Aldi stocking Welly diecast sets

Last week I wandered into Aldi and while buying some blue cheese, spotted two sets of diecast cars. I snapped a photo on my phone of the sets and emailed them off to a diecast tragic 'Russ' who specialises in the garishly decorated Chinese made end of the diecast collecting pool. He instantly identified them as Welly manufactured cars.

I decided to take a punt and have a look at the cars, and at $14.99 each for 20 cars, it seemed like a low cost bet. I know a few kids who will enjoy getting some new diecast to play with, less the ones I will add to the Capital Diecast Garage.

There were two sets for sale, each with 20 cars. One had a Yellow box, and the other has a Red box. The cars in each box are a mix of well executed 1:64 scale cars, with good paint and accurate representation of the real car - to bizarre caricatures and oddly presented cars loosely based on the real thing. In this review, I will only assess the diecast cars that look like the real thing, and how many are in each set.

The Yellow set has 13 cars that are well made and accurate representations of the real car. This means that 7 dont meet my high standards, and will be sent off to small children in Queanbeyan to punish.

 Nice VW Kombi, a Ford Crown Victoria in Police livery, and a TV Van.

 Mercedes Wagon, Astra, BMW and Audi TT

The Porsche is oddly out of scale, and after I took this photo I put it in the 'Queanbeyan Toy' pile. Welly have selected castings from different parts of their range to meet the Aldi price point. Some are nice, others a little crude. 

 Citreon convertible, New VW Convertible and a nice Porsche convertible.

 BMW convertible, New Mini, Porsche 356 convertible and the discarded Porsche 935. Look how nice the 356 is, compared to the crude 935. 

 If you dont have these cars in your collection, then these sets are a quick way to add some well made representatives to your tiny car garage.

 I do like this Kombi.

 Apart from the chrome wheels, this is comparable to the Matchbox Kombi, and the Welly roof is one piece without that annoying plastic insert the Matchbox Kombi has.

 The Porsche 356 is nice as well, easily comparable to Siku or Matchbox, apart from those wheels.

 Front of the Red box.

 The rear of each box is identical apart from the colour. 

 The Red box had ten cars I found acceptable. 

Lamborghini Diablo, Mercedes Sedan, Opel Roadster, Renault convertible, Porsche Cayman, Mercedes Convertible, Ford Sedan, VW Golf, New VW Beetle sedan and a Lamborghini Countach. 

 The Lamborghini is out of scale compared to the other cars, but I think Welly are shooting for a total dimension size and all the cars do fit into the 'three inch' family of diecast cars. 

 This Mercedes convertible is beautiful. Even the wheels suit it. This car will not only stay in my collection, but will go on display. 

 I'm a sucker for Countach's so this car is a keeper as well. Not as well executed as the Matchbox version, but nice for its size.

Welly obviously dont need my advice on how to make and market their diecast cars, but I think if they focussed on better wheels that suited each car, instead of those atrocious blingy wheels on nearly everything - then they would become more collectible than they are now. Obviously these sets are marketed at kids and 99% of the sets sold will end up being flogged in sand pits and bedroom floors, but among the toys are a few little diecast gems. To a diecast collector, thats a win.

Overall, do I think I got $30 of value out of these two sets of cars ? Sure. I will keep about a third of the cars, give the rest to kids and sell the others. Welly cars are not always easy to find, even though they specialise in making cars for other brand and are experts in sets such as these - sometimes its hard to find  specific car in a specific colour scheme. It was a pure fluke I saw these cars at Aldi, and knowing Aldi, they may not reappear.