Four Small Wheels 10/2005

news

Saturday opening

By the time you receive this edition we will have closed for the Christmas break. We will re-open at 9 am on Tuesday 3rd January 2006.

While we are closed you can of course still submit orders via our online shop, email and fax. You can also still email or fax your questions. We will process all orders and reply to your emails as quickly as is humanly possible on our return in January, but please bear with us while we do this.

The shop will re-open as usual on Saturday 7th January from 12-5 pm.

So that you can add them to your diary, our open Saturdays and corresponding closed Mondays for 2006 are as follows.

Open Saturday	Closed Mon.
January 7th	January 9th
February 4th	February 6th
March 4th	March 6th
April 1st	April 3rd
May 6th	May 8th
June 3rd	June 5th
July 1st	July 3rd
August 5th	August 7th
September 2nd	September 4th
October 7th	October 9th
November 4th	November 6th
December 2nd	December 4th

New credit card rules

Our bank have instructed us that, with immediate effect, they have new rules regarding mail order transactions.

For some time now, in addition to the card number and expiry date we have been asking for the 3-digit verification code on the reverse of the card. We can no longer process transactions without this number. If you are an American Express customer we need your 4-digit membership number instead.

Please also ensure that we have your full correct billing address that the card is registered to, including post code.

FSW in the future

We are constantly looking for ways to improve your favourite model car magazine. Although we have made subtle improvements over the years, our basic style has remained the same for a long time now. We are currently planning a rather more significant change to the look of the magazine.
One of the most frequently asked questions with regard to the online edition of Four Small Wheels is whether it could be made downloadable. As of issue 1/2006 we will be changing the online edition to reflect the appearance of the paper magazine and it will be in PDF format. You will need the Abode Acrobat Reader to access this but if you don't already have it it is available as a free download from www.adobe.com and we will be asking our webmaster to provide a link.

Along with the changes to the magazine, both on and offline, we are also planning a major update of our website to make it a little more user friendly.
We have received plenty of suggestions as to how we could make improvements to it but if you have any more, please let us know. One aspect in particular that we will be looking at is the possibility of having larger images in the shop. This is something that we are investigating and we have the images, it is simply a question of how much of the internet we are allowed to have all to ourselves as there are well in excess of 10,000 images to consider and that is a lot of band width!

1:20th Historic F1s

Provence Miniatures Automobiles are branching out into 1:20th scale with a number of historic Formula One subjects.
The first two releases are both race winners and should be with us when we return from our winter break. They will be the 1969 Matra MS80 from the French Grand Prix, offering the option of either Stewart or Beltoise (PMA20001) and the McLaren M7A of Amon & Hulme from the 1968 Belgian GP (PMA20002).
Following soon after will be two of the greatest race cars of all time. The Lotus 72D (PMA20003) from the 1972 French GP and the 1968 Lotus 49B (PMA20004).

High detail modelling

The photograph above shows the core parts for the latest high detail transkit from Feeling 43 (FELTK005). It is the Ferrari 575GTC and is designed for use with any of BBR's 575GTC race car kits. First deliveries will hopefully be with us early in the New Year.

If you wish to model one of the Ferrari's main competitors from the 2005 season in similar detail, Provence Miniatures superkit of the Aston Martin DBR9 now has a number. PMAKP005 will be the kit and PMAKP005M the hand built of the #59 car. The hand built model will be limited to 15 pieces only.

...line by line...

Racing 43 may have been concentrating on the increasingly competitive hand built market recently, but their latest list will be good news for their core customers with 2005 WRC versions of the Xsara, Impreza and Focus..... following the positive reception to the increased amount of p/e in their recent Caterham kit, K&R Replicas say that they will try and include more p/e in future new releases. They are also planning on looking at some of their classic British subjects to realise significant new competition versions..... Silverline are to make the Chinese GP version of Alonso's Renault..... following the success of the Shadow DN1, Marsh Models will be making Alan Jones' Zeltweg winning DN8 and for Can-Am fans there will be Lola T160 & T163s in several guises and much, much more......