Leigh’s Diecast Diary

Today it was AUTOart’s turn to inform us of what we can expect to see from them April! Their new container is due to arrive in the middle of the month.

We will see the next two colourways of the Porsche 911 RS 2.7, in yellow (AA87372) and orange (AA87373). We will also see the Alfa Romeo Montreal in orange (AA70172).

For more modern Porsches, we will see the 911 GT2 in white (AA77890) and in silver (AA77898).

Finally, we will see AUTOart’s first Nissan GTR from the 2008 Japanese Super GT Championship, the #12 car in the Calsonic livery (AA80877).

What with all the Spark releases that we are also due to receive in April, it looks like it is going to be a busy month for us!

It looks like April is going to be a really busy month for new diecast deliveries from Spark! We’ve just had notification of what we can expect to receive from them and there is loads! Everything is currently in our ‘Coming Soon’ section.

For the highlights, there will be several classic 1:43 Formula One cars, headlined by Jean Alesi’s 1990 Tyrrell 019 (SPK1698) and Mika Hakkinen’s 1991 Lotus 102B (SPK1676).

There will also be the first five 1:43 2009 Audi DTM cars, for Timo Scheider (SPK2505), Tom Kristensen (SPK2506), Mattias Ekstrom (SPK2507), Martin Tomczyk (SPK2508) and Mike Rockenfeller (SPK2509).

It’s going to be a huge month from Spark!

Today we received the new Minichamps delivery, with releases in all different scales!

It was one of those rare deliveries where we received a new 1:6 Minichamps bike, the Kawasaki Z2 750 RS (PG164300).

In 1:18 we received the #7 Peugeot 908 from the 2009 Le Mans 24 Hours (PG091207), and in 1:43 we received the two car set commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Ford Capri (P080103). It contains a Mk.I and a Mk.III version of the car, and is a limited edition of just 1,440 pieces worldwide.

There was quite a lot going on today in the world of diecast!

Top news story is definitely the arrival of the Minichamps 1:12 Valentino Rossi and Angel Nieto two figure set from the 2008 Le Mans Moto GP (PO80190). It is a limited edition of 2,352 pieces. As is so often the case with new Rossi releases these days, it is an instant sell-out with the Minichamps UK importer. We still have a few remaining but that number is sure to fall rapidly in the next few days!

We also received a new 1:43 Spark delivery today, featuring such replicas as Johnny Herbert’s 1991 Lotus 102B (SPK1677), the third placed #1 Audi R15 from the 2009 Le Mans 24 Hours (SPK0687), and the #50 Lancia GR6 from the 1982 Le Mans 24 Hours (SPK661).

There was a new announcement today too, and it is definitely a very interesting subject; John Lennon’s multi-coloured 1956 Rolls Royce Phantom V in 1:43 from TrueScale Miniatures (TSM104312).

Today there were two exciting new diecast announcements, representing the smaller and the larger end of the spectrum!

The smaller announcement was a 1:8 Valentino Rossi helmet, with a birthday cake design from a pre-season test in 2008 (PO80826). Yes, the test day was on his actual birthday!

The larger announcement was the next immense 1:18 replica from Bauer, which will be the Bugatti Royale Roadster Esders (BA1990). It will measure no less than 35cm in length and weigh in at a whopping 1.84 kilos!

Today it was Norev’s turn to announce some new diecast subjects, all in 1:18 scale.

Amongst the new 1:18 road cars announced were the 2006 Alfa Romeo Brera in red (NV187903), the 2009 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 Spyder in white (NV187960), and the infamous 2009 Tata Nano in white (NV186622).

From racing, Norev has already announced four 1:18 2010 Le Mans cars! These are the ‘works’ Aston Martin LMP1 (NV182761), Team Signature Aston Martin LMP1 (NV182762), ‘works’ Peugeot 908 (NV184802), and Team Oreca Peugeot 908 (NV184803). With the two ‘works’ cars, we expect Norev to replicate the car that will finish higher in the race, as that is what it has done in the past.

Norev has also announced a new DTM Audi, Tom Kristensen’s car from 2009 (NV188329).

Tomorrow we’re off to Aachen to give a presentation to Minichamps at its headquarters, following on from the presentation we gave when we were visited at our Guildford offices in January. That’s a long-winded way of saying there won’t be a diary entry from me tomorrow!

Welcome to this week’s Diecast Legends Podcast, which brings you the latest releases in the world of diecast models. This week we have new releases from Minichamps, Spark and Bizarre. Minichamps has released the Hamilton 2009 McLaren and the 2009 Le Mans winning Peugeot in 1:18.  Spark has released the Hakkinen 1992 Lotus and the 1980 Daytona winning Porsche and Bizarre has released the 1927 Sunbeam Speed Record car.

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

 

 Diecast Legends Podcast - 22/03/2010 [1:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (821)

You can also view this podcast on youtube by clicking here

The diecast models featured on this weeks podcast are;

Minichamps 1/18 Hamilton 2009 McLaren MP4/24
Minichamps 1/18 Kovalainen 2009 McLaren MP4/24
Minichamps 1/18 #9 2009 Peugeot 908 1st Le Mans
Minichamps 1/43 Fisichella 2009 Force India VJM02
Minichamps 1/43 Porsche 597 Jagdwagen
Spark 1/43 Hakkinen 1992 Lotus 102D
Spark 1/43 Tambay 1985 Renault RE60B
Spark 1/43 Cheever 1984 Alfa Romeo 184T
Spark 1/43 #2 1980 Porsche 935 1st Daytona
Spark 1/43 Lotus Europa S1
Spark 1/43 RUF CTR3
Bizarre 1/43 1927 Sunbeam Speed Record Car

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I hope you enjoyed watching the podcast. Please feel free to leave any comments on what you thought of it or anything you would like us to feature in future shows below.

Today we had new announcements from both AUTOart and IXO.

AUTOart’s highlight was the fourth colourway of its 1:18 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7, which is orange with a black stripe (AA87373). It also announced Mike Hezemans’ 1:18 Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA from the 1970 Jarama 4 Hours (AA87003).

IXO’s two new 1:43 announcements were both from the world of rallying. These were 2009 P-WRC Champion Armindo Araujo’s Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX (RAM396), and Sebastien Loeb’s winning Citroen C4 WRC from the 2009 Rally Du Var, when he was co-driven by his wife Severine (RAM405)!

It’s been another slow day in the diecast news department, so I will devote today’s diary entry to a warning about how essential it is to pre-order your Minichamps 1:12 Valentino Rossi 2008 Catalunya Yamaha YZR-M1 (DCL2008).

We have already pre-sold as many of this replica this month (and it’s only the 19th!) as we have left to sell before our entire allocation of it is sold out. The demand for this bike has only increased since the 2008 Catalunya figure (PO80086) sold out on release, so the bike is sure to go the same way. 

I will leave it at that!

I’m back! I really enjoyed the Bahrain Grand Prix, I loved how enjoyable it was not having a favourite to worry about – if I’d been a Vettel fan I’d have been tearing my hair out!

It was a pretty quiet day on my return in terms of diecast news, although I had plenty to do working on a Minichamps presentation that we are going out to their headquarters in Germany to give next Wednesday.

Spark confirmed some new 1:43 replicas that we will see from them next week, including Johnny Herbert’s 1991 Lotus 102B (SPK1677), the #50 Lancia LC1 from the 1982 Le Mans 24 Hours (SPK661), and, under Bizarre, the Bluebird Speed Record Car from Bonneville 1935 (BZ0433).

Right, back to Powerpoint!