Newbie with unusual TR7

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Birdy, just try and see if you can tell what is on the base...'Corgi Juniors' or just 'Corgi', that will be fine.

GHOSTHUNTER.

[birdy]

definitely corgi juniors also says Triumph TR7 and in small writing Made in gt Britain

[birdy]

[img]VA10599 TR7[img]

[MrGoodies]

Hi,

know this model very well, have seen 2 in the last years at the net, but not with box.
The example i have and shown in Bill Manzke book came from the Marcel van Cleemput collection
and is screwed as well (if i remember correctly!) The screws in the pictures looks correct, that
means Mettoy used this kind of screws with a ringplate in that period.
The box i have looks like handcutted and perhaps a one-off demonstration model. I never seen
another boxed one, but iam sure we will see more of these models in the future in the net.
The old collections coming up and i think a lot of these models sits in cabinets or in the attic
of former Triumph employees and workers. Also with a limited 250 model number, but the gold
effect make them attractive for cabinets and not for use in childrens hands!! Time will tell.

I dont know, where this 250 pieces fact came from, i can ask Bill Manzke if he can remember.

I have more TR7 prepros and these are partially hand painted, has handcutted and painted
stickers as well. But i have never seen painted interior details in Juniors from that time,
so let me think of aftermarket superdetailing, but who knows!?!
So many ideas where shown in modelform, but never came into production.
Many were shown in catalogues, i have a lot of prepros of other cars, that were shown in
catalogues, but never reaches production status. These models will fill an own book.

Wolfgang

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Here is a resized picture with some enhancement.

IMG_0158.JPG (111.61 KiB) Viewed 1316 times

'Corgi Juniors' on the base will surely date this, does Mick ("SMS88"), know when the 'Juniors' name was removed, to create the version I posted earlier.

GHOSTHUNTER.

[SMS88]

The Juniors name was removed from baseplates on a model by model basis over a couple of years in no known specific order.What we do know for sure is that it was after the Juniors name was dropped from blisterpacks and catalogs/advertsing during 1979.I can confirm from photos that screws + washers in TR7 baseplate are bog standard Corgi R&D standard with additional gold plating

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Thank's Mick.

GHOSTHUNTER.

[MrGoodies]

In my opinion most Corgi Juniors names was removed in around 1984 for a series of models for the
Hamleys stores. These all came in special packs with see through blisters, where also the baseplates
can be seen. This was my info on the main removal of juniors names.

Wolfgang

[cOO7rgi]

It would be nice to see a picture of the baseplate, as late issues of the TR7 only have the 'Corgi' name, not the 'Juniors' name.

Do you have a TR7 with the changed baseplate? As I am not sure the baseplates were ever changed. New models introduced after 1978 only have corgi but the older ones continued with Corgi Juniors. Even the Lotus Esprit road version which was altered from the James Bond submarine car in 1984 (after Mettoy's bankruptcy) still has Corgi Juniors on the base although the base was changed to remove the 007 logo. Even if the TR7's base was changed sometime later, this won't help dating the gold promo more exactly. The only TR7 I have is on the plain yellow card which was Mettoy's last UK card design and is from 1983 (or maybe 1982). It still has the Corgi Juniors base.

Pre-pros were, as we know from the Great Book of Corgi, often made by professional model makers and we also know from various pre-pros shown online that Corgi favoured a particular size of screw for their 1970s pre-pros which tended not to be rivited (colour trials were). Super detailing was a likely choice from a modelmaker wishing to sell the model to management.

Of course they were made by "professional model makers", being employed by Mettoy and getting paid for their work.
But why would anyone paint the interior of a promotion pre-pro to get approval from the customer? "So, that's how the finished model will look - except it won't be as good as we detailed the interior ..."

I remember the Dinky TR7 was released with the 1:1 TR7 in sync with BL in the UK in May 1976 - I rushed to the local toyshop after weeks of anticipation to get one but I was unaware of the Corgi being on the market in 1976 and have seen no evidence to support that idea.This gold version could have been made for the release of the Rover V8 engined TR7 or just the revised interiors fitted with brightly patterned seats + door cards both in 1977 which is a more credible timeline for this gold Juniors model especially with its detailed interior reflecting a post 1977 variation

Yes, you are correct, the TR7 was introduced in May 1976 in the UK and already in January 1975 in the US, long before the CJ TR7 was released. Based on the info regarding the gold promo in the book I assumed that the real car was launched in 1977 but this bit seems to be incorrect. The CJ TR7 was not announced in the 1977 Corgi catalogue but is shown in 1978 (without "NEW"), so we can assume that it was released sometime during 1977. (The Dinky TR7 was already available in 1975.) This rules out the possibility that the gold TR7 was made "for the product launch of the real car". However, production of the TR7 moved twice, from Liverpool to Coventry in 1978, and then to Solihull in 1980. Maybe the promo was done for one of these occasions.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Here is the baseplate of the medium Green model I posted earlier on page 1 of this thread...

'corgi' here in lower case letters..JPG (78.43 KiB) Viewed 1287 times

...and here is an issue presumably from 1981 (1981 copyright date on the box), still with 'CORGI JUNIORS' on the base.

1981 COPYRIGHT date on this issue..jpg (44 KiB) Viewed 1287 times

'CORGI JUNIORS'.jpg (39.42 KiB) Viewed 1287 times

So the dating of these models by the baseplates is variable, I did not offer a date of issue for the Green model, choosing to say "later issue" indicating the model was issued at a time when the original look and image of...'CORGI JUNIORS' was no longer important to Corgi, the novelty of having a Junior range of models additional to their regular sized models was not new anymore, so the deletion of the name...'JUNIORS' on the models would happen and the date period of the early 1980's seems feasible here, but of course old stocks of components will show up on models made after this, as has happened with Matchbox on numerous occasions.

GHOSTHUNTER.