Corgi Model Club: another MGA

Chasing hard on the heels of the Rover 2000TC in white, the MGA in metallic teal has now arrived.

This is a lovely-looking model with an excellent, high gloss finish, which makes you wonder why they couldn't have achieved that with the Chevrolet Impala a little while ago. The colour is really nothing much like the Corgi original but pleasant for all that, there being no chance of this being mistaken for the 1957 issue.

Like the early 2024 re-issue, this has smooth wheels, which are nicely made and very shiny but I have always thought this model looked so much better with the shaped wheels fitted from around 1961. Indeed, this particular model will be for sale soon as my colleague in the USA who usually has these re-issues once I have finished with them, has specifically told me not to bother sending any with these smooth wheels.

This one is another model made for the Club in Bangladesh. It's not easy to read on the extremely shiny base but rather better typesetting, or whatever the process is called is needed.. It still looks poorly aligned, though. Having said that, the design and general presentation skills exhibited by many traders from that part of the world in their store signage and shop window displays are not great. The Rover's base looked very amateur.

Like many people making reproductions or restorations, whoever was in charge of the paint pots in Dhaka, Chattagram or wherever could not resist the addition of a little red to the rear lights. I am pretty sure that these were not painted on the original models or, if they were, it would be with the same silver as for the bumper.

The emblem on the boot lid is also a bit too circular. Even on the originals it was not as clearly an octagon as it should be but the angles have really been smoothed out on this. With real new MG cars' manufacture now in Chinese hands, I am sure they would have got that right but I guess the workers in Bangladesh would be unaware of things like that.

That's not very significant overall, however, and the model itself is an attractive product that will please most collectors and seems quite good value at £29 for members, including some tissue and two unevenly cut pieces of plastic foam.

What is not so good to report is the quality of the card used for the box. It is noticeably thinner than the Chinese variety and I have already seen pictures from unhappy people sending back boxes with considerable wear on the corners, presumably where it has been free to move around in the quite inadequate outer packaging used for delivery.

And once again, the Club will need to fire their latest editor of the Certificates of Authenticity. (You'll gather that I didn't get the job.) We are told that 'the MGA was available in red, cream or metallic teal'. This is an error I suppose they've picked up by copying the Great Book of Corgi, in which many of the colours said to have been issued were figments of Marcel's imagination. He even writes about red seats in the green one. No doubt he will have seen many factory samples and I am sure more will have been approved but, to the best of my knowledge, there was no cream edition issued to buy in the shops. I think I would have seen one by now if there had been. Factory samples, yes, Issued models available to dealers, no.

I am also a bit confused by the text which goes on to tell me that ' it was available in . . . a blue illustrated box (as presented with this special Corgi Model Club member's edition) . . .' I don't know about anyone else but my box is the later yellow and blue type. It even has 'Teal Member's Edition' printed on the box too. So something's not quite right there.

There is a cream MGA either in the shop already or coming soon and I think that is the one that will come in a blue box.