[KA]

I know very little about AutoArt or Biante, but did AutoArt do their manufacturing in-house, or was it contracted out to a third party in China?

For example, in the model train business, Hornby's manufacturing since the late 90's was actually done under contract by a company called Sanda Kan in China- Sanda Kan got into financial trouble a while back (and ended up being taken over by Kader, the parent company ironically of Hornby's major UK competitor, Bachmann...) and IIRC quite a lot of new Hornby product ended up being delayed by the upheaval.