Marcos revisited

324  Marcos 1800GT from 1966

377 Marcos 3 Litre from 1970

There's nothing like recycling old bodies to try and make a bit more profit and in 1970 Corgi were needing all the help they could get. So the old 324 cast was dug out and relaunched in 1970 as a further addition to the Whizzwheels range. The #377 Marcos 3 Litre car is basically the same but without opening doors, a bulge added to the bonnet, a patch stuck on the roof, a different colour plastic interior and, supposedly, a different engine. As the first model included with Volvo engine quite prominently and now has another 1.2 litres as well it really ought to look different! There is still Volvo written under the bonnet and several features are the same as before but it does, indeed, look as though some effort to include a 3 litre Volvo engine in place of the 1.8 litre has been made.

I wonder whether the nice Marcos motif is still on the bonnet beneath that ugly decal?

The door section does look much better but the same plastic wheels as all the other models are tiresome. And that's not meant to be a pun.

These wheels don't look too bad in photos and sort of suit one or two models, including this one. I do think that a collection of Corgi Toys from this era does need to have the variations of older models like this and as many were only around for a year or two and didn't sell brilliantly either, values should remain healthy, with some comfortably exceeding their 'classic' predecessors. Now that's quite a turn-up for the books and makes the plastic Whizzwheels a little more bearable.