Leigh’s Diecast Diary

Today we drove for about six hours, to the North East of France, to visit one of the country’s largest diecast wholesalers. There we were successful in fulfilling some of our customer back-orders, where we had been waiting for re-stocks in the UK for a fair few weeks. We also came across a few gems that had been sold out for quite some time, which I will give further details about next week.

There’s also some news from back home in Guildford. First off, Minichamps confirmed a few release dates to us. We have been told to expect the elusive 1:43 2005 Minardis of Albers (DC25420) and Friesacher (DC25421) in October. We are also scheduled to receive Valentino Rossi’s 1:12 2007 Yamaha (PO73046) in August, his 2005 Valencia sitting figure (PO50086) in September, and his 2005 Laguna Seca sitting figure (PO50096) in October.

On the deliveries side, today we finally received re-stocks of the 1:16 Doe Triple D tractor (J2641), and just a dozen examples of Loris Capirossi’s 1:12 2006 Ducati in the Mugello retro livery (PO60065). We are only accepting telephone orders for the latter, as it is such a hot item that if we put in on our website then we would oversell in an instant.

Change of plan! After taking the overnight ferry to Caen, and driving for seven hours down to Lyon today, we decided it would be sacrilege to leave my diecast diary untouched for a whole week! Therefore, I’m going to be phoning base every evening to dictate a diary entry to one of the guys in the office to upload for me.

We met with Norev this afternoon, a brand which has been without a UK distributor for two years. Thankfully, they have recently appointed a new one, so we can expect to see their releases on our shores again shortly. We visited them today to collect a range of samples of their new offerings, so that we can get them photographed in our studio next week.

We received an email at the office this morning from Gary, asking why my diary entries are heavily biased towards motorsport subjects to the detriment of road cars. To be honest, I do have a far greater interest in motorsport, but my road car knowledge is increasing all the time, and I would like to think that I haven’t completely ignored that aspect of our ranges. Obviously, Gary thinks otherwise!

I’ll try to do better!

September is going to be a massive month for Mattel 2007 Formula One releases! We today received confirmation of the initial deliveries of their 1:18 F1 replicas. As these are initial delivery dates they will in all likelihood be extremely limited, but will shortly be followed by more substantial shipments.

To start the ball rolling, on the week commencing 10th September, we have Massa’s Ferrari F2007 (DC2705), Fisichella’s Renault R27 (DC2703), and the two Williams FW29s of Rosberg (DC2716) and Wurz (DC2717).

The following week we will get our first delivery of Mattel’s two 2007 McLaren MP4/22s, Alonso (DC2701M) and Hamilton (DC2702M).

The week after that (commencing 24th September) has a distinctly Finnish flavour to it, as we are down to get Raikkonen’s Ferrari F2007 (DC2706) and Kovalainen’s Renault R27 (DC2704).

As for Mattel’s 1:43 2007 F1 replicas, we are scheduled to receive the two Ferrari F2007s of Massa (DC27405) and Raikkonen (DC27406) on the week beginning 15th October. Mattel only do the Ferraris in 1:43.

We also received some news on delivery dates for some of Mattel’s 2006 F1 specials. We expect to see the Schumacher Monza special (DC2605M) the week beginning 20th August, the Schumacher Sao Paulo special (DC2605SP) the week beginning 3rd September, and the Alonso Sao Paulo Champion special (DC2601SP) the week beginning 24th September.

We also learnt today that Minichamps will now not be making some of their 2006 and 2007 1:18 F1 replicas. The items that we will now not see are the two 2007 Red Bulls of Coulthard (DC2714) and Webber (DC2715), the two 2007 Toro Rossos of Liuzzi (DC2718) and Speed (DC2719), Heidfeld’s 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix BMW (DC2616H), and Kubica’s 2006 BMW (DC2617K).

I’m out of the office all of next week, so there won’t be any entries in the diary unless someone fills in for me in the instance of something big being announced or released. I’m not just off on some jolly though, Christopher Paul and I are on a diecast European road trip, visiting all the diecast wholesalers we can find to see if we can locate any other suppliers of brands and also if we can source anything that never makes it into the UK. Who knows what we might find?

There’s more Ferrari news today.

Mattel have confirmed that the 2007 Ferrari F430’s designation will be the F430 Scuderia, and we now also have a sample image. The 1:18 replica will be available in red (HW2973), the 60th Anniversary red (HW2976), and in the Super Elite series (HW7121).

IXO announced some new additions to their 1:43 Ferrari collection, both roadgoing and GT cars. They can all be found at the top of the ‘2007 Announcements’ link on the diecast site. They also said that we can expect to see the next two releases in their La Storia collection in August and September. These are Michael Schumacher’s 1996 F310 (IXSF10), and Alberto Ascari’s 1952 500 F2 (IXSF11).

I spent most of the day in our warehouse being ruthless with pricing for our diecast warehouse sale, which is on Saturday. We have a wide selection of perfect models in damaged boxes, so I have slashed the prices on those. There are some slightly damaged models too, which have had their prices slashed even further! Plus, there are some end of line models at sale prices and there is also 10% off all of our current lines in stock on the day, even if they were only released this week. Bargains all round!

I have a veritable truckload of Mattel news for you today!

I’ll start off with my favourite item, a new 1:18 replica commemorating Kimi Raikkonen’s hat trick of victory, pole position and fastest lap in this year’s Australian Grand Prix (DC2706A). The model will come mounted on a base featuring the Australian and Finnish flags and a plaque commemorating the event. The driver figure in the car will also have both arms in the air, as Raikkonen’s were when he crossed the finish line. It will be limited to 3,333 pieces.

There are also some new Michael Schumacher replicas, which look very exciting. The first is a 1:18 replica entitled ‘Anatomy Of A Champion’ (HW6234). It will consist of a model of Michael’s 2006 Ferrari F248 mounted vertically, with a plinth behind it detailing why he enjoyed such a successful career. Also included will be a ‘leaping’ Michael Schumacher figure (i.e. his victory celebration when stepping onto the podium), and an engine part from one of his F1 Ferraris. The car itself will also be half-finished in carbon fibre, which contributes to the whole presentation looking very dramatic. This one will be limited to 7,676 examples.

Then there is a 1:43 presentation commemorating Michael’s five consecutive world championships with Ferrari (HW6237). It will consist of a replica of each of his championship winning Ferraris from 2000 through to 2004 mounted on a special base, with a plaque detailing the extraordinary achievement. It will be limited to 5,555 pieces.
There is also an ultra-special 1:18 presentation of Schuey’s 2004 Ferrari F2004, his last championship winning car, commemorating all of his all-time records in Formula One (HW6235). What is so exciting is that it will come with a removable engine cover, the first time that Mattel will ever have done this on one of their Formula One replicas. It will be a limited edition of just 3,030 pieces.

Finally there is a 1:24 replica of Michael’s 2006 F248 (HW6236). This presentation will feature the car mounted on a plinth that details all of Michael Schumacher’s all-time career records. This release is the only one that will not be a limited edition.

I will finish today with some information about Mattel’s 2007 Formula One Ferraris. As with Minichamps’ recent 1:12 replicas of the Moto GP Ducatis (see Troy Bayliss’s 2006 Valencia example), they will not come with the Marlboro ‘barcode’ livery, as it is categorically not allowed to be reproduced. While this is a little unfortunate, it could have been a lot worse had this livery adorned the entire car. I felt that I should make our customers aware of this in case some of you felt that something was missing when you receive your model!

Today IXO announced a new addition to their 1:43 Le Mans Winners collection. The subject will be one of the most famous ever winners, the Bentley Speed 8 of Tom Kristensen, Guy Smith and Rinaldo Capello from 2003 (LM2003).

It was good to see that the 1:43 2006 McLaren orange testcars had arrived in my absence. I grabbed a Raikkonen one first thing today for my own collection! The Raikkonen version (DC26403T) is limited to 5,400 pieces, the Montoya version (DC26404T) to 2,736.

How eventful was the European Grand Prix? I was lucky enough to be sat at the first corner, so saw all of the aquaplaning and plenty of overtaking. I also unfortunately had to endure watching Raikkonen crawl painfully slowly around the stadium section before retiring! I’ve been to five races this year, and seen all three of his wins and both of his DNFs. Talk about win or bust!

It was a great race though, and the championship’s now closed right up at the top again. Roll on Hungary!

Good news! We will finally receive the 1:43 2006 orange McLaren MP4/21 testcars of Kimi Raikkonen (DC26403T) and Juan Pablo Montoya (DC26404T) next week!

Minichamps’ new weekly release schedule came through today, and it was a nice surprise to see those two gems on it, as they hadn’t been on the original monthly release schedule. There was no mention of the 1:18 versions (DC2603T and DC2604T), but we’d better not get too greedy!

This will be my last entry until Tuesday 24th July, as I’m off to the Nurburgring for the European Grand Prix. Hopefully the demons will be exorcised from the last time I went there, in 2005. There I was, all ready to celebrate a Raikkonen win as he started the last lap in the lead, only for his suspension to shatter right in front of me at the first corner and for him to go pirouetting straight past the apex and off towards the French-German border! Definitely not my fondest memory!

There was a new delivery from Kyosho today, which included their ‘replacement’ black 1:18 Ferrari 575 GTC (KY8391B). This edition is a plain black car, without the yellow windscreen strip and the Pirelli logos of the original release (KY8392A), which was more of a GT testcar. It still looks mighty fine though!

This afternoon we started getting things together for our diecast warehouse sale, which takes place on Saturday 28th July. We will be offering significant discounts on certain lines, especially discontinued items that we have only one piece left of, which weren’t worth including in our recent ‘in-stock and sale’ diecast catalogue.

For those of you who don’t care about the condition of the box, there will be a selection of sound models in damaged boxes. All reduced, of course.

And what’s more, we will also be offering 10% off all of our current in-stock ranges, so as to make your journey worthwhile. We will open the doors of our warehouse at 9am. For directions you can phone or  e-mail us or see our website. I’ll see you then!

Today we received a large delivery from AUTOart. The hottest new release on it was the 1:18 Porsche 917 Longtail of Derek Bell and Jo Siffert from the 1970 Le Mans 24 Hours (AA87170). It now costs £59.99, £10 more than we were originally selling it for, so those of you who ordered early saved a bit of money on that one.

There were also some long-awaited restocks on the delivery, including the 1:18 Porsche Carrera GT (AA78041), the 1:18 white Gran Turismo Ford GT (AA80515), and the suspension table light (AA48141).

Today IXO announced some interesting new 1:43 replicas in the SEAT Leons from the 2006 World Touring Car Championship.

We continually get requests for replicas of WTCC and BTCC cars, and it has always puzzled me as to why the diecast manufacturers decide not to include these subjects in their ranges. Aside from Spark’s WTCC BMWs and Alfa Romeos and Minichamps’ WTCC BMWs, these two championships are pretty much ignored.

Anyway, these IXO replicas are bound to be very popular. All six works drivers from the 2006 Red Bull sponsored SEAT outfit are featured, with most of them winning races during the season. There’s James Thompson (RAT012), Yvan Muller (RAT013), Rickard Rydell (RAT009), Gabriele Tarquini (RAT008), Peter Terting (RAT011), and Jordi Gene (RAT010).