]

Here's Dazza at the local car meet trying to convince the 'ladies' that his 1.3 base is an XR3i

[sierraman]

Does anyone remember the Autocity stuff that Corgi used to knock out around 1990ish onwards? It was branding on their juniors range plus loads of really good sets like the roadway, garages, scrapyard and a really cool ferry port. Still got all my stuff, a place near us sold it and it was in Argos IIRC so I’d get it on birthdays and Xmas. 

[Tenmil Socket]

2 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Does anyone remember the Autocity stuff that Corgi used to knock out around 1990ish onwards? It was branding on their juniors range plus loads of really good sets like the roadway, garages, scrapyard and a really cool ferry port. Still got all my stuff, a place near us sold it and it was in Argos IIRC so I’d get it on birthdays and Xmas. 

You need to dig it all out!

[cms206]

20 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Knew it they did one in ‘96

That actually sits really well on those wheels!

I've got a HW branded Daimler Fleetline, XJ40 and Volvo 760 somewhere I think. There must have been more - assume they did the R129 and Testarossa at least?

[Datsuncog]

1 hour ago, Split_Pin said:

Agree with its namesake although the famous BP cars had Corgi boxes and Corgi on the base, I'm sure of it.

They did, although the BP promotionals were slightly different in that the original 'blue box' runs were made with diecast bases, rather than plastic, on some but not all - seemingly because BP's team insisted on 'quality', meaning that new tooling had to be devised to put metal bases on the Vauxhall Nova, Rover SD1 Police, Porsche Carrera, Pontiac Firebird and Jaguar XJS.

Previously these had been released with plastic bases - although I think the Transit Wrecker was only ever produced with a plastic base. I don't have a list to hand, annoyingly!

Later 'red box' models in the BP range had plastic bases, and there was definitely some overlap between promo and standard production - I've a couple of non-BP promo Novas, some of which have a plastic base and others which have a metal base.

1 hour ago, Split_Pin said:

I don't think the Sierra was part of the brief HotWheels mashup. 

Whenever Corgi Toys was bought out by Mattel in 1989, Mattel largely kept the Corgi product lines and branding for European markets as their real aim was to leverage the existing Corgi distribution network to sell Hot Wheels branded products more widely, and eventually supplant the Corgi name altogether.

For a while, identical Auto City playsets using Corgi cars could be found with either Corgi or Hot Wheels branding on the packaging. It's possible that the Corgi name was also erased from all baseplates around this time too - I'm pretty sure I've seen much later models, designed well after the whole Kiko hokey-cokey, that don't have any name moulded into the base.

When Corgi management later bought themselves out of the Mattel deal in 1995, becoming independent as Corgi Classics Ltd, they agreed to only produce collectors' models and not compete against Mattel in the diecast toy market.

Under the terms of the agreement, Corgi Classics undertook to produce no toy lines for five years, and Mattel got to keep all the old Juniors tooling - though Corgi kinda weaseled out of this by immediately remanufacturing a load of their old 1/35 scale cars with a bonus cheap plastic badge in the box, claiming that this made them 'collectables' and not toys.

Some of the old Juniors-size castings, like the Sierra above, stemmed from this crossover period from 1996 when Mattel lost the right to use the Corgi name but effectively got lots of 'free' tooling to augment their own Hot Wheels range, and so fitted these castings with their own wheels and graphics and released them in Hot Wheels packaging.

When Mattel then bought the Matchbox brand out from Tyco in 1997, they dropped most of these old Corgi castings - presumably to concentrate on developing new lines. So they're really not very common, especially in the UK - seemingly Hot Wheels collectors didn't much like them as they weren't 'real' Hot Wheels.

Although I think for some reason the ancient Corgi Juniors Porsche Carrera remained a Hot Wheels mainline for many years, and has something of a cult following amongst US collectors as the heaviest Hot Wheels branded car released.

[Datsuncog]

19 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Does anyone remember the Autocity stuff that Corgi used to knock out around 1990ish onwards? It was branding on their juniors range plus loads of really good sets like the roadway, garages, scrapyard and a really cool ferry port. Still got all my stuff, a place near us sold it and it was in Argos IIRC so I’d get it on birthdays and Xmas. 

I had the scrapyard; it was ace.

It came with a blue Aston DB6, and some stick-on magnets to put on the roof so you could lift it with the crane 'electromagnet' and drop it into the crusher.

I particularly liked the fact you could tell what the parts scattered on the ground were (Mini bootlid and door, and Minor door and wings, from their 'Cars of the 60s/ Cameos' range)

Sadly these are just pics cribbed from the internet; the set itself is long gone, annoyingly (and I still had the box for it and everything!)

I really wanted the ferry port, but never had it.

[bramz7]

All this talk of the ex Corgi castings got my thinking and I remember having the 911 with Final Run branding, which would have been 2003. As it suggests, Final Run was the last time the casting would be used, and started off with almost Super Treasure Hunt style detailing, and then eventually diluted down to a slightly fancier mainline. 

Presumably the last Corgi casting to be used by Mattel? 

[Split_Pin]

Re:BP 'Quality', remember my post a few months ago about the Mercedes 190, Volvo 760 and Jaguar XJ6 having the same base and interior. Weirdly the seats had no headrests either, totally inaccurate for these higher-end cars of the time!

[sierraman]

My youngest still has the scrapyard, the noise from the crane is long since gone though! The ferry I have, supposedly it was to have smoke coming out the top of the stack, could never get it to work though? I have the track still, which I liked as it was a proper roadway unlike the crappy motor city track. 

[MiniMinorMk3]

18 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

These arrived from Italy yesterday!

And a VW Atlantic (Jetta), which just needs European single headlights making. 
I like this Jetta model, always seemed a bit of an odd choice to make a model of as it wasn’t ever as common or popular as the Golf or most other VW’s, but I’m glad they did!

I owned a Mk1 Jetta L back in the early 1990s in the same blue as this C. 

I also had a Mk2 in the late 1990s in this metallic green.

Jettas were always a lot cheaper than Golfs on the used market and made ideal daily drivers with an enormous boot.

I have a Schabak on a shelf, hence the dust.

After a quick clean it looks a lot better. I must get round to painting it blue to match my old one.

 

[Tenmil Socket]

The last few bits of my eBay job-lot that I felt worthy of photographing. The rest was crap...

I don't think the trailer detaches from the truck?

[sierraman]

I had one of those, think mine did detach though? 

[Datsuncog]

42 minutes ago, Tenmil Socket said:

I don't think the trailer detaches from the truck?

It should do - turn the trailer 90 degrees to the truck, and pull upwards.

I've one of them held aside for @quicksilver, will have a look at it later on.

[Spottedlaurel]

3 hours ago, sierraman said:

Knew it they did one in ‘96

I saw a packaged one of these on an autojumble stall recently, it was too much for me at something like £20-30 (I can't now remember). I didn't realise there was a Corgi connection, just that there seemed to be a bit of artistic licence in badging the 5dr as an XR4Ti (which as I recall was basically an XR4i with a smaller 2.3-litre engine?).

[sierraman]

Just now, Spottedlaurel said:

I saw a packaged one of these on an autojumble stall recently, it was too much for me at something like £20-30 (I can't now remember). I didn't realise there was a Corgi connection, just that there seemed to be a bit of artistic licence in badging the 5dr as an XR4Ti (which as I recall was basically an XR4i with a smaller 2.3-litre engine?).

Turbo charged 2.3 that’s right fitted to the Merkur XR4TI. Couple have made it to U.K., Rouse used to race them in the 80’s. 

[bunglebus]

I've tried to track down some of the Hot Wheels releases of Corgis, the Carrera is the easiest to find, others not so much

 

[bunglebus]

4 hours ago, Tenmil Socket said:

Corgi? MK1 Ford Sierra

What a colour combo! I think Corgi has been blanked off on the base... didn't you have one of these @bunglebus?

Not that exact one, got about 15 different Juniors but you can go on forever trying to get them all. 

Got blue with red interior but in this livery

Blue with brown

Blue with black

Or the 1:36 in similar colours to yours

 

[Tenmil Socket]

2 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

I've tried to track down some of the Hot Wheels releases of Corgis, the Carrera is the easiest to find, others not so much

 

When I first scrolled down to the below I thought it said Sunblest 😆

[bunglebus]

[Tenmil Socket]

3 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

Crikey, is that still going? Forgot all about it!

[sierraman]

Sunblest. Blast from the past, it was always that shit bread you’d get if you’d come back of holiday from Happy Shopper. The really cheap nasty stuff that would stick to the roof of your mouth. 

[Tenmil Socket]

4 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Sunblest. Blast from the past, it was always that shit bread you’d get if you’d come back of holiday from Happy Shopper. The really cheap nasty stuff that would stick to the roof of your mouth. 

Always reminds me of the Deacon Blue song; Dignity.

[Split_Pin]

Testarossa casting looks to have been modified by HW🤔

Here's the Corgi one from 1989 (I don't have one so pic is from the '89 catalogue)

 

[Split_Pin]

Got this from @bunglebus today.

I was curious about the maker as I've never heard of them before. There's almost nothing about Rubicon online, except about a manufacturer of small military vehicles.

It's a basic model, like a 50s or early 60s Corgi with glazing, rubber tyres but no interior.  It's also very heavy. It might be white metal?

There's a few for sale on ebay and they also make some other cars like a Renault 4CV which seem to be worth around £50 upwards (Rich gave me this for £7!)

I'm not even sure how old it is, part of me thinks it's recent and meant to emulate models from the 1950s/60s (does a very good job too).

I always liked these 300SLs as a kid and I had the Corgi 1/36 version. This was totally eclipsed by the very nice 1/24 Bburago version which my friend Euan gave me for my birthday when I was about 8 or 9. I also have a Juniors version and a Solido example.

I think I'll put this with my Corgis of the 50s though 

[junkyarddog]

Putting away some stuff and found that I had recently bought the first and latest version of this casting!!