Citroën Visa 

• 1982 
• 1302 
• Solido 
• Citroën 

1596265

Model cars

Citroën Visa

1302

1982

1978

France

Solido-reissue. In the final stages of Dinky Toys' history, the company struggled immensely to keep afloat. Some models were produced in China, others by PoliStil in Italy and some by Solido. This Citroen is one of those models. Originally made by Solido, it was issued on the french market in 1980 with cat# 1301 as part of Solido's own Cougar-range. These models had 'monococ bases' - the bottom simply consisted of the seat inserts and all numbers and data were stamped directly on there. The Cougar-range was sold, not in boxes, but on blister-cards as known from the smaller-scale models. The same models were released by Dinky UK, fitted with Dinky baseplates, renumbered to 500-range and sold in Dinky-boxes. Dinky France was also struggling badly. They released the 1300-range with exactly 100 added to the cat# (1301 becoming 1401 etc.) In 1982, after Dinky's collapse, Solido refitted some of the unsold stock with regular Solido-baseplates, then reissued them, retaining the original 1300-numbers. Thus we have no less than 4 different versions of each model, issued by: 1980, Solido-Cougar (1300's) 1980-81, Dinky UK (500's) 1980-81, Dinky France (1400's) 1982 Solido (1300's (with baseplates)) Each early model was available in 2 different colors. The last version (this one) has remained in Solido's catalogue over the years, with some minor changes along the way. Solido already had a Visa (#1201) in their catalogue, so for the re-issue they opted to plaster the models with stickers. The early ones were 'cartoon-inspired' and later versions had different rally liveries, while 1201 remained their 'plain', civilian version. Photo 1: early version in new color and different stickers, but basically unchanged. Photos 2 & 3: newer rally versions