Guide to early 007 Corgi Cars
dailo007
Posts: 182MI6 Agent
I've obviously read all the books and Mr Worrall remains a collecting god in my eyes, but I've not seen complete colour pictures of the variations and differences that occurred over the years; so while the "cat was away" I was able to play I decided to take shots of some of the sets I have and try to cover as many as possible of the changes I'm aware of, but also more importantly try to show what a "complete set" should look like.
I'm sure there are things I've missed and if so I'd love to know what they are, but hopefully this will act as a small subscript to the works of Dave and other experts out there.
The 261 with the various dealer accessories (I'd love to get hold of a non-ripped example of that large envelop if anyone has one going spare!) and variations I'm aware of, details about the cars, colours and boxes can be found in Dave's book; then what every complete set should consist of and showing some additional items that could have come with the car depending on when and where it was issued (the collectors sheet was also issued with the heading in German especially for Markus I understand!):
The 270, variations related to box, bumper colours (early models being silver), the lapel badge being completely re-designed from the 261 version an having a satin or waxy appearance, the bumper stickers also had some slight variations in size:
Slim Blue Box - Sucks from a marketing perspective but remains the rarest and most valuable, the car should only ever have silver bumpers:
The Bubble Pack - Talk about a turn around by the graphics team, I love these, but the complexity of the packaging made it highly susceptible to damage if not cared for; there is confusion as to then the gold bumpers were introduced but it's believed to be towards the end of this issue:
The striped package; a thin plastic makes the window venerable to splitting and cracking, boxes in great condition are hard to find and a wide range of purple colours exist, but for this issue the 270 on the front of the box is always printed in white:
The Final and in my view most disappointing of the early 270s, styled by MaxPower kinda pretty but bearing no resemblance to Mr Bond's car of choice, instruction now printed on the box and accessorised with..........nothing, nada, zip; just a spare Korean with his upper torse shoved through a hole in a side panel!
The 336, the 2000GT from YOLT, still one of my favorites but clearly not 007's vehicle but driven by Aki who takes the drivers seat in this model, the boot mechanism is the weakness in this model, many nowadays will not stay closed. Gold bumpered versions appear to be a rarity, whether a true Corgi slip up, a brief quirk at the factory or a fashion for little boys at the time, who knows, but the instructions with red printing on the reverse are most certainly the grail when it comes to this model, the second picture shows the complete set as issued including the often destroyed box reinforcements, finally the huge dealer envelopes which only held once sprue of 8 missiles:
I'm sure there are things I've missed and if so I'd love to know what they are, but hopefully this will act as a small subscript to the works of Dave and other experts out there.
The 261 with the various dealer accessories (I'd love to get hold of a non-ripped example of that large envelop if anyone has one going spare!) and variations I'm aware of, details about the cars, colours and boxes can be found in Dave's book; then what every complete set should consist of and showing some additional items that could have come with the car depending on when and where it was issued (the collectors sheet was also issued with the heading in German especially for Markus I understand!):
The 270, variations related to box, bumper colours (early models being silver), the lapel badge being completely re-designed from the 261 version an having a satin or waxy appearance, the bumper stickers also had some slight variations in size:
Slim Blue Box - Sucks from a marketing perspective but remains the rarest and most valuable, the car should only ever have silver bumpers:
The Bubble Pack - Talk about a turn around by the graphics team, I love these, but the complexity of the packaging made it highly susceptible to damage if not cared for; there is confusion as to then the gold bumpers were introduced but it's believed to be towards the end of this issue:
The striped package; a thin plastic makes the window venerable to splitting and cracking, boxes in great condition are hard to find and a wide range of purple colours exist, but for this issue the 270 on the front of the box is always printed in white:
The Final and in my view most disappointing of the early 270s, styled by MaxPower kinda pretty but bearing no resemblance to Mr Bond's car of choice, instruction now printed on the box and accessorised with..........nothing, nada, zip; just a spare Korean with his upper torse shoved through a hole in a side panel!
The 336, the 2000GT from YOLT, still one of my favorites but clearly not 007's vehicle but driven by Aki who takes the drivers seat in this model, the boot mechanism is the weakness in this model, many nowadays will not stay closed. Gold bumpered versions appear to be a rarity, whether a true Corgi slip up, a brief quirk at the factory or a fashion for little boys at the time, who knows, but the instructions with red printing on the reverse are most certainly the grail when it comes to this model, the second picture shows the complete set as issued including the often destroyed box reinforcements, finally the huge dealer envelopes which only held once sprue of 8 missiles:
Comments
Well my friend you know my opinion of your bits but as Darth Vader said to Darth Junior "Impressive, most impressive".
Seeing your amazing collection, it's like an apprentice calling the master into question, but: Are you sure that the cars in the blue-yellow slimline box should have silver bumpers? As far as I know the silver bumper variation was only briefly seen in the bubble pack, with the gold bumpers introduced while the bubble pack was still on sale.
As the slimline box came after the bubble pack (which still uses the old Corgi logo that was already obsolete when the car was launched in February 1968 - the new Corgi logo was introduced with the Green Hornet, Batboat, and Daktari in November 1967) there would be no silver bumper cars in the slimline box.
enjoyed reading your post - thanks for sharing great stuff -{
www.freewebs.com/scaramangasgoldengun
www.facebook.com/QuartermasterProps