Corgi's latest new edition to the Original Omnibus Co range is a Wright Eclipse II single deck bus, this model follows in the tracks of the mark I version of the same bus which has been part of the OOC range since October 2006.

The most obvious differences between the two versions are the revised front & rear panels, but on closer examination there a many subtle changes elsewhere too.

The original Eclipse was launched by Wrightbus in 1999, the bodybuilder which is based in Ballymena in Northern Ireland has rapidly grown to become a major supplier too UK bus operators.

The mark II Eclipse was launched in late 2008 and is based on a Volvo B7RLE chassis. The first vehicles entered service in 2009.

The first release features a Wilts & Dorset bus in the company's blue & red "more" livery, the livery is an updated version of that applied too the two earlier more mark I models (OM46012) released back in 2009. Indeed the same pair of routes, m1 & m2, have been picked by Corgi for both releases.

The model reviewed here is OM46701A which depicts HF12 GWO, fleet number 2270, on route m2 bound for Southbourne, a second (B) version is also available depicting the same vehicle heading to Castlepoint on route m1.

The new tooling seems slightly more refined compared to Corgi's earlier mark I model, the joints between the various components are not only narrower but are also better placed making them a lot less obvious. The construction of the model is almost identical to the previous version with die-cast metal being used for the roof and main body panels below the windows. Like the previous version plastic has been used for front & rear panels and the baseplate.

The new tooling manages to capture the vehicle's design extremely well and in this respect it's difficult to find anything to fault. Corgi have chosen to model the revised front dash panel without the characteristic W shaped grille on the production model, it appears the real batch of vehicles were retro-fitted with this design sometime after entering service.
We'll have to wait for future releases to see if this indicates Corgi have an alternative tooling component with the extra grille detailing, or they simply intend to tampo print the grille when required.

Staying at the front of the model, the destination screen is set back behind the glazing and has a good representation of the orange dot matrix displays used on the more buses.
The body panels have been painted onto the clear plastic, the blue, black & red areas have all been neatly applied with clean edges around the windscreen and between the different colours. The four small light clusters on each corner are neatly detailed using tiny dot of silver paint.

Corgi's favoured etched wipers have been fitted to the windscreen, these look particularly delicate and to scale.

One mistake that has been made however is the fitting of the wrong type of nearside mirror, this extends out in front of the body on the model while in reality the Wilts & Dorset batch of vehicles have normal mirrors like those fitted to the off-side.
The mirrors are made of flexible black plastic with silver paint used to create the mirrored area. The already mentioned nearside mirror support arms do look a little on the chunky side.

Another slightly disappointing feature is the printing of the yellow interior mounted grab rails on the outside of the door glazing, this is somewhat strange as they appear to have been correctly printed behind the glazing on the majority of the earlier mark I releases. The same niggle also applies to the side and rear destinations displays which have been applied in the same manner.

The side glazing framework is tampo printed on the single piece side glazing panels, this look perfectly acceptable and represents the bonded glazing well, it will also allow Corgi to reproduce alternative window layouts.

The more livery with it's thin curved lining on the side lower panels has generally been well executed, however the light blue & red lines have been incorrectly applied in regards to how they interact with the large white "more" names. Other than this minor detail everything else looks to be scale and cleanly applied. The paint finish itself is very good and has been evenly applied. The thickness of the paint is just about right and doesn't obscure any of the casting's finer detailing.

An attempt has been made to reproduce the engine cooling grille on the nearside rear, but this hasn't been overly successful and is so faintly implemented that it is virtually invisible.

The treatment of the rear is likewise good bar the aforementioned destination display. There's quite a bit of tampo printed detailing here including a nice advertisement for the "more Key" travelcard and a "Free WiFi on board" sign on the window. The Wright badge is tampo printed in silver below the window which also has a tiny emergency exit sign at the top. Several more of these decals can be found on the side windows.

The rear lights like the front ones are picked out with paint, red, orange & silver being used for the purpose, due to their small size this treatment looks perfectly acceptable.

The base of the model is much less detailed than the original version, there's just the chassis framework and a short section of exhaust pipe at the rear. The front wheels are the same as the mark I version however there are new rear ones with a larger central hub, standard OOC soft plastic tires give the finishing touch to the wheels.

The roof is die-cast metal and being a single piece design has little in the way of detailing. Corgi have added three roof pods to model that closely match those found on the Wilts & Dorset buses. There's a large one positioned in the middle of the roof above the entrance area, a small round towards the rear and another on the rear off-side corner.

The interior mainly consists of dark blue plastic, however the dashboard area has been finished in matt black which improves the frontal appearance model be some degree. The model has light grey plastic grab rails throughout and an off-side luggage storage pen over the front wheel arch. Like the mark I model there are no internal retaining poles or visible rivets or screws in the baseplate.

All in all not a bad model, the tooling itself appears to be almost spot on, but on this model at least it's been rather let down by a number of small detailing issues, it goes without saying that Corgi won't be short of subject matter for future models and will have plenty opportunity to perfect these issues if they so wish.