First launched in 1956 as a rival to Dinky Toys, Corgi has remained as major player in the model car market for nearly seventy years, thanks principally to its ability to adapt to changing tastes. This approach has enabled the brand to survive numerous difficult periods although ownership of the famous name has changed hands more than once.
In the 1970s,losing interest in toy cars and the trend accelerated further with the arrival of so many more exciting electronic games. Corgi therefore repositioned itself as a maker of collectors’ items for adults. Matchbox had saturated the market with Yesteryear vintage vehicles but Corgi correctly discerned the appeal of nostalgia to a later generation which was beginning to look back fondly at the cars of the fifties and sixties that they remembered from their childhood. Hence the arrival of Corgi Classics in 1995, offering models of cars like the Morris Minor, Ford Zephyr and, of course, the MGA. This was followed by the Corgi Vanguards range of 1/43 scale cars with added detail and, with the passage of time, subjects from the seventies and eighties were also modelled, too.
