A helping hand surely came from the films, which had “broken out” with Goldfinger the previous year. Number 261 became the fastest-selling toy car in history, registering sales of about 750,000 units in the seven weeks between release and Christmas.

It was perhaps fortunate that Mettoy didn’t market the toy more, for parents became terrified of leaving their children disappointed that Christmas Day. Toy shops sold out within hours and had to wait weeks, if not months, for more stock. Some disappointed children might just have put down a marker for later life, judging by more recent valuations of the full-scale DB5, which now nudge £1 million. 

Other successful Corgi models followed, including the Batmobile and the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car (see below), but none would match the success of the Bond DB5, the top-selling toy car of all time and now estimated to have sold more than seven million units. 

Alas, during the late Seventies a strong pound hit exports while cheaper imports flooded the domestic toy market. Mettoy’s scale of operations became a liability. It entered receivership in 1983, although the Corgi brand was resurrected and is now part of Hornby.