We know this latest blog was a little different to our usual format, but we hope you enjoyed the change and we hope we managed to include something you would love to find under your own Christmas tree this year. Your right to cancel within 14 days. Our terms are wholly in accordance with The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 and your statutory rights are not affected. Crafted with precision and attention to detail, this limited edition collectible is a must-have for any true Motörhead fan. The rugged design and metal construction ensure that it can handle anything you throw at it, just like Lemmy and the boys.

Corgi Model Club membership is completely free and without any catches. And should you ever wish to cancel – which you are totally free to do at any time – there is no financial penalty. Corgi's desire to include ever-more exciting features was almost feverish. Opening doors, sliding seats, carefully detailed interiors… the list of innovations goes on and on. And who can forget Corgi's smooth ‘Glide-O-Matic’ working suspension or legendary jewelled headlights? However, the real breakthrough came with the impact of film and television. All of a sudden, the vehicles we saw on the small screen and at the cinema were top of our lists, resulting in a swathe of amazing Corgi Toys such as the Batmobile, Saint’s Volvo and of course James Bond's Aston Martin DB5 with its amazing array of gadgets. The car won the inaugural Toy of the Year award from the National Association of Toy Retailers in 1966. But demand remained huge long after Goldfinger left cinemas. An upgraded edition was launched in 1968 with cleaner castings, an authentic silver finish, and a new feature in the form of miniature tyre-slashers in the rear wheel centres. It sold more than 1.2m units and was in the Corgi catalogue into the early ’70s.

There are some major new model projects advancing towards their release dates at Corgi HQ at the moment, including the significant advancement of the new 1/72nd scale Martin B-26 Marauder project which was teased via our social media channels earlier this week. Unfortunately, none of these are quite ready to be included in a Diecast Diaries update just yet, which presents us with an opportunity to feature a couple of recent releases which have thus far evaded our attentions on the blog. Look, childhood is formative, and those of us who love cars loved them first as die-cast toys. In the first year of production more than 2.5m Corgi Bond Astons were sold, making it the fastest-selling car of all time. It was revised and enlarged in 1968 ( No 270, toy nerds) and is about to be relaunched again as a 50th-anniversary tribute. It has therefore been more formative than any other toy car. QED.

People I know of my age who are now in a position finally to buy “a nice car” are inevitably drawn to Astons. Some of it is to do with Britishness, some of it with Bond fantasies, but largely, I suspect, it’s the influence of this most iconic of toy cars. Without Corgi we might not have Aston Martin.One of the first suggestions offered was a range of models which rarely receive much attention here on Diecast Diaries, but could hardly be more perfect for this time of year. This one was more in relation to an appropriate gift for us to give to younger members of our family, but models which are most definitely designed to stand the test of time. We all know that we wouldn't let inquisitive young minds loose with the latest limited edition model addition to our collections, but we would love to see them playing for hours on end with a range of models designed specifically for them. When talking about famous movie modes of transport, there can be few that come close to our next subject, one of the most famous motorcycles from one of the most exciting movie sequences ever filmed. No doubt the classic war film 'The Great Escape' will be having another festive airing over the next few weeks and no matter how many times you may have seen it before, the sequence where Hilts, better known as 'The Cooler King', attempts to escape over two tall barbed wire fences using a motorcycle will still have you on the edge of your seat. Corgi and their legendary Swansea factory prided themselves in making models with unparalleled detail and accuracy. ‘The ones with windows’ was their much-trumpeted mantra – a dig at Dinky who had commonly produced toy cars with unglazed windows. The best of everything Gordon Murray T.50 dynamic debut - report Driving Bentley's Blower continuation (video) Video: Revisiting the Jaguar I-Pace in Tokyo › More here...

This stunning model may well be a must for all Bond fans, but represents a significant achievement for our development team, a tooling design intentionally modified to include the missing door, but without rendering the tooling unusable in its usual format. Presented in a luxurious collectors box, the model also features a representation of the damage inflicted on Bond's car during that thrilling opening film sequence, with Bond exacting his revenge by systematically dispatching the lot of them. Well over 50 years later the Corgi Aston Martin DB5 has appeared in a total of seven James Bond films; Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), Goldeneye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Casino Royale (2006), Skyfall (2012) and SPECTRE (2015). This car remains the largest selling toy car Corgi ever produced, and it’s still going. Corgi is still selling remakes of its Aston Martin DB5 and demand is still high. Without a doubt Corgi’s best known model, and a part of James Bond history. But as The Green Hornet proved, the synergy wasn’t always so sweet. “I’m afraid Mettoy truly got stung with that one,” chortles Richards. “They went ahead with it, but the show never appeared on British television!” The Aston Martin DB5 first appeared in Goldfinger and the Corgi 261 model is probably one of the most famous and most sort after Corgi models. The DB5 has now appeared in a number of Bond films including Thunderball.Are these the 23 ugliest cars ever made? Gran Turismo movie review The 31 most ridiculous car names ever › More here...