Low friction wheels known as 'Whizzwheels' were introduced to keep up with the competition in September 1969 with the Ferrari 206 Dino Sports (344) finished in either red and white or yellow and black. The first incarnation (known to collectors as 'Red Spots') featured rubber tyres and brass hubs with low friction red nylon centres, which though attractive and effective, were expensive to produce and were soon replaced by plastic wheels. Although giving more 'play value', later Whizzwheels models are less popular with collectors today as they take away some of the character and realism of the earlier regular wheeled models fitted with rubber tyres. Models fitted with the short-lived 'Red Spot' Whizzwheels, however, have become highly collectable, particularly extremely rare versions which were specially manufactured to be used as examples of the new gimick by Corgi's sales team.

Some guy there had previously shown how to remove red spots and re-attach to a Whizzwheels model without taking off the baseplate. Other mint Whizzwheel Corgis with the red spots have shown up on ebay lately as well. Please Beware!

They were all called Whizzwheels. Just the early ones had the red dot ones.

These are not easy to reproduce as the wheels are metal and the red dot is a nylon insert. The bigger tires, like the Batmobile, are available as replacements, but the smaller ones, like front wheels of some models, are not. I asked the tire man in Holland and he said it was to expensive to make a new mold.

However there are lots of wrecks where you can take those wheels off.

I would not pay huge amounts for some "special" models with red dots. They are indeed easy to swap.

The Astro did come originally with Red Spot Wheels, so did the early Ferrari Dino, Pontiac Firebird and that is it I believe. But in that period who is to say they did not use them up to complete an order? So don't be to excited about them, eventhough they are attractive and preferred over the later ones.

Here is a "Code 3" version of the Corgi 267 Batmobile with the first type 'RED DOT WHIZZWHEEL' with rubber tyre.

How nice would Batmobile look with their first red spot whizzwheels ? This is "code 3" version, wheels are swapped, without taking off the baseplate :

Restored version from "00heaven2012" :