Call in The Professionals with the latest Corgi Premiums Capri

SCALE: 1/43 
PRICE: £41.99 
REF: CP10801

The popular TV show, The Professionals, has led to several releases by Corgi over the decades since the show first aired on British television. Produced for London Weekend Television (LWT), The Professionals aired on the ITV network from 1977 to 1983. Spanning five series, a total of 57 episodes were made, filmed between 1977 and 1981. Focusing on a fictitious law enforcement department known as CI5 (a cross between the rea-life MI5 and CID), the storyline was that it was to use any means deemed appropriate to deal with crimes of a serious nature that fell outside of the remit of the police, but were also not suitable for the security services or the armed forces.

In the February 2023 issue, Tony Buller, of Professionalmania, shared his impressive collection of all the Corgi releases, including some rare variations. Tony is also the talent behind a new run of specially-commissioned 1/43 scale releases through Corgi Premiums. We covered his first release, of Ray Doyle’s Ford Escort RS2000, in detail in the main article and had already reviewed it as the Editor's Choice in the previous issue (January 2023).

The success of Doyle’s RS2000 led Tony to commissioning another model from Corgi Premiums - this time a much-improved version of the series 3 car, UOO 303T, is the subject. This uses the new Capri Mk3 tooling, as per the recent Screen Stars releases, but Tony asked Corgi to retool the wheels to more correctly match the real car’s, as seen in the show, driven by the character William Bodie (played by Lewis Collins). Limited to just 1,037 (the 37 is because that was Bodie’s call sign), each model is priced at £41.99 (plus p&p).

Although it doesn't make reference to the show on the packaging, the artwork is clearly influenced by the programme and carries heavy branding for Tony's "Professionalmania" concern and really looks the part, with a warehouse interior used for the inner plinth, as per Tony's earlier RS2000 commission. What is different to the inner packaging this time round is that gone are the base mounts - the car is carried in a 2-piece plastic bubble arrangement. This not only makes it easier to get the model in and out, it protects the wing mirrors too.

This latest release has been beautifully modelled by Corgi and those new wheels look absolutely stunning – definitely worth the extra investment! The models of Doyle’s Escort sold like the proverbial hot cakes, so drop Tony a line quickly if you don’t want to miss out on this one. 

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