Was anything else ever so easily lost? I can’t think of anything. As children we would come to lose many other things — faith, innocence, virginity — but nothing was lost as simply as the baddie from a Corgi Bond DB5. There are no official statistics on casualties, but it seems reasonable to assume that the vast majority of them were lost within a few firings, maybe after one, and often within the first few hours of ownership. The toll for Christmas Day 1965 probably puts history’s worst battles in the shade. My first job was designing a plastic roof for a horsebox,” he says. “But I loved experimenting; I designed a lorry with a working tail-lift in 1962 and, although they never made it, it got the attention of [Mettoy founder] Philipp Ullmann.” The cars Bond has used during his thrilling adventures over the years have always been popular subjects in the Corgi range and without challenge, are always amongst the most popular releases in any catalogue of models. That even extends to representations of vehicles which are intentionally presented in a less than pristine state, hugely collectable in their replication of famous scenes from some of the most popular films to appear on the silver screen. This diecast collectable phenomenon first appeared with the release of our Aston Martin DB5 from No Time To Die, a model which features extensive damage to its left hand side and more bullet holes than any Aston Martin should ever be forced to endure. Are these the 23 ugliest cars ever made? Gran Turismo movie review The 31 most ridiculous car names ever › More here...

But the most significant car of all time? That’s a bit harder, and it was the brief for my Cars that Changed the World walk-through exhibition at last week’s London Classic Car Show. With space for just a dozen cars, ruthlessness was demanded. So I’m afraid the Jaguar E-type was out, and so was the Austin 7. The Range Rover as well, and the Audi quattro, the “Blower” Bentley, the Ford Escort RS1800, the Citroën DS and many other cars suggested to me, thank you. And the Volkswagen Golf GTI. Sorry. John Marshall and Tim Richards worked in Mettoy’s Northampton design centre, where every new Corgi diecast car, lorry, bus, tractor and more took shape. Marshall started there as a pattern-maker in 1961, following a spell designing moulds for plastic 00-gauge train kits. This hugely successful model was followed up with an extension on this same theme, but this time a car with an entire door missing. Currently in the range marking the 15th anniversary of the movie 'Quantum of Solace', this high quality collectors release could be described as incomplete, but if Bond will insist on abusing his Aston Martins, we simply have to replicate them as accurate diecast collectables.The most popular advice topics — we've got you covered 2035 petrol and diesel car ban: 12 things to know Advice Corgi and their legendary Swansea factory prided themselves in making models with unparalleled detail and accuracy. ‘The ones with windows’ was their much-trumpeted mantra – a dig at Dinky who had commonly produced toy cars with unglazed windows. The stars and their cars Giorgetto Giugiaro, legendary car designer Gran Turismo star on fatal Nurburgring crash Duke of Richmond Q&A: 75 years of Goodwood › More here...

The popularity of the Bond Corgi is simple to analyse. It wasn’t just the association with the film Goldfinger, and it certainly wasn’t fidelity. It’s the wrong colour, for a start. Apparently Corgi’s marketing team didn’t like the proposed — and cinematically authentic — silver finish because it looked too much like the raw zinc alloy of the unpainted body, so a hasty decision was made to paint it gold as a nod to the film’s title. And the people at Corgi knew they were selling children a spring-loaded tragedy in waiting. They knew, the bastards, because the second-generation Bond DB5 was sold with a spare baddie. But why just one? You needed a bagful. To open the roof and trigger the ejector seat to jettison Bond’s adversary, Marshall positioned a tiny release button under the Aston’s sill. There was a similar control to deploy the concealed machine-guns, while the pop-up bullet shield in the boot was activated by pushing in the exhaust pipes. Corgi management had to be convinced the miniature mechanisms were strong enough to withstand being played with relentlessly. So there you have it - if you're looking for the perfect diecast gift for your Hellraiser or if you know a Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Corgi might just have the answer for you this year. Gifts built to lastMarshall was tasked with creating the customised Chrysler Imperial used by the masked crime-fighter as he graduated from comic strip to half-hour TV show: “In the comic it had a drone in the boot, and I spent a week experimenting. I thought we could mould it like

Get under the skin of cars over months rather than days Extended test: Honda HR-V 2023 review Extended test: Skoda Kamiq 1.0 TSI Extended test: Dacia Jogger review › More here... The most popular advice topics — we've got you covered 2035 petrol and diesel car ban: 12 things to know Welcome to the latest edition of Corgi Die-cast Diaries, your regular blog review of all the news, updates and topical stories from the captivating world of Corgi die-cast model collecting. The ‘as seen on TV’ tag was clearly an enormous draw among toy-car buyers, so Corgi brilliantly exploited the goldmine awaiting a successful collaboration with 007. Corgi Model Club models are exact facsimiles of original Corgi Toys. When in mint condition and with their original box, original examples can fetch hundreds of Pounds at auction, making collecting Corgi Toys of the 1960s and early 1970s out of reach for many of us. That is, until now! It is our mission to make collecting Corgi Toys as affordable as possible – introducing these fantastic models to a new generation of die-cast model collectors.Stories and advice about our beloved classics Are these the 23 ugliest cars ever made? Alan Mann unveils electric Ford Mustang restomod Goodwood Revival's cutest race? Yes and no › More here... One of the first suggestions offered was a range of models which rarely receive much attention here on Diecast Diaries, but could hardly be more perfect for this time of year. This one was more in relation to an appropriate gift for us to give to younger members of our family, but models which are most definitely designed to stand the test of time. We all know that we wouldn't let inquisitive young minds loose with the latest limited edition model addition to our collections, but we would love to see them playing for hours on end with a range of models designed specifically for them. Well over 50 years later the Corgi Aston Martin DB5 has appeared in a total of seven James Bond films; Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), Goldeneye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Casino Royale (2006), Skyfall (2012) and SPECTRE (2015). This car remains the largest selling toy car Corgi ever produced, and it’s still going. Corgi is still selling remakes of its Aston Martin DB5 and demand is still high. Without a doubt Corgi’s best known model, and a part of James Bond history. For a tank which is historically one of the most feared enemy weapons of the Second World War, it can seem a little strange to learn how the world's only running example is now a UK museum exhibit which is held in such affection by huge numbers of people all over the world, that it is simply known by the red identification numbers painted on its turret, ‘Tiger 131’. The Tank Museum’s famous Tiger I, or to give it it's correct title, former Schwere Panzer-Abteilung 504 Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger I, turret number 131, has the distinction of being the first Tiger tank to be captured intact by the Allies during WWII and since it fell into British hands 80 years ago, has become something of an armoured vehicle celebrity, if there could ever be such a thing.

Please don't delay with this one, as they'll go faster than a Triumph Trophy TR6 with a clear road ahead! The most famous tank in the world The car won the inaugural Toy of the Year award from the National Association of Toy Retailers in 1966. But demand remained huge long after Goldfinger left cinemas. An upgraded edition was launched in 1968 with cleaner castings, an authentic silver finish, and a new feature in the form of miniature tyre-slashers in the rear wheel centres. It sold more than 1.2m units and was in the Corgi catalogue into the early ’70s. After you have received the CORGI TOYS James Bond Aston Martin DB5 model, you are free to cancel at any time and you are under absolutely NO further obligation to buy anything else whatsoever, EVER!The Batmobile was even more successful than the Bond Aston, selling five million near-identical examples and helped enormously by Batman’s near-permanent place on Saturday morning children’s telly of the 1960s and ’70s. This stunning model may well be a must for all Bond fans, but represents a significant achievement for our development team, a tooling design intentionally modified to include the missing door, but without rendering the tooling unusable in its usual format. Presented in a luxurious collectors box, the model also features a representation of the damage inflicted on Bond's car during that thrilling opening film sequence, with Bond exacting his revenge by systematically dispatching the lot of them. As it was, the baddie’s supersonic upward trajectory was arrested only by the ceiling (unless you played with your toys outside, in which case he was in your neighbour’s garden), from where he would fall to the dark and heavily patterned carpet that characterised the 1960s and 1970s and become invisible. He was, you remember, less than an inch long and not even a complete man, all of his legs below the shins having being sacrificed to make way for the mechanism. From the Hoover bag he made his way to the dustbin and a rubbish tip far, far away.