Red spot wheels - an update

 

Back in December 2019 I wrote about red spot wheels, the first 'Whizzwheels', and how vast sums were being paid by people for some Corgi models featuring them. I had doubts and, after several collectors and one auction site director had written or called me to talk about these, I wrote that I might be persuaded that a very few issues in April and May 1970, including The Saint's Volvo P1800, might have been genuine factory issues.

Since then I have had a lot more discussions and learned that the decision to change to the cheaper plastic wheel was made in February and implemented more or less immediately. Whilst there would have been some stocks to use up, these would have been depleted by the time of the Volvo's re-appearance.

So, particularly as the wheels are so easy to change, I can only urge that you do not pay any more for a red-spot edition of the Volvo (or, for that matter, Renault 16TS, Alfa Romeo P33, Porsche Carrera 6 which were produced at the same time) than you would for one with the ubiquitous black wheels. I have amended my article with the addition shown here and apologise to anyone who saw this as a green light to invest heavily. I was wrong.

Despite the logic here, in many discussions I have had with people who seem to know what they're talking about and have a good knowledge of many other issues, it does appear that Corgi did not proceed with fitting red spot wheels to models after announcing the switch to a cheaper variety. Maybe stock lasted a few weeks but that's all, and not long enough to impact these three or the following two. In the absence of any definitive evidence or anything by way of better provenance no-one can say categorically that none of these emerged with red-spot wheels but, if they did, they're not official and are more likely to have been the product of someone who just reckoned the cars looked better with them and had access to a few spares.

It makes valuing any models that do appear with these wheels something that has to be done with great caution, not only because of the doubts of their origin but also, and probably principally nowadays, because it is so easy to swap them.

I should add that it is so often the TV and Film-related models which seem to get this treatment - these are the models which far more people seek to collect and so often want to believe that they have something special, a more generally gullible audience, I suspect. And that brings us neatly to the worst offender of all - the 270 James Bond Aston Martin that you'll find fitted with red-spot wheels.

For this one, I can state, without any doubt whatsoever, that they're fakes. You'll see that, by virtue of earlier editions having tyre slashers on the rear wheels, only the later editions with wider wheel arches are marketed with the red spots. That edition did not appear until 1976, some 6 years after red spot wheels had disappeared from production lines at the Corgi factory! The only place those wheels would have been in 1976 was on some earlier models and, over the years, people have simply taken them off a legitimate bearer, such as a Capri, Ferrari Dino, Chevrolet Astro, Lamborghini or Pontiac, and pushed them on to the Aston axles. The chrome wheels fitted would be easy to pull off. And yet, and yet, people still pay vast sums for the Aston when they see them . . .

Diecast Investor laughably describe their model as a 'transition' edition! Some transition, lasting 6 years or more!

OK, I'll stop now. Caveat emptor as the Romans might have said.