Leigh’s Diecast Diary

It would seem that the Minichamps monthly release schedule is alive and well, after all. It must have just had a couple of weeks off! Today we received notification of what we can expect to see from them over the next four weeks.

Next week we will receive the 1:6 Honda CB750 in gold (PG161001), and the winning Ford Escort Mk.I from the 1974 RAC Rally of Timo Makinen in 1:18 scale (PG748101). There will also be long-awaited restocks of Ayrton Senna’s 1992 McLaren-Honda MP4/7 in 1:18 (AS198).

The week after we will receive Timo Makinen’s victorious Mk.I Escort from the 1973 RAC Rally in 1:18 (PG738113), and Pedro de la Rosa’s 1:18 McLaren-Mercedes MP4/21 from the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix, where he scored his first Formula One podium (DC2604H). We will also see our first 2007 Formula One showcar, Fernando Alonso’s 1:43 McLaren (DC27401P).

The week commencing 2nd July we are down to get Troy Bayliss’ 1:12 Ducati Desmosedici from the 2006 Valencia Moto GP (PO60012), where he brilliantly won the race on his one-off return to the championship. There will also be the 1:18 replica of the Bentley Continental GT in silver (PG139021).

The last week of the schedule tails off a bit, the only notable release being the 1:18 Alan Mann Ford Escort from the 1968 Nurburgring race (PG688136). I normally say that the last week of these schedules doesn’t look particularly interesting though, only for Minichamps to add more items to them by the time those weeks come around.

It would be good to see some more 2006 F1 cars come through by the time we get to the middle of July, particularly those pre-season orange McLaren testcars of Raikkonen and Montoya! We get asked nearly every day when we are going to see those, not that I can blame our customers, as it’s been a good 18 months now since they were first announced.