After yesterday’s recce at Excel, today we went round photographing all the new samples for our upcoming Toy Fair catalogue. Unfortunately nothing new had arrived since yesterday, so I have nothing new to tell you about!
There are some samples that I forgot to mention yesterday though, so I will fill up today’s entry with those. These include Exoto’s Nissan R89C, Guiloy’s 2007 Andy Priaulx BMW, Mattel’s Avio Blue Ferrari F430 Scuderia and the remaining three colourways of Kyosho’s Audi R8; red, black and white. Tomorrow we will have a selection of photographs from Excel on our website.
In closing, don’t forget that tonight is your last chance to pre-order any forthcoming Minichamps releases from us before the prices go up tomorrow. This is your final warning!
As promised, today’s diary entry comes live from the London Toy Fair at Excel!
The good news is that the Lamborghini Reventon will be replicated in 1:18 scale, by both Burago and Mondo Motors. The bad news is that it doesn’t look like anyone will be replicating the car from the new James Bond film in 1:18 scale.
On the Minichamps importers stand, a new range was being launched call the Top Gear Collection. This will encompass several of the Supercars that have appeared on the TV show. There were also some samples of new 1:12 Rossi figures; the 2007 Jerez side saddle figure and the 2006 sitting version. Interestingly, the 2006 sitting version comes in Rossi’s ‘praying’ position before he gets on the bike.
Away from the Toy Fair, all of Minichamps new 2008 announcements can now be viewed and pre-ordered from our website. Some hot picks are Nigel Mansell’s 1:43 Williams FW10 from his first victory at the 1985 European Grand Prix (P850105), Valentino Rossi’s first MotoGP win at Japan in 2002 (PO21046), Casey Stoner’s 2007 Ducati Desmosedici replica and riding figure (PO70097) and quite a few more. Have a look in the Minichamps 2008 Announcements section and see what else you can find.
This morning we received two new replicas from Sun Star, the first being Damon Hill’s 1:18 Williams-Renault FW15C from the 1993 South African Grand Prix, his first race for the team (Q18331). The second release was the 1:24 AEC Regent Bus (SS2920), Sun Star’s first ‘non-Routemaster’ bus release.
We also received that rarest of things, a set of new 1:18 announcements from AUTOart! The highlights are the Porsche Cayenne Turbo in grey metallic (AA78061), and black (AA78062), Andy Priaulx’s 2007 WTCC winning BMW 320Si (AA80746), and the DHL Porsche RS Spyder from the 2007 American Le Mans Series (AA80774). The rest of the new offerings are currently at the top of our ‘New Announcements’ category.
Tomorrow is the first day of the London Toy Fair, and Minichamps will be announcing their new 2008 subjects. I say ‘subjects’, as I will be surprised to see any of them actually released before the end of 2008! So, make sure you check out our website during the day to see what’s new. We will have a dedicated ‘New 2008 Minichamps Announcements’ banner on the front page of our diecast and Minichamps sites.
I’ll be attending the Toy Fair tomorrow and on Thursday, so the next two days’ diary entries will be submitted ‘from the field’!
Today Norev announced some new 1:18 replicas. Two are very interesting, as they haven’t even raced yet, an Audi R10 (NV188342) and a Peugeot 908 (NV184791) from this year’s running of the Le Mans 24 Hours. I am assuming that Norev will replicate each respective team’s car that gets the better result, as they did with their 2007 replicas. Also announced was the 1977 Le Mans winning Renault Alpine A442 of Pironi and Jaussaud (NV185145), which should look quite spectacular, as well as two road car subjects in a 2007 Porsche 911 GT2 in red (NV187502), and a 1976 Simca 1000 Rallye in blue (NV185698).
Trofeu also announced a new release, commemorating the career of the late Colin McRae (TR003). It will consist of a 1:43 replica of Colin’s Subaru Impreza from the 1993 RAC Rally, on a special base listing all of his WRC wins. It will be limited to just 999 pieces worldwide.
Welcome to the fithteenth Leigh’s Diary Vidcast, reviewing all the new diecast replicas that were released last week.
As always, I’ve listed the products below that have been featured in this week’s vidcast. Keep the comments rolling in. You’ll need quicktime installed to view the video on this post.
I hope you enjoyed watching or listening to the podcast. Please feel free to leave any comments on what you thought of it or anything you would like me to feature in future shows below.
So, today was the big day, our biggest ever diecast sale went live! It runs up until the start of the new Formula One season, March 16th, but by lunchtime we had sold out of some items already.
In cases where we only had one or two examples of a replica remaining, we have been quite aggressive with the pricing, simply to clear our shelves. We hadn’t anticipated the demand for the 1:18 Liuzzi 2005 Red Bull though; we had had just one sitting on our shelves for about two years, then it went in the sale today and we oversold from our website in five minutes flat!
We are constantly monitoring the site to make sure that any discontinued items are removed, so that any other oversells should be kept to a bare minimum. The message is clear though; if you want a bargain, order now!
In other news, the title of the new James Bond film was officially confirmed today; ‘Quantum of Solace’. I’m a big fan of the films, although this doesn’t exactly sound like the most dynamic title of all time. New James Bond cars are always big sellers for us, although nothing has been confirmed about a replica of his steed from ‘Quantum of Solace’ as yet. Maybe we’ll hear something at the London Toy Fair next week.
I’ve got a little more time on my hands today, so am able to go into the new Minichamps delivery in a bit more detail!
Along with what I highlighted yesterday, we also received two 1:43 2007 DTM cars, the Audis of Martin Tomczyk (P071704) and Alex Premat (P079617), and two classic 1:43 F1 cars, the 1983 Tyrrell 012s of Michele Alboreto (P830003) and Danny Sullivan (P830004). There was also a new 1:43 2007 Formula One car in Heikki Kovalainen’s Renault R27 (DC27404).
We received a new Minichamps delivery today. The highlights were the fifth release in the 1:8 Valentino Rossi Helmet Collection, his 2006 Moto GP lid (PO60846), and the 1:18 Bentley Azure in black (PG139500). I wish I had a little more to report, but nothing else of note has happened today, apart from continuing to work furiously on getting things ready for our sale!
I’m afraid it’s another quick one today, as things have been really busy preparing for what will be our biggest ever diecast sale. And I don’t use that expression lightly! You’re in for a treat…….
