Tales of Toy Cars (TofTC) has been a success because of the many partners who have contributed their time and resources since our first issue in July of 1998.

Foremost among partners have been the contributing writers, volunteers who have written stories and provided images from their collections, simply for the joy of sharing our toy cars with like-minded individuals. Readers of ToTC, like you, have also been key partners as you have sent e-mails with information, questions and images of great diecast finds. Manufacturers like Johnny Lightning, Anson, Maisto, Welly and others have been generous, providing interviews, new product information and encouragement. Now, with the March, 2001 issue of TofTC, a new partner is welcomed.

Several months ago I was contacted by a .com company called whaticollect.com (WIC). They are located in Montreal, Canada and owned by Kaleden.com, based in London, England. They are in the process of building a state-of-the-art Website for all collecting communities. They have assembled an impressive group of individuals and resources to host community home pages within WIC. Their research showed that 'Tales of Toy Cars' had become one of the most successful Webzines in the diecast toy car community. We currently have over 26,500 readers per month and consistently turn up on many search engines.

They proposed that TofTC become the foundation of the diecast miniature vehicle portion of the whaticollect.com site, and that I serve as host for this community. In exchange, they are offering the following:

1. WIC will provide free hosting of TofTC on their server with full technical support.

2. WIC will provide full design assistance in the integration of TofTC into the new diecast community home-page and support for on-going development.

3. WIC will promote the combined site throughout the internet and collecting community.

4. WIC will offer their full free member services to TofTC readers, including, free hosting of individual member Web pages with templates for displaying collection lists, sale, trade and want items and a member forum. A complete TofTC library of back issues will be linked to a new search engine as well.

In addition, WIC and TofTC are planning a community store where collectors would be able to purchase new toy cars, direct from the manufacturers, and without scalper's mark-ups.

I have been working with WIC and Kaleden to design the diecast community pages and we have reached a point where I am ready to have you review our efforts. Please visit <http://www.toycars.whaticollect.com>, if you are not already being forwarded to this page.

The advantages of this partnership are appealing. Free hosting and full technical support are critical factors to help me continue to publish TofTC. The full spectrum of features available to our readers will allow us to truly build TofTC into a true community of enthusiasts.

On the down-side, we loose some of the independence we currently have. WIC will not control story content or the design of our publication. They will be a partner in our efforts and their support and goodwill will need to be considered in future decisions. I have been very impressed in my work with WIC to date and they have worked very hard to meet every request I have made.

As a partner, your advice would be very welcome as TofTC and WIC move forward (guest book). Most important, the mission of TofTC remains the same, to provide a forum to share our common enthusiasm for toy cars. Thank you for all your efforts in support of TofTC to date and I look forward to even greater success in the future.