NO Corgi Whizzwheels Club!

 It appears that the recent promotion by Corgi to introduce us to the Corgi Whizzwheels Club and invite us to pay just £9.99 for a Ford Cortina MkIII GXL (and the Graham Hill character and an impressive-looking sign) was just a bit of test marketing to see what level of interest there might be for this. I guess the models advertised would have been nice mint originals.

From what I can read elsewhere, the test was intended to reach only people who were not already members of the Corgi Model Club but how on Earth they expected to restrict that in this day and age is beyond me. So a bit of a blunder, although I expect they will have learned that there is a strong appetite for this series amongst existing members, at least.

I know that many Corgi collectors dislike Whizzwheels and would not wish to have them. However, if they were to appear as a normal Club issue they would need to go to the trouble of contacting the Club and specifically asking to miss that one. That's a hassle and many would probably not bother and just sell the model or give it to some children to play with. I have several issues that I would prefer not to have had sitting in boxes here which I couldn't be bothered to cancel. So the concept of a separate Club does make some sense but they really should simply have come up with a less annoying way of assessing interest in the campaign.

One can't help feeling slightly 'played'. However, at least I am not well worn as well and my suspension appears to be holding up!

So if you did place an order then you will get an email to tell you 'sorry, there will be a delay' or words to that effect. Although this is probably technically correct, I think they could have been a little more honest and just admitted that they were simply testing the market and apologised.

We are being credited with £10 towards any purchase form the store so let's not moan too much and look on the bright side; we're a penny up on where we were a few weeks ago!

Just before learning about the non-existence of any Club Cortinas I did actually place a second order and used the £10 discount code to minimise the cost to £2.99. I couldn't use the delivery discount code twice but, as and when they do get this under way I'll have a couple of models. I think they'll be popular and I already have a customer for one.

The Corgi Whizzwheels Club

 

Surprising most of us this week, Corgi announced the launch of the Corgi Whizzwheels Club. I certainly had not seen any hints of this. We get plenty of advance notice of new models and even get asked what the Corgi Model Club should consider reproducing from time to time and sometimes I spot a model in a photograph of a selection that are in early stages of production but they managed to keep any Whizzwheels models well hidden.

That might be because members who love the early era models can often be pretty dismissive of the Whizzwheels types that started to appear in 1969 and the Club might have been concerned about losing people. That, in turn, might explain why this is, in fact, a totally separate Club. And with the new Club comes the same sort of great offer as we had before. This time for just a penny short of £10 the Ford Cortina Mk III GXL in metallic blue will be delivered, with no charge for postage in the UK. 

The model comes with the Graham Hill character too and this display sign. All this seems a pretty good deal. Looking at the promotional stuff, it looks like the Bond 750 three-wheeler are on the menu for release soon, along with the Roger Clark edition of the Ford Capri (with pepperpot wheels) and, strangely, the Kojak Buick is illustrated. Now that's a 1:36 scale model so an odd choice and one I could certainly do wothout.

I am not likely to keep any of the models illustrated and hope one of my customers will be happy to take them from me at something like cost price once I have taken some photos and checked them out. However, there are a few Whizzwheels models that are particularly hard to find and I get the impression that there were not many produced. the 304 Chevrolet Camaro in blue with a white roof comes to mind, as does the 387 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray in pink. These I would like to have as it's so hard to find originals in good condition - one of the reasons being that Whizzwheels did tend to be 'whizzed' around and crashes would be more damaging!

Who knows, we might even see a Gift Set 20 with the blue Mini-Marcos GT850 (which makes the Pop Art Mini seem common)!