#1074 GINGELL – BMW 323i CABRIO, FERRARI TESTAROSSA and PORSCHE CARRERA (Around 1993)

I have to admit, that, despite collecting toy cars since my childhood, I have no idea about most of these cheaper, made in China, brands that popped-up in the early 1990s. I usually get advice of Steven from the Motorcade, or I visit his webpage directly. 

The models themselves are rather uninteresting. Not bad casts, but lots of plastic, black windows and also bad tampographies (although I appreciate the racing numbers, as they help, or, at least, helped me as a kid, to organize races at home). The BMW seems to be a poor copy of a Matchbox model, but otherwise, there is nothing remarkable about them. 

The cars have been spotted in sets of many cars, and with different commercial names, but the company behind them is Gingell (Gingell Die-Casting Mfy. Ltd.). This company operated either with a big “G” logo or with a second logo that represented a rhinoceros, so Gingell is sometimes called Rhino, too (we will come to that in our next entry). Those logos appear in the boxes, not on the bases of the cars or anywhere else, so it is difficult to identify these miniatures loose. At HobbyTalk.com there are some threads that try to get a list of these models and investigate in which sets they were available. 

Both logos have been retrieved from HobbyTalk.com

Something noteworth is that the bases seem to be prepared to carry a pull-back motor, but this is not present in any of them. They do not have a reference number or any marking on the base other than "Made in China".

I bought these three cars together with other things, so I didn't have to pay for the shipping. The interesting part for me were the stickers placed over the roofs of the cars with the logo of Wüstenrot, an Austrian company for financial services, real-state and insurance. They were probably intended as a give-away to the kids who came to their offices together with their parents.

FACTS AND FIGURES: 

• Name:  BMW 323i CABRIO, FERRARI TESTAROSSA and PORSCHE CARRERA
• Scale: 1:64
• Year: Around 1993
• Company: Gingell/Rhino (China)
• Size: approx. 6 cm

#1073 G.I. JOE – COBRA TROOPER and COBRA VIPER (1982 and 1986)

When I deal with the most popular toylines of the major toy companies, my blog receive almost no visits. Of course, everything I could say here about G.I. Joe has already been said somewhere else, or, if you are looking for some information, you have yojoe.com or many other sites to read for hours.

Still, I love to write about lines such as G.I. Joe and taking my figures out for a photo session, so this time I´d like to talk about the main characters of Cobra´s armies: the Cobra Trooper and the Cobra Viper. They are the infantry soldiers of the terrorist organisation, and where always present in the comics and the TV series. First the Cobra Trooper, who was one of the figures in the very first wave in 1982, then updated in 1986 to look less human and more like a sci-fi character. There is a second version of Viper from 1994, but this one is much rarer and I still don´t have it. In any case, the really remarkable ones are these two.

The Cobra Trooper was released, as I just said, in 1982 with straight arms, but then “updated” the following year with swivel arms, which is the version in the pictures. It came with a black machine gun only. It is not to be mistaken by the Cobra Officer, which is a very similar figure, whose more remarkable difference is a silver emblem in the chest. Since we are going today for the “cannon fodder” only, I'll reserve the Cobra Officer for some other day.

 

The Cobra Viper looks much more menacing with its silver visor or helmet and has a much more detailed body sculpt. It seems to be wearing a special jacket (maybe bullet-proof), protective gloves and googles. This other figure came with a grey rifle and a black backpack. The dark blue is the same, as it is the corporate colour of Cobra and suits well for night actions or city guerrilla.

 

Both figures are highly interesting for collectors, as you cannot have only one, you need a bunch of them! In the community in which I used to participate many years ago, there were many advanced collectors who had 10, 50, 100 of each of these two for armybuilding. Crazy! Fortunately, they are not so scarce that they are impossible to find, with some effort (also economical effort), you can find one complete and in good shape. And if, not, they has been cloned and can be bought new, almost indistinguishable of the original ones.

Here is the Spanish fullcard of Viper (Víboras)

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: COBRA TROOPER and VIPER
• Toy Line: G.I. Joe
• Year: 1983 and 1986
• Company: Hasbro (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 10 cm approx.

#1072 LLEDO - LAND SPEED LEGENDS (1993)

It is not so long ago I wrote my first entry about Lledo in this blog. There I mentioned this set of six cars that I didn´have yet, but I recently received it from a friend and I´d like to comment it now.

The cars represented are:

• Thrust 2 / Richard Noble (1983)

• Spirit of America / Craig Breedlove (1965)

• Railton Mobil Special / John Cobb (1947)

• Blue Bird / Sir Malcolm Campbell (1931) 

The set was first available as a cereal premium from Kelloggs in the UK in 1993. They came in white cardboard boxes inside a bigger box and included a nice brochure or small poster with a history of the cars that had broken the land speed record over the years, depicted in a timeline. The gift is a great one, maybe one of the best gifts I recall from a cereal promotion. At the time you needed 9 points plus 80 pence (that is less than one euro) to receive ALL FOUR cars. Nine points were most likely four big boxes of Corn Flakes plus a smaller one, or nine small boxes. Not so much if you have them for breakfast everyday. There was also the option to get only one model (with less points), but in this case the leaflet was not sent along with the chosen car in the white case.

As Lledo is known for reusing the casts they have, the same models were available for everybody in retail. In this case, the boxes was much more elaborated and nicer, with windows and with a short summary on the history of the four models in the back of the box. There is a second type of box for the Thrust 2 which was exclusive for this model at the Museum of British Road Transport in Coventry.

The cars are easily found online and cheap to buy (the poster is not so cheap, usually more expensive than the complete set of cars), I guess there are not so many Lledo collectors out there and they are not very well known, but they are beautiful, done with great care, nice paintwork and tampographies... a nice addition to every collection. The only negative point that we can find are the undetailed plastic bases and the white boxes, but taken out for display in shelves these two aspects are not important.

FACTS AND FIGURES: 

• Name: LAND SPEED LEGENDS
• Scale: Approx. 1:43
• Year: 1993
• Company: Lledo (United Kingdom)
• Size: approx. 10 cm

#1071 FIGURAS EN ACCIÓN (F.E.A.) Nr. 32

 

The latest issue from Figuras En Acción can be downloaded from the blog (as all the other previous issues) for free. I always recommend it to all toy enthusiasts and collectors worldwide. Nowadays, with automatic translation from image on everz smartphone, it is very easy to understand any printed form of information.

This time I wrote about the Power Rangers subline from Micro Machines, the Adventure 2000 by Matchbox, the X-Ploratrons by Corgi and a G.I. Joe bootleg called Spaicel Force. Other colleagues wrote about Max Thunder (aka Famoman), the Action Man knock-off from the late 90s and the speed tracks by Pilen (whose cars were copied from Darda).

There are other sections dealing with Scalextric or Exin Castillos, and many other surprises inside. 

Please download it now followin this link: Revista on line FIGURAS EN ACCIÓN: REVISTA Número 32 - Mayo 2025

Thanks and enjoy the reading!

#1070 GAMA - GAMA-MINI VW1302 (Ref. 898) (around 1978)

Gama cars are great, as you could see in previous entries. They are also difficult to find, as they were not intended as toys, but as adult collector pieces. That is maybe why they are so rare to spot. 

I cannot recall anymore where did I buy this one, but it probably was in december 2018. It is not in its best shape, but I liked that the previous owner decorated it with "5" and "3" stickers to make it resemble Herbie, the famous movie-star. If it was mint, it would be a great collectable, as it represents one of the most iconic cars of all time. 

The model is made in 1:43 scale and has opening doors. Despite the paint chips, it still has all four lights, which seem to be fragile. Other nice feature are the realistic hubcaps and the suspension of its wheels, which makes the car very comfortable to move around.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: VW1302 (Ref. 898)
• Scale: 1:43
• Year: Around 1978
• Company: Gama (Germany)
• Size: Around 9 cm