Leigh’s Diecast Diary

The warehouse staff were flat out today despatching the Rossi Donington Hondas, while I was fairly busy myself getting all of Amalgam’s newly-announced 2007 range of products onto our website.

Amalgam have a greater spread of the Formula One grid than ever before, which is great news as their 1:8 cars, 1:1 and 1:4 steering wheels and 1:12 nosecones are superb.

For 2007, there will be 1:8 cars available for McLaren, Ferrari, BMW, Williams, Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Spyker and Super Aguri.

The ever-popular 1:12 nosecone collection will feature replicas of the front ends of the McLaren, Ferrari, BMW, Honda, Red Bull, Spyker and Super Aguri teams.

With the steering wheels, there will be 1:4 replicas for McLaren, Ferrari, BMW, Honda, Red Bull, Spyker, and Super Aguri, and 1:1 replicas for McLaren, Ferrari, BMW, Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Spyker.

There is also an exciting 1:8 classic F1 release planned in the shape of Ayrton Senna’s Lotus-Renault 97T from the 1985 Portuguese Grand Prix, which was of course his very first Grand Prix win. That will look stunning.

Away from F1, last year’s Le Mans winning Audi R10 will be available in 1:8 scale, as will Aston Martin’s DBR9 from both Sebring 2005 and Le Mans 2006.

In the supercar stakes, 1:8 replicas will be released of the Spyker C8 Spyder GTR, Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, and Ferrari 599 GTB.

All of these replicas are available to pre-order from our website now, just look under the ‘Amalgam’ tab. Most of the Formula One replicas should become available between July and September, while hopefully the road car replicas will follow in the autumn.

AUTOart and Kyosho both announced new items today. AUTOart started off with two colourways of the Porsche 997 GT3 RS, in orange with a black stripe (AA77991), and in green with a black stripe (AA77992).

Kyosho confirmed two models that we had originally seen at Nuremberg in February, but have only now had codes and prices confirmed. These are the Mercedes CLK DTM AMG ‘Street’, in silver (KY8461S) and black (KY8461BK).

The big news though, just as I was finishing this entry last thing today, was that we received our first delivery of the 1:12 Rossi 2000 Donington Honda (PO06196)! I can also finally confirm how many examples it is limited to, 12,999 pieces.

As I said on 15th May, this first delivery has not been enough to cover all of our pre-orders, but we are expecting another delivery next week.

Let’s just not mention the Monaco Grand Prix, OK! I couldn’t believe it when Raikkonen drove into the barrier in Q2 on Saturday, ending up in exactly the same parking spot where Schumacher ‘understeered’ last year! Talk about ironic. With only one point in the race a lap down on a dominant McLaren 1-2, I have a horrible feeling that once again the championship trophy won’t be heading for a Finnish mantelpiece.

Meanwhile, there’s once again a tie at the top of the standings, now between Alonso and Hamilton. Monaco was another race I watched from our shop at Brands Hatch, as I was up there working at the historic meeting. We sold plenty of beanies and jackets, as it was one of the coldest and wettest events I’ve ever been to.

Over the weekend Minichamps announced that they were cancelling the two car set of Lehto’s 1993 Sauber and Villeneuve’s 2005 Sauber that commemorated the team’s career.

We have now received three new cars from Mattel, the two China tour Ferrari 612 Scagliettis in red (HW7127) and silver (HW7129), and the #102 Ferrari F430 Challenge car (HW7113).

The best seller from our recent ‘road car diecast and TV/film collectibles’ catalogue (snazzy title!) was the 1:18 replica of the Eleanor Shelby GT500E from ‘Gone In Sixty Seconds’ (DC500). It sold so well, in fact, that the first batch has now sold out.

We have been told that it will be a matter of months rather than weeks before we receive restocks, as we have to wait for a new batch to be manufactured and then transported via container ship to our shores. It just emphasises the advantage of placing your order early; those of you that did now won’t have to wait.

AUTOart announced two new replicas today, the first being the 1:18 Gran Turismo Ford GT in a carbon black finish (AA80514). We saw a sample of it at Nuremberg, before it had been assigned a code and a price, and it looked very impressive.

The second announcement was a 1:18 replica of the Jaguar XJS that won the Spa ETCC race in 1984, as driven by Walkinshaw, Heyer and Percy (AA88459). This model should do very well for us, as Classic Jag racers are always big sellers, and Minichamps released this car in 1:43 a couple of years ago and it flew off the shelf.   
 
Finally, last thing today we received our Minichamps delivery that I thought we weren’t going to get until Tuesday next week. So the Raikkonen 1:18 2006 McLaren (DC2603) is now in stock.

Minichamps announced the entire 2007 DTM grid today in 1:43 scale. Most of the cars cost £26.99, but a few of them cost £29.99 as they need to have extra work done on them in order to effectively replicate their complicated liveries.

These include Hakkinen’s carbon black Mercedes (P073706), and championship leader Paul di Resta’s multicolour paint job Mercedes (P073519), among others. All the cars are currently at the top of our ‘2007 Announcements’ link and are available to pre-order now.

As a German company, Minichamps tend to give the DTM cars higher priority in their production schedules, so there is a good chance that we will see a few of these models in time for Christmas.

Unfortunately we did not receive our restocks of the 1:12 Norton Manx (P132400) last week as we thought we would. There was a delay with them on the production line, and we have been told to expect a revised delivery date for them in a couple of weeks. This leads me to think that it will be a good 4–6 weeks before we see them now.

To make up for it (although there will be few people who ordered the Norton Manx and this new item), we will definitely receive Minichamps’ new 1:18 Raikkonen 2006 McLaren (DC2603) next week. At Nuremberg the chrome finish on the sample looked fantastic, and I will be amazed if anyone who has waited this long for one, rather than ordering the Mattel version (DC2603M), is disappointed with it.

Finally, we will also receive the two 1:43 Newcastle United Lister Storms from the 1997 Le Mans 24 Hours from Spark next week (SPK633 and SPK634).

The big growth market in the diecast industry this year has definitely been 1:43 racing transporters. They used to be completely ignored as diecast subjects, yet this year Exoto, Spark and Racing Classics have all announced a range of them.

Racing Classics are first out of the blocks to release any, as today we received their two 1:43 Martini Porsche transporters. One is in silver (PRE12201), the other is in white (PRE12202). Both come with opening rear doors and a set of ramps so that you can guide your 1:43 Porsches up into them!

Exoto should also shortly be releasing their first two transporters, both from 1936, for Ferrari (GP001) and Alfa Romeo (GP002).

Finally, at this year’s Nuremberg toy fair, we saw a sample of Spark’s first transporter, the 1959 Ecurie Ecosse example (SPK285). Other releases are also planned, check out ‘Transporters’ under the Collectibles tab on the Diecast site.

The Moto GP was certainly exciting at the weekend, with the prize of ‘most dramatic footage’ going to either Rossi’s on-board shot of Guintoli’s highside or Hayden using a gravel trap to launch his Honda right up into the air just a couple of laps from the end.

Through it all Vermeulen took a superb first Moto GP win, with Casey Stoner defying the pundits by actually increasing his championship lead over Valentino Rossi with an excellent podium finish.

Meanwhile, in the WRC, after Sebastien Loeb had worked so hard to wrest the championship lead back from Gronholm after his non-score in Norway, crashed out of the lead of the Rally of Italy to gift victory to his Finnish rival and now has to start all over again.

Whichever motorsport discipline you follow, the season has been fascinating so far!

Back in Diecast Land, we are now able to accept pre-orders on two more Amalgam 2007 McLaren MP4/22 products. These are the 1:4 steering wheel (ALM705), and the 1:12 nosecone (AML706). With the popularity of Lewis Hamilton ever increasing, you should order soon to ensure you receive your example from our first delivery.

We have now received our first sample images of two of the replicas in Mattel’s 1:18 Ferrari 60th Anniversary Collection, in the new red colour as mentioned on 11th May.

It’s a relief that Mattel have decided against the ‘Silverstone Grey’ colour that the collection was originally going to be in, as it doesn’t matter which race circuit you put in front of it, grey is still grey! The models had sold very poorly for us, so it’s good to see that they will be available in red after all. How can a Ferrari not be red?

If you check out the 250 GTO (HW2972) and 333SP (HW2975), you will see the new shade of red, which seems to be verging on metallic but not quite. It’s definitely a lot more aesthetically pleasing than grey, and should make the series a lot more collectible in a colour much more associated with Ferrari.

A new item has crept onto Minichamps’ weekly release schedule for next week, Fernando Alonso’s winning Renault R26 from last year’s British Grand Prix in 1:43 scale (DC26401GB).

If you want Kyosho’s stunning model of the 1:18 black Ferrari 575 GTC testcar (KY8392A), you should order soon, as we don’t have many examples left and heard today that it has now been discontinued, so once we run out that’s it. A similar version will be released which will be a ‘standard’ black car, so it will not have the testcar markings of the current example such as the Pirelli logos and the yellow Ferrari strip across the top of the windscreen.