Flamin' Manta Prototype

[RacingFreak]

First of all, I'm very excited to show this model here, but I'm not sure if the thread is in the right forum category．

This prototype was found in a huge skip of parts that were either unused or destined to be scrapped back in the mid－80's (from the bulgarian Mikro '67 factory)：








While the pics are not mine (but I can request more if needed)； I'm doing a favor of a friend who has all these parts with him currently and he's willing to sell them all． But before that we'd like to hear suggestions and possibly some more info about it as it is extremely unusual find！I personally suspect it could be one of these samples sent to the factory back then．

If you would like to express interest， offer or just have more information about the rest of the parts repository， please PM me．

[mbox75]

Hi RacingFreack

Very intresting story and pictures please more of it.

Cheers Mathias

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Production in Bulgaria went all tits-up in the late 80's and the factory producing Matchbox models should have gave back all their castings and tooling, this did not happen and the factory carried on producing models in smaller quantites and the Flamin Manta is one of the models not to make full production, it was not even asigned a catalogue number and as "RacingFreak" says in his post, a lot of castings were disposed of as they moved-on to producing other models to be marketed by 'SHUCO-GAMA'.

If members are interested in these Bulgarian models I can post a basic listing of the models made and or marketed in Bulgaria, into the 'Mikro67' period.

Ghosty.

[motorman]

If members are interested in these Bulgarian models I can post a basic listing of the models made and or marketed in Bulgaria, into the 'Mikro67' period.

Ghosty.

Do you really want me to comment Ghosty

[GHOSTHUNTER]

No Alex, not openly, I can guess what you want to say about the above...

Ghosty.

[RacingFreak]

Actually, the molds that were given to them the first time were returned back with the Miura one known to have got broken. The Flamin' Manta was amongst the first ones, so no more produced after that. At the moment, the factory does not produce any more models and they just assemble the parts already made. However, they usually produce toys during autumn, winter and spring seasons. That's all I know.. but it does seem like the factory is nearing it's final days!

I personally have some unique speciments which I might consider selling soon (would just note that I also have few models that seem to be original (non-bulgarian) samples, though!), so if you'd like to have more info in advance, PM me.