Corgi Model Club - the other Cadillac Superior Ambulance

 

You will remember that the Model Club issued their version of #437 quite a while ago in August 2022. That was the later version with cast wheels and the second system for operation of the lights.

I think they had probably decided to make that version because the early system may well have been pretty fiddly to reproduce and still not functioned very well. So that was a sensible decision and meant that they could continue to claim to be reproducing the original models as closely as they could. 

The red and cream issue that is now available retains the later system that was fitted to the blue and white model. So, for the organisation, this entails just a few fairly simple changes and will be somewhat more profitable as a result. It's really just a change of finish and new decals and wheels, plus what look to be different coloured tubes for the small lights.

The Club has released this only via their online store, so it is similar to the Corgi (main company) issues of a few models (like the Ford Mustang) in different colours to the original issues but using the same tooling as they'd paid for for the Club issues. This, however, is promoted as a Club issue not a Corgi issue. With the Club essentially now being a part of Corgi I am not sure there is a huge difference now but be that as it may. It is an indication, perhaps, of things to come, and maybe the Club brand will be how future revisions of castings are promoted where they're not intended to be exact replicas of the originals. There is, of course, scope for much development along such lines and I am sure there would be a lot of interest in 'new' models.

The Club say that his will be a limited issue, with just a fixed quantity being produced. Whether that will be 5000 or 15000 or more remains to be seen. If you want one you need to go to the Corgi Model Club store where it will cost all of us in the UK, members or not it seems, £40 with 2p change (including postage).

An interesting development. I do feel that members should have a discount, though. 

I should mention that the Corgi main store now only features the silver Aston Martin and bronze Ford Mustang. I assume that means that they are not producing any more of the Jaguar E Type, Porsche Carrera, Volvo P1800 and Land Rover Breakdown Truck models that they released as different variations of the Club issues and, apart from those two remaining, were pretty much replicas of the original models. I don't know how many of these were produced but suspect they might be rather scarcer than the Model Club issues of those models of which, of course, more batches can be manufactured.