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Corgi Toys GS40; The Avengers Set; Red Bentley 3 Litre & White Lotus Elan |
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Year of Release: 1966 The Avengers was a typically and self-consciously weird 1960s espionage cum detective show produced for ITV in the UK between 1961 and 1969, followed by The New Avengers in the early 70s. Constant throughout was John Steed played by Patrick McKnee who in the original series drove a vintage Bentley. He had a series of female assistants who performed judo on the bad guys and were generally assertive and very stylish. Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg being the most memorable. It was Diana Rigg as Mrs. Peel who drove the white Lotus. Meanwhile Steed was armed only with a sword stick umbrella. In the re-boot series he had Joanna Lumley in a Triumph TR7 and Gareth Hunt in a Jaguar XJS as sidekicks, I cannot remember what Steed drove in the reboot, was it a Jag XJ12 Coupe with the racing wheel arches? I remember enjoying the shows very much at the time but these days when they come up on Freeview I find them a bit baffling. It may be because I'm 60 years older than first time round and losing it a bit. Or they just might be nonsense. This is one of those Corgi Gift Sets which is very rare and very sought after. They always cost an awful lot of money. Besides the two cars you get Steed sitting in his car and a standing figure of Mrs Peel. He has an umbrella hanging from his elbow and you get three of these in the set in case they get lost. The wheel spokes on the Bentley in the set are generally silver as opposed to red as on the core range version of the car, sometimes they are red in the gift set. According to Ramsey sets with red wheels are worth more - which makes me wonder why you would not just swap out the Bentley for one of the core range cars. The set was released in 1966 and deleted in 1969. This Corgi Toy was sourced in July 2014 from Aston's auctioneers, the box is reproduction as I suspect are also the figures, I still sold it for a heap of cash though. |