Miniatures news, October 1966

Pride of place this month goes to Corgi’s Gift Set No. 37, which is a complete Lotus Team in miniature. Lotus owners and club members will have great fun with this! The set comprises a Lotus-Climax F.1 car, a Lotus Elan coupe, a Lotus Elan 52 in competition guise, a backbone Lotus Elan chassis, fully detailed even to twin cam boxes, 4-branch exhaust manifold and twin Webers, on a trailer, to which a body can be assembled (a new breakthrough for a die-cast scale-model kit, claim Corgi), and a VW transporter equipped with special tools, fuel drums, etc., and a winch for lifting the Elan chassis onto the two-wheel trailer the VW tows. This gift box contains accessories, such as dummy personnel and racing numbers applicable to the beautifully made and brightly finished models it contains. The whole set, with its six Corgi, models, costs 35s. 6d. There is also a 4.1/2 in.-long Corgi Oldsmobile Super 88 rigged up as a gun-firing “Thrush Buster” from “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” films (Corgi Toys No. 497, price 8s. 11d), which is perhaps better ignored. . . .

Lesney have a Dodge dumper truck (No. 413 in their “Matchbox” series) and a Dodge stake-truck (No. 4 in this series), with 6-wheelers, respectively 3 in, and 2 1/2 in. long, their wale reapectively 85 : 1 and 91 : 1 (why these two same-make, similar-type miniature, cannot he made to the same scale passeth understanding!), price at 2s. each.

A newcomer in the miniatures field Roadmaster Impy range of detailed small-scale (about 60 : 1) die-cast replicas, of which we have received a Ford Corsair (No. 18. price 2s. 11d.). with opening hoot and bonnet, sprung wheels, jewelled headlamps. opening doors, seats and steering wheel. etc. We also have a Monogram kit for assembling a detailed plastic model of the Type 35 Bugatti, about which we hope to have more to say next month.—W. B.