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page last updated: 05 September 2007 |
Hi-Speed Fire Engine |
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'700' series of made-up toys, the Minibus, the Ambulance, the Tow Truck,
the Security Van and this Fire Engine get plenty of much deserved spleen
on these pages, however what is striking about them, against all logic,
is that they photograph really well. It could be that the ones I have
are in such good condition, and that could be that their original owners
didn't really want to play with them. It is an interesting by-product of
dumbing down the range in this way that the target audience must have
got younger. This is a nursery toy, accurate models of cars and truck appeal to older boys. Was the decline of the brand hastened by unintentionally narrowing the market to a younger age group? That is possibly unfair as Corgi were trying a range of strategies at this time which while they disappoint the enthusiast 30 years later, were actually in reaction to a changing world back then. When I was little in the late fifties & sixties Corgi toys were about as exciting and glamorous as toys got. In the seventies & eighties there was much more stuff to choose from. In the die-cast arena the arrival of Hot Wheels changed everything, elsewhere electronic toys and computers were beginning to appear, this was the real competition and the reason that Corgi could never continue as they were. |
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