Leigh’s Diecast Diary

We received a new delivery from AUTOart today, that had several new 1:18 subjects on it. Sadly, none of these was a Koenigsegg!

What we did receive, however, was three classic touring cars; the 1986 BMW 635 CSi (AA88646), and the #5 (AA88931) and #6 (AA88932) Mercedes 500 SECs.

There was also the first colourway of the Lamborghini Espada, silver (AA74501), and the Mazda Cosmo Sport in white (AA75931), red (AA75932) and silver (AA75933).

Today AUTOart announced three new 1:12 classic Ducati subjects, the GT1000 in red (AA12546), the Sport 1000 in yellow (AA12552), and the Paul Smart 1000 in silver (AA12556).

In rallying diecast news, we can now offer Kyosho’s 1:18 replica of Paddy Hopkirk’s 1964 Monte Carlo rally winning Mini signed by the man himself (KY8102AS).

Finally today, SMTS have announced a 1:43 replica of Mike Hawthorn’s pride and joy, his Jaguar Mk.I with the 881 VDU registration (SMTS227). This was also the car that tragically took his life in a road accident in 1959, just after he had become Britain’s first ever F1 World Champion.

Just a quickie today, as I was only in the office a few minutes before going out for meetings!

However, there is something significant to report today, with Minichamps announcing their 1:43 2009 Formula One showcars. As ever, they will all be limited editions, and the entire field has been covered, with the obvious exceptions of Mattel-exclusive Ferrari, and, for now, Honda. If they do end up getting onto the grid in Melbourne then these may be announced later.

We believe that they will come with the 2009 spec front and rear wings but, until we see the first one released, it will be difficult to really know for definite.

Today Solido took the opportunity to announce their new subjects for 2009. There are a couple of gems on there, the most notable being the new shape Subaru Impreza WRC (SL118030), although at this stage we are not sure which driver it is going to be.

Also interesting to see was the Gulf Aston Martin DBR9 from last year’s Le Mans 24 Hours (SL118045), and a racing version of the Lotus Caterham Super Seven (SL118040).

To see all of Solido’s new announcements, click here.

Today we received Minichamps’ latest classic bike, the Laverda Jota (P122500). The final model has come with the front fairing included, which was not on the sample that we saw at Nuremberg last year.

All of you will be well up to date by now with the ‘situation’ regarding the Rossi Phillip Island Yamaha (PO73196). Also on the delivery with it on Friday was the 2002 Donington sidesaddle figure (PO20146), another pre-release sellout.

We also received the new Minichamps release schedule today. It starts off well, but then peters out quite a bit. Hopefully more subjects will find their way onto it as the weeks go by.

Next week we will see the next 1:12 Rossi figure, which, surprisingly, is the Assen victory release (PO73196). This must be the first time in Minichamps’ history that the figure is going to be released before the bike! As I write this we only have about a dozen pieces available to pre-order, so it has been taken off our website so that we do not oversell on our allocation.

Also down to be released next week is Troy Bayliss’s 1:12 2007 Ducati 999 (PO70221). This could be the last Bayliss bike we see if Minichamps decide never to replicate the 1098 from last year.

The week after that we will receive Colin Edwards’ 1:12 2007 Phillip Island Yamaha (PO73195). Aside from the ‘usual’ mix of 1:43s, that’s it! Everything in the schedule, by  the way, can be seen in the ‘Minichamps Release Schedule’ tab at the top of this page.

The third week of the schedule (week beginning 16th March) sees Lorenzo Lanzi’s 1:12 2007 Ducati 999 (PO70257) released. It’s a good few weeks for bike collectors, at any rate!

We see some new 1:18 releases in the last week of the schedule; the Villeneuve/Minassian/Gene Peugeot 908 from Le Mans 2007 (PG071207), and the Audi TT Roadster in metallic blue (PG015031). There is also a re-release, the 1982 Le Mans winning Porsche 956L of Derek Bell and Jacky Ickx (PG826901).

Welcome to the sixty sixth Leigh’s Diary Vidcast. Some oversized tractors give Leigh a tough time this week, and he decides to put two of Sebastien Loeb’s Citroen C4s to the test.

Keep the comments rolling in. You’ll need quicktime installed to view the video on this post.

 

 Leighs Diary Vidcast Episode 66 [7:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

You can also view this podcast on youtube by clicking here

The replicas featured on this weeks podcast are;

1/43 Toro Rosso STR2 4th Chinese Grand Prix 2007 #19 S. Vettel - Minichamps (SOLD OUT)
1/12 Rossi Kissing Figure Welkom 2004 - Minichamps (SOLD OUT)
1/12 MotoGP Motor Bike Stand - Minichamps
1/12 125/250GP Motor Bike Stand - Minichamps
1/43 Force India VJM01 2008 #20 A. Sutil - Minichamps
1/43 Ford Escort 1st RAC Rally 1976 #6 R. Clark - Minichamps
1/43 Morris Mini Cooper 1275S Mk II 1967 Red - Minichamps
1/12 McLaren F1 1994 Silver - Minichamps
1/43 Ligier JS05 1976 #26 J. Laffite - Spark
1/43 Pescarolo P01 Le Mans 2008 #17 C.Tinseau/ B.Tréluyer/ H.Primat - Spark
1/43 Spyker Laviolette GT2R Le Mans 2008 #85 R.Kelleners/ A.Vasiliev/ P.Dumbreck - Spark
1/43 Chevrolet Corvette C6R 3rd GT1 Le Mans 2008 #64 O.Beretta/ O.Gavin/ M.Papis - Spark
1/43 Fiat 500 Jolly 1959 Red - Spark
1/43 Mini 1275 GT 1969 Red - Spark
1/43 Eagle Weslake 1st Belgian Grand Prix 1967 #36 D. Gurney - SMTS
1/43 Lotus 56 Turbine 1968 #70 G. Hill - SMTS
1/18 Ferrari F2007 Barcelona Test 2007 M. Schumacher - Mattel Elite
1/18 Ferrari 410 Superamerica 1955 Black - Mattel Elite
1/18 Ferrari 410 Superamerica 1955 Silver - Mattel Elite
1/16 Big Bud HN320 - Universal Hobbies
1/16 Doe 130 Tractor - Universal Hobbies
1/16 JCB Majorloader - Universal Hobbies
1/18 Ford Focus RS WRC 2nd Rally Of Wales 2007 #3 M. Gronholm - Sun Star
1/18 Ford Focus RS WRC 1st Rally Of Wales 2007 #4 M. Hirvonen - Sun Star
1/18 Ford Focus RS WRC Rally Of Wales 2007 #16 M. Wilson - Sun Star
1/18 Ford Focus RS WRC 3rd Rally Of Ireland 2007 #9 J-M. Latvala - Sun Star
1/43 Renault R28 2008 #5 F. Alonso - Norev
1/18 Porsche RS Spyder Le Mans Series 2007 #20 - Norev
1/18 Renault 4 F4 1965 White - Norev
1/18 Mercedes 280SL 1969 Silverblue - Norev
1/18 Renault Caravelle 1958 Gold - Norev

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I’m not in the office today, but have still written a diary entry! In all honesty I could have told you this yesterday, but I had to keep something back for today!

Minichamps have changed the description of one of their forthcoming 1:43 classic F1 cars. The replica that was originally going to be Nigel Mansell’s 1985 Williams FW10 (P850005), will now be Nelson Piquet’s test car from Paul Ricard at the end of the season instead.

There will still be a 1:43 1985 Mansell Williams FW10 available however, as the details for the First Win special from the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch (P850105) have remained unchanged.

Other than that, not much else to say! I’m looking forward to a huge Minichamps delivery next week, with the 1:12 Rossi 2007 Phillip Island Yamaha YZR-M1 (PO73196), Rossi 2002 Donington figure (PO20146), and Laverda Jota (P122500) on it!
P.S:- Leigh wrote the diary entry first thing this morning.

Since he left, our delivery of the Rossi Phillip Island bike (PO73196) has arrived.

There seems to be some upset amongst collectors as the Minichamps website originally stated that the edition was limited to 4,000 pieces. In fact, it would appear that this was a mistake. The number is actually 10,000.

But what you should know is that, even at this figure, the bike has been a total sell-out.

We have bought up the last remaining tiny quantity of bikes from the importer, so there are none left and there won’t be any more.

If you’re concerned about the collectibility of this bike you shouldn’t be. This is the most highly demanded Rossi bike in years. It’s going to be rarer than hens’ teeth.

If anybody doesn’t want to keep the bike, send it back. We need as many as we can get hold of for our forthcoming catalogue.

Sean

Today we received a new delivery from Universal Hobbies. This included the second shipment of our 1:16 JCB Majorloaders (J2711), so we are now able to supply that straight from stock. There were two new 1:16 tractors as well, the Doe 130 (J2703) and the massive Big Bud HN320 (J2714).  

There has been a lot of speculation recently about Minichamps’ 1:18 replica of Sebastian Vettel’s Toro Rosso STR3 from the 2008 Italian Grand Prix, the young German’s first win special (DC2815M). It is now available to pre-order from our website, but the price is still to be confirmed at this time. The rumour doing the rounds at Nuremberg was that it would not have ‘luxuries’ such as working steering, in order to keep the price down. Hopefully full details will be released soon.

We had a nice surprise today, when we found out that we will not be seeing the Minichamps 1:12 Valentino Rossi Phillip Island Yamaha (PO73196) in two weeks, as I said yesterday, but next week instead!

A few new Minichamps releases were also confirmed today, that hadn’t made it into the ‘big’ announcements listing a couple of weeks ago.

The most popular products will probably the ones that are by far the cheapest! After all the requests for Minichamps to release the more sturdy stands that come included with the recent 1:12 Rossi figures, they have chosen to do so. You can either have a pack of two Moto GP stands (PC100010) or a pack of a 125 and 250 stand (PC100011). These are much better than the stands that come with the bikes themselves, as they support the model much more effectively. I reckon we could sell loads of these!

Other new announcements were Nigel Mansell’s 1981 Lotus 88 (P810012B), and Hector Rebaque’s 1981 Brabham BT49C (P810105). These and the rest of the couple of dozen new releases can now be found in our New Announcements section, which you an see by clicking here.

We received the new Sun Star delivery today, which had the latest 1:18 Ford Focus WRCs on it. They are from the 2007 season; Mikko Hirvonen (SS3927), Marcus Gronholm (SS3928) and Mat Wilson (SS3929) from Rally GB, and Jari-Matti Latvala (SS3926) from Rally Ireland. There was also the next 1:12 Volkswagen bus, in green/grey (SS5075).

Away from Sun Star, Minichamps confirmed that we will see their 1:12 Valentino Rossi 2007 Phillip Island Yamaha YZR-M1 (PO73196) in two weeks. Judging by all the samples we saw at Nuremberg, 2009 is going to be a bumper year for Rossi collectors!