“Collecting” can mean a lot of things when it comes to car-related artwork. It could be a 12-year-old boy with two Ferrari posters on his wall or a multi-millionaire with a warehouse full of Grand Prix posters and hood ornaments—passion is passion. Auto art can be had at any price point. It also doesn’t take up much room, nor does it require any real upkeep the way a real car does. If you have limited space, you can even switch up what you’re displaying at any given time. That’s probably what we’d do with this group of period Bertone blueprint drawings, currently up for auction online in Italy.

According to the listing the 1/10-scale drawings, printed on semi-transparent acetate tracing paper, came from a long-term Bertone employee who kept them in his own collection before giving them to the seller’s grandfather about 40 years ago. They are each supposedly one of only three prints made from a paper master, and they range in size with the largest ones roughly four feet wide.

The group totals 14 drawings and features various (mostly Italian) cars and designers. Two of the largest illustrations show the Lamborghini Miura and Lancia Stratos (both by Marcello Gandini at Bertone). Other Bertone-designed pieces include a Citroën GS, Fiat Dino Coupe, and ISO Rivolta GT. A Lancia Delta (by Italdesign) and an Alfa Romeo Junior Z (by Ercole Spada) are included as well. Finally, there are two renderings of the short-lived postwar Bugatti 101, both signed by Giovanni Michelotti at Ghia.

Different cars, different designers, different sizes. Sounds like a great way to kickstart an automotive art collection. Bidding for the 14 drawings ends on Tuesday, May 7. What they’ll sell for isn’t easy to guess, but that’s the beauty of auctions like this. We’ll find out what it’s worth once people stop bidding.

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Robert Gunn’s astonishing models of celebrated off-road vehicles have me absolutely spellbound, but after a few hours in his company, I’ve come to realize there are two secrets intrinsic to them all.

One is what Gunn calls his favorite tool, a digital vernier gauge that’s always in his pocket and helps him to stick rigorously to scale. The other is something much less tangible: His quirky imagination. Gunn sees parts of classic 4x4s everywhere he looks—from a discarded pen to the crowded shelves of his local pharmacy.

Take, for example, the steering wheel of his Hotchkiss Willys Jeep. Its rim is a section of thin copper tube bent into a perfect circle and then painted. The spokes are industrial sewing pins drilled through at precisely the right points, and the hub is the end of a pen cap. It’s all held perfectly in place with thin-grade superglue and took four hours to make. The effect is fantastic, yet Gunn is his own harshest critic.

“Hmm, well, I now find some of the detailing a bit crude, but I was on a learning curve with my first one,” he says. “The process for the Hotchkiss became the process for all the others, although on this first one I discovered I needed to give the wooden structure a drop-down chassis, or else it’s too compromised.

“And wheels… I’ve found wheels are one of the hardest parts of all, and you’ve got to have them sorted out first, because they’re the determinant hardpoint. I can’t make wheels as I don’t have a lathe and I don’t do any welding or soldering. My workshop is 6x4ft, about as big as a sofa, so everything has to be very simple to cope with.”

The wheels on the Hotchkiss are wooden, bought online and brought to life by Gunn with the addition of rubber covers from landing wheels of a radio-control model aircraft. Later, as he moved on to tackle an early Datsun Patrol and Toyota Land Cruiser, he found the wheels from a Toys R Us plastic howitzer gun were absolutely ideal.

A bit of background: Robert Gunn is a retired surveyor and loss adjuster in the U.K. who’s developed a unique set of model-making skills over the last ten years. They didn’t come totally out of the blue, mind you. His father was an art teacher and lecturer in pottery, and the family home was constantly full of tabletop works-in-progress. “I enjoyed metalwork and woodwork at school, but my father could really make things by hand quickly—he could make a three-dimensional model of a cat in soft clay just by looking at it.”

As a considerable petrolhead, Gunn’s early passion was classic U.S. pickup trucks. Over the years he accumulated a huge collection of model Dodges, Fords, and Chevys in a variety of scales, and he was drawn to anything that reflected cargo-carrying Americana. The French-made Toyota Land Cruiser plastic toy he found at a Kent military vehicle show for about a dollar in 2007 was at the fringes of this miniature universe. But it had certain qualities.

“It was very, very basic, made by Joustra as a cheap kids’ toy in the 1970s, but the proportions are excellent. All the vents and shut-lines are correct. I realized it had possibilities, and I started to detail it as best I could. I added a front bumper made from hardwood. I made some headlamps from magnifier lenses with silver foil behind them, and I used orange Perspex for the indicators. The Toyota badge was cut out of a magazine. The windows I glazed with sheet plastic.”

The result was utterly transformational. It was now a showpiece. And Gunn found its unusual scale of 1:10 was perfect for crafting his additions. “It’s just so simple for converting metric measurements to Imperial ones to achieve accuracy,” he explains. “One inch is almost exactly 25mm.”

All of this knowledge led him to build his first vehicle, the Hotchkiss Jeep, from absolute scratch in 2012–13, forming the basic shapes in wood and ingeniously adding everything else by scavenging odds and ends that everyone typically discards. He went much further than a simple representation. The Jeep has an opening bonnet shaped from nickel-silver, under which is a super-accurate model of its distinctive Hotchkiss engine, down to its plug wires and carburetor. He lavished 375 hours in total on the car, including those four on the steering wheel.

“It completely stretched me out of my comfort zone because I had to come up with all the techniques. But what I really learned was how to keep a mental picture of what the model will look like the whole time I’m working on it.”

Gunn explored the entire canon of early sport-utility vehicle history for each year’s project, tackling the Patrol and Land Cruiser, a Suzuki LJ, a Land Rover Series I 107 pickup, an Austin Gipsy, and the very final Land Rover Defender. The average time spent on each one is 400 hours, during which he’ll painstakingly fashion around 1000 separate parts.

Often, accurate reference data is all but impossible find. He’s never actually seen the full-size Datsun Patrol, for example, instead absorbing its character from three U.S.-market brochures. And there’s never been a reference book on the obscure Austin Gipsy—even line drawings in contemporary road tests proved unhelpful in getting the proportions right. As we discuss his models, it seems achieving the three-dimensional relationship between the front fenders and hood on a vehicle is the toughest part. “It is a huge challenge—the body shape. I have nothing in front of me, so ultimately, it’s going to be my impression of what it looks like. Exactly how high is the fender above the chassis, for example? On my Suzuki, I now think the front overhang is very slightly too long, but after all the time building the working suspension and steering I can’t face starting again! And it’s all by eye and not using any computer data feeding into a 3D printer. Something circular with a scaleable diameter obviously means I can get going with it to make a small component.”

And here, to me, lies the magic allure of Gunn’s craft. Take side mirrors: On the Datsun, they’re cut-down dental mirrors with their stems bent at the right point. On the Land Rover Series I, meanwhile, they’re buttons on Gunn’s hand-made brass stems, with silver foil lenses.

For the Land Rover Defender’s doors, tiny Phillips screws from a dismantled camera form the crosshead bolts on the hinges. The hubcaps on the Land Cruiser are cut-down lids from roll-on deodorant bottles that Robert spotted in a pharmacy. “Exactly the right dome profile and matte silver color, and even a bit of tarnishing after years on display is actually fine,” he grins.

Back to that 107 Landie. The galvanized plates at the edge of its panels use real zinc squares from Chinese lab suppliers, carefully scissor-cut to shape. Its ribbed headlamp lenses are from a broken Bratz doll’s Cadillac toy car, bought for a fiver at a country fair, while the chrome surrounds are women’s-size stainless steel rings sliced in half; they were so hard to cut with a hacksaw that Gunn gave himself a repetitive strain injury, and if he ever does them again he’ll start with solid silver, which is much softer.

On the Defender (build time: 547 hours), the wonderfully accurate canvas canopy is actually some offcut beige cloth that, once sprayed with varnish, gave the correct tan color and authentic ‘draped’ stiffness.

Gunn went somewhat left-field for his 1:10 model of a 1950s Standard Eight pick-up, choosing his subject simply because he liked the original. He achieved the curvaceous styling from several layers of plywood that he sculpted and filled—unlike a typical off-roader, there’s not a flat panel on it—and the experience was, he says, pretty grueling. You can sense the relief when it came to improvising the small parts, such as dental floss nylon brushes for the wishbones in the working front suspension; part of a pump-action handwash dispenser for the exhaust silencer; and a pill bottle covered in ribbed plastic sheet as a petrol tank. Awesome stuff in hundreds of tiny ways.

Gunn likes his finished work to be showcased in a diorama. He picked a marine theme for the Land Rover 107, spending hours online until he found a resin fisherman figure at the right scale that he could customize until the shine on the boots and oilskins was to his liking. Until now she could never know this, but actress Jennifer Lawrence—she of The Hunger Games—has helped Gunn out here often. His relentless research turned up a 1:10 scale merchandise model of her, fully pose-able, that fits perfectly with his cars. Especially after he’s designed and made an outfit appropriate for, say, loading sacks through one of his opening (with a tiny, hand-made bracket) tailgates.

Robert Gunn’s models are not for sale, nor have they ever been displayed publicly. “They’re my pride and joy,” he says. “I love making them.” But he does add, warily: “You will tell your readers that I don’t do commissions, won’t you? It would have to be a polite ‘no’, because each one can take up to 500 hours, and I just don’t want it to feel like work!”

***

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With a subtle tip of his Stetson hat, Todd Sanders says hello. It’s a kindly, respectful, gesture. He’s a mellow and unassuming man. Not a cowboy, nor a rancher, but an artist, with a milky, laid-back southern drawl. “I was born in a small town in east Texas,” he says, “but I was always fascinated by the expanse of the open road. The world unfolds ahead of you.” His slow talking helps set a provocative scene; setting the car to cruise control as you cross a shimmering sun-bleached desert beneath a big sky.

“When I was 16, my dad and I took off to Arkansas,” he cheerily recalls. Sanders’ parents, at the time, had recently divorced. “We figured our way there and back using maps.” They figured a few things out about each other, too. “If you really want to get to know someone, go on a road trip with them, because good or bad, you’re going to know who they are after a few hundred miles.” Was it revelatory? You betcha, but not just because of the frank talking between father and son. “I fell in love with the old gas stations, diners, and cafes we saw on the highways.” Their iconography, he romances, stirs a sense of nostalgia for the classic all-American experience.

“Neon came to America in 1923 from Paris,” Sanders says. “Over there it represented the height of opulence, but, here in the US we turned it into something that’s truly our own—think cartoon dogs with a wagging tail.” Have you seen the giant dachshund gobbling frankfurters on Historic Route 66? Sanders refrains from using the word tacky. “In their heyday, everyone in town had a neon sign, from the police department to the mortuary and exterminator.” The most unusual he’s seen lit up a store for prosthetic legs. “They can be macabre but still fun, and to me, always beautiful.”

After making an inconspicuous debut to flaunt a car dealership in Los Angeles, neon illuminations blazed a path across America during the first half of the 20th century. From the casinos of Las Vegas—back then a fledgling city of entertainment—to the art deco hotels of Miami’s South Beach and the iconic billboards of New York’s Time Square, the novelty of the science-driven art form captivated a generation. Crowds gathered to witness the latest switch-on, the moment when physics and chemistry collide. “I don’t think people understand how neon works, but they feel it,” Sanders says. “Like a full moon or a campfire, it’s somethin’ on a primal level that you really feel.”

The technical explanation is this. “Neon is a noble gas that occurs naturally in the atmosphere,” Sanders explains. Traces of it can also be found in the Earth’s crust. “When an electric current passes through it, the ions inside the gas get excited and glow.” They turn a retina-searing orange-red. For this reaction to occur, the neon has to be placed into a vacuum, which in this context is a sealed glass tube. “The aurora borealis is a bunch of noble gases that are ignited, like neon signs, so that’s why there’s something about it that speaks to us on a primal level.”

It’s on a lonesome highway in the middle of the night that neon can have its most profound effect, Sanders suggests. “It’s a beacon, it beckons you in.” Think of the relief a weary traveler might feel when they see the motel sign flashing “Vacancy” without the “No.” By the 1950s, though, plastic lighting had arrived. “Neon was vilified,” Sanders says, a hint of anguish in his voice. Scrapped, neglected, and in many areas banned, neon displays became an endangered commodity. “I’ve heard stories of people with shotguns standing outside their property saying ‘you’re not taking my sign.’”

Sanders took a less confrontational approach to saving the medium. A college dropout living in a 1950s trailer, he set up the first vintage neon sign company in the U.S. It was 1995 and he named it Roadhouse Relics. “I grew up in my dad’s welding shop,” Sanders explains, “but I always wanted to be an artist. I lost my nerve when I got out into the real world and painted cars in Southern California for a while.” His story turns a little melancholy. “I came back to Texas.” But the homecoming wasn’t a full-stop.

Painting signs to pay for his tuition at Sam Houston State University, where Sanders studied Fine Art, “was a step in the right direction,” but it was missing a turn and ending up in Austin during a spring-break road trip that sealed his creative fate. “I saw the neon signs, I felt the vibe of the city, and I said this is what I want to do, and this is where I want to move to. It took years to learn my craft.” But it didn’t take long for Sanders’ talent to be noticed. Two of his earliest pieces, depicting the Mercury Man with a winged helmet, were commissioned by the actor and musician Johnny Depp.

“I would have carried on anyway, but the validation felt great. To see someone’s response, someone’s emotional reaction, is the real payment.” In actual terms, Sanders’ pieces range from $5 to $35,000. He doesn’t do commercial work but his mix of one-off commissions and limited runs are coveted and shipped worldwide. Willie Nelson, Joe Rogan, and Billy Gibbons are all clients.

From a mason jar alive with fireflies that flicker on and off, to a buxom tattooed mermaid with a swishy tail and sweeping scarlet hair, Sanders’ installations are whimsical, sometimes mythical, and always fun. They’re also a feat of ingenuity. The most ambitious so far is a 30-foot mural that tells the saga of a family’s life. Set against a road map that he painted to look like parchment, this neon biography, “one of the most meaningful but hardest pieces I’ve ever done,” features an animated Native American drawing back a bow as well as a volcano mid-eruption. “All these neon artworks had to communicate with each other,” says Sanders, who uses a device called a transformer to control the transfer of electric energy from one circuit to another. This is how he’s able to make elements flash. “It was tough to get it all wired and I thought, man, I hope I got all this right. But when I turned it on, it glitched for a second, and then the Indian started shooting the arrow from his bow. I was exhausted, I was sweaty, but it never stops captivating me when I light one of my pieces up for the first time. I’m a little boy again.” (Sanders’ earliest memory of neon is of a turquoise-and-pink clock that he saw outside a BBQ restaurant when he was 2 years old. “I know it sounds crazy, but that’s when I fell in love.”)

It can take weeks to develop a new concept; a sign he made for the band Kings of Leon went through 27 different iterations. “After 30-something years, coming up with a new idea is the toughest part,” Sanders admits. He finds inspiration in lyrics and on long drives, and for the latter he can choose between his ’51 Mercury or ’59 Chevy pickup. “The rest”, i.e. the making, “is elemental,” he says, and can be completed in four to six weeks. During this stage of creative flow, Sanders spins old records on a ’50s jukebox or plays old movies on a loop. “For the most part, I just listen to the old movies because I’ve seen them before and that means I don’t have to take my attention away from what I’m doing.” His is a tidy and soulful studio, which of course has neon artworks on its walls.

The journey of their creation begins as a hand-drawn design on gridded vellum—a type of tracing paper. “There’s a lot of pushing markers [pens] around to refine the sketch. I could go a lot faster if I worked on a computer, but that human touch is what people connect with; each piece represents a small portion of my life.” To see what a design looks like to scale, Sanders uses a projector to display it on the studio wall. From there, he’ll create a pattern for the neon sculpture as well as the metal upon which it’ll be mounted.

To shape the neon tubing into letters, lines, and forms, Sanders collaborates with a specialist glass blower—a bender, for those in the know. After being heated and set into position, a metal electrode is fitted, and air and impurities are removed using heat in a process known as bombarding. The tube is then filled with classic neon or alternative noble gases, such as argon, which omits a mesmerizing celestial blue. To achieve a full spectrum of colors, Sanders favors tinted glass.

What really ignites Sanders’ neon, however, is the 20-gauge (0.9mm) steel canvas upon which it hangs. “This is my art, made my way,” he says. Painted with a signwriter’s enamel and weathered using a technique involving Scotch-Brite, elbow grease, and a vinegar solution that he developed himself, the result is a new piece that looks authentically retro. It’s an aesthetic that pairs perfectly with neon’s nostalgic appeal.

“Neon has never stopped being magical,” Sanders says. I’ve been traveling down a neon road my whole life.” Sanders even used it to propose to his wife. “It was a 3ft by 2ft heart that said, ‘Sarah, will you marry me?’ in red and blue; the natural colours of neon and argon.” He even faked a power outage to amplify the element of surprise. “This place [the studio] is like a discotheque at night, it’s completely lit up. But I’d turned it all off, and when I plugged in the extension cord I got down on both knees rather than just one. I had no idea how I was supposed to do it, but she said yes!” Todd, you old romantic.

Their son Jack, aged 13, appreciates his father’s heritage craft, but there’s no pressure for him to take responsibility for Sanders’ neon legacy. “I’m 56, and I want to keep doing this for as long as possible,” Sanders says. In 2022, he released a book, and recently he’s been experimenting with collage in the painted element of his pieces. “It’s getting harder to find old signage on the roads, but I’m making things that are going to be around a lot longer than I am.”

Conversation meanders to Sanders’ hat. “I wear it every day, it’s how people recognize me.” Distinguished by the cattleman crease in its crown, the design dates back to the late 1930s, when Route 66 was just over a decade old. Handmade and styled with “just a little bit of an upturn,” it’s known as a Stetson Open Road. “I only set it down when I’m at home,” Sanders says, but who knows when that’ll happen next. When the working week is done, freedom for Sanders and his family is a car full of gas and an empty highway ahead. Leaving everything that’s familiar in the rear view, together, they go looking for neon on the horizon.

***

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I’ve always felt kind of sorry for cars saddled with a continental kit—that upright spare-tire holder that protruded from the rear bumper of some larger cars, mostly in the 1950s, but made popular by the 1939 Lincoln Continental. Such a kit is a long, relatively heavy appendage attached to the back of a vehicle so you can—what? Have more room in the trunk, assuming you can load and unload it, reaching around and over your continental kit?

Of course, Wikipedia points out that the term continental kit “also describes a non-functional bulge stamped into the trunk lid or a cosmetic accessory to the rear of the car giving the impression of a spare tire mount,” which has never been an impression I’m interested in making.

That said, I’ve owned a few cars that could have conceivably made use of a continental kit, including a white-and-salmon 1957 Mercury, kin to the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser that was offered in ’57, and was the pace car for the Indianapolis 500. The Turnpike Cruiser was offered with a continental kit, which made the otherwise handsome car appear to be puckering at the rear.

(I do kind of wish my Mercury had the “Seat-O-Matic” feature, one of the first electric memory seats, which moved back and forth when the ignition was cycled on and off, but then, few of the electric features it did have worked, so I doubt my car’s seats would have done much moving on their own.)

This inevitably brings us to the company Chevys of the 40s, based in Vancouver, Washington. As the name suggests, it offers part for Chevys of the 1940s, and into the ’50s. Model year 1954, to be exact, since its catalog stops short of the 1955, ’56, and ’57 Chevys, for which there is a plethora of parts available elsewhere.

Which means Chevys of the 40s offers continental kits for the 1949–50 Chevrolet for $1935; the 1951–52 Chevrolet for $1936 (wonder what the extra dollar is for?), and the 1953–54 Chevrolet for $2098. Each kit comes with a chrome rim that covers the tread on your spare tire, but can either have a full face or an open face if you have a fifth wheel cover in your collection.

Let’s split the difference and look at the continental kit for the 1951–52 model. It takes “six to eight weeks for delivery,” which I take to mean the company is so surprised that someone actually wants one that it takes six to eight weeks to wake up the manufacturing division and have them build it.

OK, that was harsh. The continental kit really doesn’t look that bad, in a low-riderish sort of way. Googling this brings up multiple images of something else I didn’t know existed—custom continental kits for lowrider bicycles, which actually kind of makes sense. Or you can buy a whole chrome lowrider bike for $1179, with a continental kit, four mirrors, “gangster mufflers” with dual exhausts (!), and dual squeeze-bulb horns. I thought the whole point of building a lowrider bicycle was that you created it, not uncrated it, but what do I know?

Anyway, make up your own mind about whether or not you want to add a continental kit to your 1951–52 Chevrolet, which is a rather attractive, long-unappreciated model that I’m not sure is much enhanced by the addition. But then, I never knew I needed four mirrors or gangster mufflers on my 20-inch lowrider bicycle. Now that I have them, somebody just try to take them away! They will, eventually, here at the old folks’ home.

***

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Unless you live there, or you have family or friends in the area, why would you visit Lincoln, Nebraska? You might visit to see the state capital. Or the University of Nebraska, home of the Cornhuskers. But heading the list of “top things to do in Lincoln” is the Museum of American Speed.

“This is an amazing collection of everything related to early speed development,” one online reviewer enthuses. “There are … vintage racing cars and touring cars and more engines than I ever thought existed … also metal lunch boxes, movie posters, pedal cars, record album covers, hood ornaments, vintage car parts and so much more. This is a Smithsonian-quality collection and exhibit, and each display is artistically created to demonstrate that quality… I highly recommend a visit and if you are a ‘car person,’ it should be on your bucket list.”

Modest Beginnings

“Speedy” Bill Smith was a winning racer, team owner, race car builder, entrepreneur, and a passionate collector of anything and everything about the history of speed in America. In 1952, he and his hard-working wife Joyce founded Speedway Motors to sell automotive and competition parts and accessories in Lincoln. Then, 40 years later, they opened their Museum of American Speed, “dedicated to preserving, interpreting, and displaying physical items significant in racing and automotive history.” As they liked to say, every car in it has a story.

“Our dad started this business right out of college,” said son Clay Smith, when we visited while researching hot rod guru and Autorama show founder Bob Larivee’s latest book. “And my mom loaned him $300 to get it started. She had a good job, so when he had sales, that money could go back into the business. He didn’t have to use it to support the family. In the early days, he raced motorcycles, then roadsters. He was driver, mechanic, painter, truck driver, everything … and he became a better car owner, builder, and fabricator. Bill had a great ability to build and field very competitive cars. It was serious business; he was there to win … [and] he won more than his share.”

Because he was involved in the formation of SEMA (Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association) and had friends who were manufacturers, Bill Smith was well connected with the entire industry and always knew what was happening elsewhere despite being based in Nebraska. “We were advertising in Speed Mechanics magazine in 1953,” Clay Smith recounted, “and there was a list in that same issue of every speed shop in America, hundreds of them. And the only one that survives today is Speedway Motors.”

The elder Smith was enamored with what early engineers could do. Many were backyard engineers, or “practical” engineers as he called them, who worked at a trade—very bright people but not trained engineers. He wanted to collect their work and believed an object could tell its story better than its creator could, so his original motivation was to preserve that part of history.

“We had a mezzanine in the building,” Smith said, “and Bill’s ‘stuff’ would get parked up there. And we had the good fortune through all those years to be included in the process. With the toys, for example, Bill and Joyce would go to events each year—a toy show in Chicago or Atlantic City—and I would go with them to negotiate buying toys. We also went to all the swap meets with them, displaying as a vendor but really there to acquire ‘stuff.’ His stuff was always stuffed into one of our warehouses, and this museum is its second home.”

The Museum

The museum moved to a three-story, 150,000-square-foot building in 2001, across the parking lot from Speedway Motors, and it recently completed a 90,000-square-foot addition to house its rapidly growing displays, which include more than 300 cars and 800 historically significant engines. With over 30 unique gallery spaces, the museum educates visitors about all forms of American racing, including Indy, drag racing, NASCAR, SCCA, land speed, Pikes Peak, sprint car, midget, quarter midget, board-track, go-kart, motorcycle, BMX, and more. It also celebrates the history of hot-rodding, show cars, and historic production cars. The meticulously designed displays and dioramas spread over three floors display these vehicles and other artifacts in settings where viewers can see them as if in their original environments.

It boasts the largest collection of pedal cars on permanent display. The Eric Zausner-EZ Spindizzy Gallery features the most comprehensive collection of gas-powered tether cars. And the Darrell Mayabb Automotive Art Gallery shows an assortment of rare bronzes, auto design studies, and paintings from artists Tom Fritz, Peter Vincent, Stanley Wanlass, and many others. There are also significant displays of rare auto-related movie posters, signed musical instruments, tin toys, lunch boxes, die-cast cars, and space toys—truly something for everyone.

“One of my dad’s first jobs as a kid was working at an En-Ar-Co gas station a block from his house,” Smith relates on our tour. “So we re-created it here. This track roadster was on the cover of Hot Rod with Linda Vaughn. This blue ’32 is one of few cars that has been on Hot Rod’s cover twice, first as a kit that you could buy for $3995, then again after it was completed. We have Bonneville racers here, drag racers there, and NASCAR and show cars over there, including three that we bought from Bob Larivee’s collection. The most iconic one is the ‘Red Baron,’ next to the ‘Outlaw’ and the ‘Boothill Express,’ which is the actual funeral hearse that carried James Gang member Bob Younger, subsequently turned into a drag car by Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth.”

Clay Smith shows us the many “Icons of Speed” dioramas for people who were important in America’s pursuit of speed, including Mickey Thompson, Smokey Yunick, Vic Edelbrock, and Carroll Shelby, who was a good friend. “When Shelby created this Series One car, Bill helped him find engines for it. He had bought a train car full of overhead-cam Oldsmobile Aurora engines for hot rodding, and Shelby used them in the last run of his 249 Series Ones.”

Bill always wanted a Tucker because of its innovation, so there sits one alongside a regal Duesenberg. “The Duesenberg brothers originally were racers,” Smith says, “and this is one of their Model Js from 1930.” Next to that is a hand-built Bucciali. “The original won the Paris salon in 1931, then was destroyed in World War II. William Tishman of Los Angeles went through an arduous 10-year process to re-create it from pictures. My dad had this recreation car in his garage and on Friday nights, he would take it to get ice cream at the drive-through.”

Also on our tour was museum curator Tim Matthews. “This is our Land Speed Record area, with cars from Bonneville and the dry lakes,” he says. “Most of these cars are record-setters in their classes, including Ron Main’s ‘Flat Fire,’ the world’s fastest flathead Ford. This red Speedway Motors car, built by John MacKichan here in Nebraska, set a record at 348 mph for the Small-Block Chevy Streamlined class.”

Smith points to a charred race driver’s suit in a display case: “This is one of our favorite displays. Bill Simpson created fireproof driving suits, and my dad was his first customer. That suit is the one he wore when he set himself on fire in the pits at Indy to prove its quality.”

Second Floor

Up one floor is the Soap Box Derby area, with a variety of creative derby cars and drivers’ helmets through the years. Then comes the Model T room. “Almost everything in here is Ford Model T speed equipment,” Smith says. “My dad was enamored with the Model T era, because that was the beginning of the aftermarket. The Model T was so simple that almost everything on it could be improved, so that created a huge market for accessories to make your Model T run better, faster, cooler, or look distinctive. You could get an accessory body to turn your Model T roadster into an enclosed car, or you could turn a Model T into a snowmobile.”

There on display is the only Model T that ever raced at Le Mans, #19 in 1923, plus Model T–based accessory cars made for businesses: a painter’s car, a bakery car, and one that looks like a house. “This is a prototype six-cylinder Model T engine from 1912, which is rare because Ford did not make six-cylinder engines back then,” Smith continues. “This is a double-overhead-cam head for a Model T engine that was built in the teens. This is the five-millionth Model T, which was built in 1921. This is a twin-engine T. This is a special suspension system. We think we have over 5000 accessories made for the Model T.”

Another room shows the evolution of midget race cars and a huge variety of midget racing engines. “They ran everything, including boat and motorcycle engines,” Smith explains, “and this one is a version of an Offenhauser.” In the Model A room are all kinds of speed equipment for, you guessed it, the Ford Model A. “When you think about how few years those cars and that engine were in production,” he says, “the variety of speed equipment made for them was amazing. And here on the wall we have 311 different intake manifolds for flathead Fords.”

Another huge room is chock full of original, unrestored, old pedal cars, probably the world’s largest collection, some said to be more valuable than real cars. And just around the corner are hundreds of examples of probably all the auto-related kids’ lunchboxes ever made.

Third Floor and More

Another level up is what was said to be Joyce Smith’s favorite floor. “She would come up here and tell stories about all the different things,” Smith says. “All the pedal cars up here are restored, good as new. And here is Joyce’s Yellow Cab collection. She had a thing about Yellow Cabs. Over here is Buck Rogers and all of Bill’s childhood toys. The Spindizzy Foundation gallery is devoted to gas-powered tether racers, which zip around in circles on a cable anchored to a pole in the center. Later, they put them on rails on miniature board tracks. These cars date back into the early 1930s, and they’re incredibly complex in the amount of engineering that went into them.” Matthews, the curator, adds that, with recent donations, this is now the largest and most complete collection of Spindizzies available for public viewing in the country, “and we have ambitions to make it even greater!”

Back on the ground floor, we see some special areas with historian Mike Kelly. “This is our Harry Miller room,” he says. “Harry was the godfather of racing in the early days. Though he dropped out of school at 13, he was a great engineer but not a great businessman. He went belly up in 1933, but every car on the Indy 500 starting grid in 1934 had a Miller engine in it. When Miller went bankrupt, Fred Offenhauser bought the tooling and the rights to his four-cylinder engine, and for the next 27 years, Offenhauser engines won 24 of the 27 races. And from 1946 to 1962, Offenhausers won every single IMCA championship race.”

Kelly points out a sprint car that won over 200 races and championships in 1955, ’56, ’57, and ’58. “This Blue Crown car won more championship points than any other single car in history,” he says. “See the ‘Speedway Cocktail’ on this car number 45? Joe Lencki made Speedway Cocktail oil additive in his bathtub, bottled it, and sold it to the other racers. When Joe went to Fred Offenhauser and asked him to build a six-cylinder Offenhauser engine, Fred at first refused, then relented. But Lencki would have to assemble it and call it a Lencki-six, not an Offenhauser. They made just three of those engines, and this is one of them. A second one is in the brown car over there that looks like a Watson roadster.”

Through the years, another Smith son, Carson, got to know a lot of his father’s drivers. “He had some of the very best,” he says. “The business was built around making money for the race team to function and using the race team to promote the business. It was all tied together. His early focus was on racing engines, because racing engines were almost always somebody’s passion, the most important things they worked on, and racing evolves pretty fast.”

The museum’s Indy Galleries have been going through a major expansion. “In 2023, our museum merged with the Unser Racing Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico,” Matthews says. “The Unser family is one of the most storied families in automotive and racing history. We have had racing partnerships with members of the Unser family for over 38 years and are honored to welcome the Unser collection to our museum. We just completed the relocation of over 40 vehicles and 60,000 artifacts here and are building galleries to house and display items that will educate visitors for many generations to come.”

When legendary race-car builder and chief mechanic A.J. Watson passed away, his daughters worked with the museum to have everything from his last shop transported to Lincoln for a special display. “Everything in there is exactly the way it was when our team got there,” Matthews says. “We took hundreds of pictures, so every piece of pipe, every drill bit, oil stains on the floor, everything is exactly the way it was before we took it out. The car in the shop diorama is none other than the Watson-built winner of the 1958 Race of Two Worlds in Monza, Italy. It is on loan to us by our great friends at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.”

All of the museum’s Indy cars are era-representative: “This Shrike is representative of the ’60s,” Matthews says. “This Mallard was the last front-engine car to race at Indy. Al Unser drove this car when he and brother Bobby were both on the front row in 1970. Every engine in this section has raced at Indianapolis. This pair of original Gasoline Alley garage doors is one of only two that got away when they bulldozed and rebuilt it. We built this diorama so we could utilize the original doors and give people a sense of what the pit garages were really like.”

One fun story concerns the Mallard that Jim Hurtubise raced the last year the car qualified for the Indy 500. Then, for the next nine years, he took it back, got in the qualifying line, went out, and just drove around waving at everybody, with everyone waving back at him. “The last year he took it there,” Kelly relates with a grin, “he parked it in the line and waved around everyone who came up behind him. And when the gun sounded at six o’clock Sunday, he was still sitting there in it. When the other drivers came over to tell him how sorry they were, he took the cowling off, and there was a cooler of beer in there instead of an engine. That was his way of saying thanks for putting up with him for the last several years.”

Finally, the “Bill and Joyce” room is full of things important to their sons, which they added after Bill and Joyce Smith passed away. “When I first came to the museum,” Kelly says, “this chair was sitting over there, and Bill was in it. He would sit there and talk to you, but you didn’t go through those doors [to the second and third floors] without a guide. This place was his toy box, and you could not just come in here and wander around.”

The museum has been a strong focus for the entire Smith family, partially because they created it as a foundation, so things that they personally owned were donated. “When you give away things that are prize possessions, creating a museum to preserve them is the best step of all,” Clay Smith enthuse. “The foundation was set up in 1994, but it really changed from a collection to a museum when it moved to this building in 2001, and it has evolved over the years. We always try to think about what makes it special and how it can be better tomorrow than it is today. I’m really proud of the fact that we’re the number one tourist attraction in Lincoln, according to Trip Advisor.”

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Most car enthusiasts can tell you the moment they first fell in love with the marque or model they have the most passion for. Perhaps it was a clapped-out Mustang that meant teenage freedom. Maybe it was the Westfalia from family camping trips. Possibly it was seeing a DeLorean DMC-12 time machine scorch up a parking lot while you munched on popcorn at the movie theater. However, for those of us of a certain age, all we really wanted was a pickle car.

Or a carrot car. Or a bananamobile with seating for three. Or a wedge-shaped cheese car for all our mousy friends. In the fictional world of Busytown, the roads were simply crammed with all manner of magical wheeled delights, the kind to mesmerize both parent and child at bedtime. Where’s Goldbug? There he is!

Fifty years have passed since children’s illustrator Richard Scarry created his beloved Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, and it still carries that magical first spark of automotive enthusiasm.

Well, of course it does. Because Richard Scarry was a true car guy from the very beginning.

Born in 1919 in Boston, Scarry was the second of five children, and his parents were relatively well off, with a family-owned chain of department stores. “Scarry,” by the by, is an Irish surname, and should properly be pronounced to rhyme with “marry.” But we all knew him as Richard “Scary.”

As a young man, Scarry did not inherit the family zeal—or the aptitude—for business. He dropped out of business school in Boston, then enrolled in art school, before being drafted in 1942 to fight in the European and North African theaters of WWII.

His service life began with radio repair and ended in the morale division, where he was employed as an illustrator, editor, and writer. Postwar, he carried this work into the magazine and book publishing world, while living in New York. At the tail end of the 1940s he met and married Patsy Murphy, also an illustrator, and the next year Scarry got his breakthrough illustrating the Little Golden Book series. Obviously feeling optimistic about the future, he treated himself to a sports car.

Specifically, it was a black MG TC, one that Scarry’s only son, Huck, describes as a “snappy two-seater.” The postwar sports car boom in the U.S. is well documented, and Scarry is not the only ex-serviceman who found himself charmed by an MG’s fizzy exhaust and scrappy handling. And besides, is anyone surprised that Richard Scarry owned an early, friendly-faced MG? The car looks like he was the one who actually designed it.

Sadly, the MG left the Scarry garage after Huck was born in 1953, replaced by a sensible station wagon of some kind. However, Scarry made sure to immortalize the little English car with an illustration on the inside cover of 1951’s The Great Big Car and Truck Book, the first work he both wrote and illustrated.

By this time, Scarry was working with his longtime publisher, a Dane by the name of Ole Risom. Risom had one of those lives that sounds impossible to believe, escaping Europe in 1940, joining the U.S Army ski patrol in WWII, then getting hired on with the Art and Monuments section (the subject of 2014’s The Monuments Men movie), and marrying an actual countess. The pair would be close friends and collaborators for decades.

In 1963, the Scarry family visited Europe, and it changed everything. Looking out on a crowded, bustling street, Scarry was inspired with the concept for his Busytown series of books, and with that year’s Best Word Book Ever, he cemented his signature look.

Part of that look was inserting his family into his books. Huckle Cat is based on Huck Scarry, and he wears traditional lederhosen because the Scarrys lived in Switzerland in 1968, and later bought a chalet in Gstaad, where Huck still lives today. And, in what sounds like a made-up detail, for that year abroad in 1968, the Scarrys lived in a town called Ouchy.

During this time, they owned what can be considered the hero car of Cars and Trucks and Things That Go: a convertible Volkswagen Beetle owned by the Pickles, a good-natured family of pigs. Scarry clearly was drawn to the anthropomorphic features of cheery classic VWs, and they often showed up in his work.

What has fascinated kids and adults for ages is the delicious details you find hidden in Scarry’s books. For instance, in 1968’s What Do People Do All Day, a cutaway illustration of a boat shows an accurate and detailed explanation of how a four-cycle piston engine works.

By the 1970s, Scarry had signed a new contract with Random House and had upgraded his European car from a Volkswagen to a black Mercedes-Benz W114 coupe. Despite splashing out, he remained fairly unpretentious about the car, never taking the snow tires off of it, and occasionally strapping a boat to the roof.

Cars and Trucks and Things That Go was published in 1974. Huck Scarry was 21 at the time, and he assisted in coloring up the work. In the 50th anniversary edition, he talks about working with his father.

“Those days together in his studio were a real treat for me. While he painted, my father was always giggling or laughing at something he had drawn, no doubt remembering the situation, somewhere seen, that had inspired his illustration.”

Flipping through Cars and Trucks and Things That Go again, decades after I first read it or had it read to me, the book holds up like a great classic car. First of all, it’s huge, at nearly seventy pages long, and every one of them is crammed with jokes and details and treasure hunts. It’s basically a kid’s ideal “just one more book before lights out” stalling technique.

And as a grownup, it’s still brilliant. Here, Goldbug drives a Citroën 2CV. There, a cat and a rabbit hit the beaches in a VW Schwimmwagen. David Dog is behind the wheel of a Bond Bug. Rolls-Royces appear both in regular and fun-size. Careless Charlie the Carpenter sidles up to his Hammer Car—future inspiration for AMG? Four foxes ride in what is clearly a Pinzgauer. And of course Dingo Dog is scooting along in his toothy Maserati lookalike, with Officer Flossy in hot pursuit.

It’s hard not to compare Busytown’s colorful traffic with the reality of modern greyscale streets. We could use more happy-faced cars in a wider, brighter palette. I honestly believe it’d be an antidote to road rage if everyone drove around in cars that have the cheery mien of an MG Midget or a Honda e.

Richard Scarry died in 1994, at the age of 74, twenty years after Cars and Trucks and Things That Go had become an established household essential. He left this mortal realm in his beloved Swiss Alps. On one of his first trips there, in 1950, he’d bought a traditional Tyrolean hat called a gamsbart. He wore it constantly, but you may recognize it as the hat always worn by his character Lowly Worm, often at the wheel of an Apple Car.

At 50, Cars and Trucks and Things That Go has long provided the tinder that sparked the flame of automotive enthusiasm for many a young reader. The 50th Anniversary Edition includes additional artwork and a poster, and the best you could do is read it to your own kids or grandkids. Where’s Goldbug? There he is! Officer Flossy and Dingo Dog. Ma and Pa Pickle. Mistress Mouse, tow-truck driver and racer extraordinaire. And, of course, a pickle car, zipping down the road with a cheery pig at the wheel.

We all grew up to love real cars, and the true stories that went along with them. But given the choice, I know we’d all want to find out just how quick that bananamobile was when you floored the throttle. Surely we’d give Officer Flossy the slip.

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A Lamborghini Countach is no ordinary supercar. There are more expensive cars, there are rarer cars, and there are certainly more competent cars, but there is something magical about the way a Countach shrinks you down to grade-school height and fills you with the wonder of what a supercar could be. Now, imagine that you are eight or nine, and that Santa just left this under the tree for you: An Agostini AutoJunior Lamborghini Countach.

If you were the luckiest of lucky kids in the mid-1980s, you might have scurried downstairs in your palatial mansion to discover that Babbo Natale had delivered, big time, with one of these Briggs & Stratton–powered toys. Remember when the Power Wheels Jeep arrived on the scene? Just imagine your own running and driving handmade Italian exotic.

Officially, Agostini made just twenty of these cars, each a handmade work of art. Another four were built off the books, plus a few replicas, perhaps, made in period. Agostini wasn’t around for very long, and details about the company are murky. And as for the work of art part, maybe not so much.

“Once you start pulling it apart, you can see that [Agostini] really did just bodge things together,” says Scott Tatton-Bennett of Essex, who knows junior cars better than most. “The best thing about them is the body, the thick fiberglass, but underneath they did really just use anything that they could find.”

Tatton-Bennett is a longtime fan of junior cars, who found and restored a 911 Junior about ten years ago. The car was a match for his father-in-law’s full-size 911 Supersport. Since then he’s rebuilt several juniors, including another 911 and a Ferrari 308. But, for him and others in the know, the Countach is the holy grail.

This one is serial number fourteen, getting it required some long negotiations. The tiny Countach had been sitting in a shipping container for years, the seats were missing, and the 12-hp Briggs & Stratton engine and CVT gearbox were completely seized.

Under the skin, the Countach Junior is essentially a simple go-kart, with two forward speeds and reverse. The lights work, there’s a Momo steering wheel, and the doors go up scissor-style, in proper Lamborghini fashion.

“The stalks are from a Fiat 128, I believe,” says Tatton-Bennett, “Many of the parts are from now-classic 1980s Fiats, so they can be difficult to find. I’ve spent hours looking at pictures, trying to figure out what was missing.”

The Countach was not the only running and driving kids’ car produced by Agostini. It also built working Testarosssas, 308s, and even an F40. Most of these were open-topped, as even smaller kids wouldn’t completely fit. The Countach Junior did come with a solid roof, but it looks incredibly cramped.

There’s a hilarious echo of the real cars in these scale models that Tatton-Bennett has restored. He says that the 911, which was built by a company in Poland, was relatively well-made. There are hundreds of tiny 911s out there, so he was able to call up fellow owners to resolve issues.

Unfortunately, just like a full-size Countach, the Countach Jr. is both exotic and of slightly suspect build quality. Restoring it was a puzzle, and one that resulted in Tatton-Bennett gaining a network of contacts. He says that despite the small number of these cars built, you can find them everywhere—from London to Australia to Tokyo. Number 14 has just sold to a collector in New York. (Tatton-Bennett’s next project is likely restoring an Agostini F40.)

Their global presence is a testament to the outsized impact of this little car. Several were sold in the Middle East when new, but the Countach Junior was also offered in the FAO Schwarz and Neiman Marcus catalog. It was eye-wateringly expensive when new—details are sketchy, and figures range from $15,000 to $50,000—yet hundreds of kids would have flipped to the page with the Lamborghini and dreamed. Screen time also helped: In 1988’s Big, Tom Hanks and his boss go to FAO Schwarz, the site of the famous piano duet. They also have a “shootout” with toy guns, and a black Lamborghini Junior is in that scene.

The few Agostini Coutaches that come up for sale are fought over by collectors of high-end automobilia and by those who wanted a mini Lamborghini as a kid. Tatton-Bennett says he’s seen values rise: Two of the closed-roof cars sold this year through RM Sotheby’s, one in Paris for 44,000 Euros, the other in London for £60,000. There simply aren’t many of them around, and that rarity drives up the price.

The idea of paying that much money for a gussied-up 12-hp go-kart certainly seems crazy; you could easily buy a shifter go-kart and race hundreds of exhilarating laps for much, much less. And if you really want a tiny exotic car, there are cheaper and better-built models available from a growing number of companies building Junior cars to a more modern specification. One of the half-scale machines built by Harrington is of impeccable quality, has a three-speed gearbox, and can hit over 35 mph.

But the appeal of an Agostini Lamborghini Countach is not about speed or practicality. It is the embodiment of a childhood dream. It has a lot in common with the full-size Countach in that respect: People put plenty of miles on their vintage 911s, but a Countach is a special-occasion type of car. There’s quite a lot of enjoyment to be had in just sitting around and looking at it.

So while some ’80s kids definitely got faster go-karts for Christmas, the very few that got an Agostini Countach wouldn’t have been bothered by power ratings or outright top speed. There’s a magic to these cars, and that’s why people, even grown-ups, still want one.

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A Facebook Marketplace listing for a massive lot of E-body Challengers and associated parts just caught our attention. The group of 10 cars is comprised of eight 1970 Challengers (the inaugural year for the Dodge E-body), as well as a 1971 318 automatic and a body from 1972–1974. The cars, in various states of disassembly, could prove to hold several restorable examples, or at least some that could be returned to the road after significant effort. The caveat is that the seller, located in San Antonio, wants to sell the entire collection of cars, and their substantial accumulation of E-body parts, in a single $100,000 transaction.

We saw the listing thanks to a post on Barnfinds.com, where sales like this one are often posted, although this listing’s focus on first-generation Dodge Challengers makes it particularly interesting. Among the Challengers listed, at least a couple are said to be fairly well-optioned, including a green-on-green 1970 R/T equipped with a 383 and an automatic; there is also a 1970 equipped with a Rallye dash, disc brakes, a numbers-matching 340 Performance Pack, and rather desirable Plum Crazy paint.

No doubt the seller has their reasons for wanting to offload the collection in one fell swoop, as dealing with multiple buyers and the associated logistics sounds like a nightmare. However, it won’t make the sale easy. The listing, posted 14 weeks ago, is still up, so despite the tempting hardware, there can’t be that many buyers with the funds and the space to give this collection a new home. Without a whole lot more photos, it’s tough to comment on the value of any of the individual projects, although with all of those parts for such desirable cars, it’s possible that a buyer could recoup a lot of their investment if they had the time and the means to get all the parts in front of the right audience at a Mopar swap meet.

As always, we’re hoping to see some of these desirable and beautiful cars back on the road. If you or anyone you know ends up with one of these mothballed Mopars, please let us know. Happy hunting!

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They independently shared the name Carrera for decades, so it was only natural when Porsche and TAG Heuer combined their storied histories two years ago and partnered to create a new motorsports-inspired Carrera watch. 

Hold on tight; they’ve turned it up a notch.

The two legendary companies continue their collaboration with the introduction of a new showstopper, the perfect timepiece for every Porsche enthusiast: the TAG Heuer Carrera Chronosprint x Porsche. Offered in two versions, the watch pays homage to the momentous celebration of the 60th anniversaries of the TAG Heuer Carrera collection as well as the Porsche 911 (called the 901 in pre-production). Merging elements from both the watch and the car, TAG Heuer says the timepieces “offer an unparalleled timekeeping experience.”

With the new release, speed and precision converge, capturing the essence of the original Porsche 901’s remarkable achievement: reaching 0–100 km/h in a mere 9.1 seconds, an enhanced milestone as the history of the 911 unfolds.

“This watch perfectly encapsulates the essence of the motorsport universe, which is a shared value in our partnership with Porsche,” says Frédéric Arnault, CEO of TAG Heuer. “We have seamlessly merged the heritage of the 911 and the TAG Heuer Carrera, leveraging cutting-edge technology and unique design. It is a testament to our shared values of precision, innovation, and a deep appreciation for our respective histories.”

Inspired by Carrera Panamericana

Both TAG Heuer and Porsche’s use of the name Carrera—the Spanish word for race—was inspired by the nine-stage, five-day, 2100-mile Carrera Panamericana, Mexico’s famed 1950s road race. While Porsche’s use of the name clearly celebrated its success in the event (the automaker’s first victory came in 1953 when a 550 Spyder claimed the Small Sports Car category), TAG Heuer’s path there was a little less obvious.

In 1962, Jack Heuer, then head of the company founded by his great-grandfather a century earlier in St-Imier, Switzerland, was in Florida for the 12 Hours Race of Sebring. Heuer, a talented driver in his own right and fan of the entire racing experience, was told stories of the Carrera Panamericana. His interest was instantly piqued. When Heuer returned to Europe he immediately registered rights to use “Carrera,” deciding it was the perfect name for a watch with a racing spirit—useful and functional, featuring a clean and legible design, without extraneous elements that would distract the wearer’s gaze. 

“I loved not only its ‘sexy’ sound, but also its multiple meanings—which include road, race, course and career,” Heuer explained in his 2013 autobiography, The Times of My Life.

In 1963, the first Heuer Carrera watch arrived in the form of the Heuer Carrera ref. 2447, also known as the “Carrera-12.” Sixty years later, with a historic list of enthusiasts that includes racing legends like Bruce McLaren, Ayrton Senna, and Niki Lauda, TAG Heuer continues to create watches that motorsports drivers and fans are proud to wear. 

The Power of Precision

Since its groundbreaking introduction in 1963, the Porsche 911 has captivated enthusiasts with its unwavering commitment to performance, precision, and innovation. Its acceleration from 0–100 km/h in 9.1 seconds not only achieved those goals but paved the way for future generations of the 911, pushing boundaries and setting new records for speed and driving dynamics.

In that vein, TAG Heuer once again pays tribute to Porsche’s exceptional speed achievement. Bringing to life revolutionary designs and conceptual timepieces, the TAG Heuer Carrera Chronosprint x Porsche watches stand out. Both the Steel and Gold Editions celebrate the iconic status of the Porsche 911 and its remarkable performance heritage, fusing the spirit of Porsche’s groundbreaking achievements with TAG Heuer’s unwavering pursuit of excellence.

As a tribute to precision and speed, TAG Heuer introduces the groundbreaking TH20-08 movement, a new interpretation of the in-house caliber TH20 launched at the 2023 Watches & Wonders fair.  Designed for precise measurements of short time intervals, the TH20-08 movement mirrors Porsche 901’s acceleration from 0–100 km/h in 9.1 seconds. Its central hand accelerates swiftly, gradually decelerates over 60 seconds, and quickly restarts. In a word, it’s cool.

The movement’s unique mechanism features two snail-shaped wheels, creating a decelerating motion for the central hand. These wheels are crafted with state-of-the-art technology, the so-called LiGA process widely used in the MEMS (microelectromechanical system) industry. The TH20-08 represents TAG Heuer’s commitment to precision, craftsmanship, and captivating design, setting a new standard in watchmaking.

The dial of these watches beguiles with “a visual representation of speed and acceleration.” Red lines on the flange mirror the 0–100 km/h achievement in just 9.1 seconds, paying homage to the very first Porsche 911. Adding a touch of automotive inspiration, further subtle red details can be found throughout. The 6 o’clock subdial features a reference to the iconic dashboard of the 1970s Porsche, where the area around 50 km/h was often highlighted to indicate the recommended speed in urban areas.

An additional nod to the rich sportscar heritage lies in the red portion of the 9 o’clock subdial. It serves as a reminder of the critical engine speed beyond which damage may occur. It’s not by chance that TAG Heuer chose to place the red line at 6.8 hours; it refers to the limit of 6800 revolutions per minute. In addition, the counter hands of the watch are similar to the shape of a car dashboard, completing the cohesive automotive design aesthetic.

The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronosprint x Porsche also offers an innovative double glassbox—a curved crystal glass that pays homage to similarly domed Hesalite crystal designs from the 1970s. Re-engineered to have a curve that flows seamlessly over the tachymeter scale, it runs along the edge of the dial, blending into the case. This design, a first for the TAG Heuer Carrera, offers easy reading of the indications on the dial via the domed crystal and a captivating view of the watch’s intricate mechanics through the see-through caseback. The caseback is designed to replicate the iconic three-spoke steering wheel of Porsche.

Both watches feature a calfskin leather strap, in brown for the gold edition and in black for the steel edition, with the embossed original number “911” on the strap.

The steel version boasts a silver dial and flange, while the gold edition wears a beige dial and flange. Each watch is presented in specially designed, co-branded TAG Heuer x Porsche packaging with subtle touches of gold and steel reminiscent of the watches.

Decades after TAG Heuer and Porsche came to the same conclusion about the magical name “Carrera,” the two have created a watch that embodies their shared spirit of speed and precision—and their unwavering pursuit of excellence. 

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When film and television director John Frankenheimer died in 2002, cinema buffs and car lovers both suffered a great loss. The director of critically acclaimed thrillers such as The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, The French Connection II, and Reindeer Games was also the director of Grand Prix (above) and Ronin, two of the best movies ever made with cars as the action stars.

Turns out that besides being a genuine car enthusiast, Frankenheimer was also a rabid collector of model cars. A 1988 Getty archive photo of Frankenheimer shows him at his Los Angeles home attending to floor-to-ceiling glass showcases crammed full of some of the 1800 diecast models he collected or built himself over his lifetime. After long storage in a climate-controlled facility, that collection is now being offered for auction—not as a whole, but as 1800 individually numbered lots that have been painstakingly cataloged and photographed by Los Angeles Estate Auction in Glendale, California.

The company, which has done celebrity auctions in the past, was approached by the Frankenheimer estate about selling the collection as well as a few awards that John received during his career. The whole collection was appraised at $250,000, according to Zack Oganesyan, consignment director at Los Angeles Estate Auction. That works out to an average value of $139 per model, a relatively affordable way to own a piece of the famed director’s legacy.

Some of the items will undoubtedly sell for more. Model experts will spot some rare pieces from long-gone model companies that have been signed by famous modelmakers such as André Marie Ruf, Buzz Lockwood, and John Simons. Some of the models also have “JF” scrawled on the bottom, implying they were made by or specifically for John Frankenheimer.

Besides those, we also saw some relatively cheap diecast models that will likely sell for $10 or less (plus 25 percent buyer’s premium).

Almost all of the collection is 1/43rd scale, said Oganesyan, meaning the models are around four inches long and made of various materials, from resin to white metal, a mixture of tin and zinc that was commonly used in toy soldiers.

The auction catalog is scheduled to go online on November 1, and the three-day live auction will commence on November 17. Oganesyan said the catalog will feature five photos of each model, a substantial effort that entailed taking and organizing around 9000 photographs. Oganesyan figures each lot will take about a minute to sell, which means the whole auction could last 30 hours. Which is why it’s scheduled for three days. The man liked his models.

Online bidders must pre-register with liveauctioneers.com. See www.losangelesestateauction.com for more information.

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A diaphanous mist is swirling inland from England’s Margate seafront. Street by street it creeps. The Rag and Bone Man is coming, too. You’ll hear him before you see him, but he won’t be calling out for your scrap; there’s no room for it on his motorbike. Shoulders down and elbows in, he sits deep in the seat of a long and low two-wheeler. A product of 1950, its BSA engine emits a full-bodied, well-matured rumble that reverberates through the Kentish town. It’s approaching nine in the morning, and with an open-face helmet he can taste the sea salt in the air.

With a composure that signals he’s an easy rider, he leans into each turn. To the left and to the right, he has a hypnotic rhythm with the road, but the mist can’t match his pace. He comes to a halt alongside a painted timber door, the entrance to his workshop. Dark green, it bears the number 4. Once inside, he puts on a flat cap and switches on the lights, but not always in that order. His trade isn’t typical of the traditional rag-and-bone man: Rather than buy unwanted items and resell them as they are, Paul Firbank, an artist engineer, returns them to the economy in astonishing reworked forms. It could be a golf club or a vintage car jack, wheel bearings or bits of an old digger. Once procured by The Rag and Bone Man, everything has the potential to be reinvented.

“I work in reverse,” Paul says. “I take something that’s already made and rethink it.” A single floor lamp, for example, will comprise multiple components, each with its own curiosity but at the end of its intended useful life. In the past, Paul’s pick-and-mix of cast-offs has included road sweeper parts, Land Rover radius arms, and a classic Mini brake drum. “It’s quite an organic process. I might do an initial sketch but that usually changes as I start playing around with different bits. I figure things out as I go along—even in my sleep.”

Paul’s workshop is itself a retrofit. Built as a depository in the 19th century to house the belongings of well-to-do Victorians on their summer holiday, it now heaves with vintage machinery—including a 1940s bandsaw he acquired at Chatham Historic Dockyard—and the hoardings of a “scrap-addicted madman.” There are wheel hubs that once belonged to a prewar car, clutch baskets (ideal for pendant lights), and miscellaneous lumps of cast metal. Right now, Paul is animated about a recent find. Hazarding a guess, he says: “It’s something from the inside of a boiler.” Colossal, cylindrical, and fabricated with a thick thread, the object, brutal and patina’d, is already an industrial work of art. “For me, this is a magical place.”

With over a decade in the business of repurposing often rare and one-off components, Paul has an established network of suppliers. If he’s looking for something specific, say, a radial engine—“I know a guy”—he has a little black book of numbers he can call. “I have to build up a lot of trust with fellow hoarders before they’ll let things go, because they understand the value and beauty of what they’ve got. I couldn’t bear to see the gorgeous shapes I see in scrap melted down, and they know that.”

To maintain a constant flow of new material, Paul brags rummaging rights in scrap bins up and down the country, but the most convenient is that which belongs to the motorcycle shop next door. “I’m very lucky.” The unpredictability of what he’ll discover gives rise to a heightened feeling of anticipation, but Paul has a particular penchant for items that have a compelling CV: “I’m inspired by scrap with heritage, hidden gems with an interesting story.”

Paul’s portfolio (and ambition) is anything but mediocre. Describing the gargantuan 1943 de Havilland Goblin jet engine he spent hundreds of hours transforming into a chandelier as “a proper piece of history,” it was, he says, so well made in its day that it was particularly arduous to take apart. “I had to make my own tools, including different types of pullers. As you dismantle something you realize and reflect on the craftsmanship that originally went into it.”

His wish is to work with an engine that has propelled a rocketship into space. With such sky-isn’t-the-limit ingenuity, it’s no surprise that Paul has been scouted by the makers of TV. “Yeah, I’ve done quite a bit,” he says casually. Appearances on the BBC, Channel 4, and Discovery Channel have made him a reluctant star—you can watch him remodel a 1930s Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah aircraft engine into a chandelier—but he hopes the fascination with his “waste not, want not” values and hands-on expertise will inspire others to find creative ways to rethink and repair.

Citing the gravity bike he built out of rubbish for Red Bull as the project that’s given him the biggest “kicks” to date, Paul displays a pragmatism even as he talks about the pinch-me moments. He is blown away, not boastful. The push bike “wasn’t like anything I’d ridden before,” and with no pedals, no seat, and aerodynamics tailored to make it go fast, very fast, down a hill, you’d be forgiven for thinking his invention sounds dangerous. Potentially deadly, even. “It had brakes,” he says in its defense. If you’ll forgive such a state-the-obvious spoiler, Paul and the bike—comprised of a frame that had been sculpted from a fly-tipped iron bedstead—survived their maiden descent in one piece.

At this year’s Goodwood Revival, a nostalgic three-day event that recreates the glorious days of motor racing, Paul plans to team up with apprentices from the Heritage Skills Academy—an organization that brings together experts from across the restoration industry to run courses—and refashion the wing of a Morgan motor car into a piece of furniture. “That next generation, I find them so inspiring,” he says. “Their passion is incredible. If you’re passionate about something, you’ve got to keep that going because you don’t know where you’ll end up.”

Occasionally, Paul is obliged to justify his actions; dismantling and repurposing historic items doesn’t always win votes from enthusiasts. “What have you done?” is a question, when tinged with accusation, that requires a tactful response. “I don’t butcher anything,” Paul says. “I use components as they are and add other elements. Rather than be in a museum for a select few, I give these things a new life, I bring them to different groups of people.” For provenance, each piece—“they’ve been called future heirlooms”—is given a serial number which Paul stamps on to a metal tag and attaches to the work.

The word “upcycle” is seldom used to describe the works of this modern rag-and-bone man. “Paul was doing what he was doing long before upcycling had its moment,” suggests Lizzie, his wife and partner in the business. After meeting in London and launching The Rag and Bone Man together at a design festival in 2011—“a wall of people were drawn to Paul’s work,” she says—they married on a fairground Wall of Death in 2017. Both blue-eyed and with a shared vision to design pieces that show how the characteristics and quirks of once-functional scrap can be reinvented, they are an effective and sought-after team.

Ongoing commissions include trophies that can weigh nearly 9 pounds for MotoGP, Moto2, and Moto3. “It’s nice when riders aren’t only on a mission to win, but to win one of our trophies,” says Paul, “especially when I make them a bit too heavy and some bloke who has just got off his super bike with arm pump [forearm pain that can develop after holding onto a motorcycle grip] is desperately trying to pick it up.” It’s an amusing thought, but Lizzie has a more diplomatic summation: “It’s so rewarding to see something that would be melted down become part of motorsport history.” They are well-scripted in finishing one another’s sentences.

The idea that a large proportion of the carbon fiber used in motorsport finds its way into landfill makes Paul uncomfortable. “It’s hard to get rid of and so it’s a menace to the planet.” Rising to the challenge of seeking a sustainable solution, he’s developing a way in which broken Formula 1 car parts can be shredded and metamorphosed into something useful.

“I like learning,” says Paul, whose skillset is largely self-taught. YouTube has been particularly enlightening. “I cocked up most of my school life, then I went to college and got into trouble; a mainstream education just wasn’t for me. I was destined to work with my hands.” The dirt trapped between the swirling ridges that decorate his fingerprints is a clue to the nature of his graft. “There’s a good deal of elbow grease involved in what I do.” Always on the lookout for second-hand machinery and tools, if it needs restoring, that’s not a problem.

The weathered hammer screwed to the workshop wall, you might suspect, has been taken out of service. There’s a “W” welded on its head. “For Wally,” Paul says. “My great-grandad was called Walter, and he was a metal worker in the East London dockyards.” It’s treasured rather than used. “I have all sorts of tools and machinery. I say the older the better, because they last longer.” With lathes, milling machines, bandsaws, spanners, and hammers, “lots of the kit does the same thing just in a slightly different way.” The couple have established an 1800 square foot of self-sufficient enterprise to house it all, and some of the equipment is more than a hundred years old, but there is a place for modern machinery, too. Presses, plasma cutters, angle grinders, drills—they’ve recently added a shot blaster to their assemblage and are also awaiting the arrival of a new old-style English wheel, a contraption used to fabricate compound curves in metal.

Lizzie, who had a more fulfilling relationship with academia, has an MA in fine art. Finding gratification in a less visible, more strategic role—business development, sales, and marketing, in other words±she has an intuitive understanding of The Rag and Bone Man aesthetic. “People have emotional connections to meaningful objects and to give them the opportunity to bring something that’s been stored in the corner of their garage back into focus is a really lovely thing.” Some clients, she says, like a surprise, while others appreciate a more formulated plan, but a budget is something that is always pre-agreed. A single pendant light could cost around £200 (~$240 USD), and a more complex piece of furniture in the thousands.

The midnight candle often burns at The Rag and Bone Man workshop, where the edge of the land meets the expanse of the sea. Sometimes it’s because of a workload needs must. “When I have a silly tight deadline and work 18-hour days, I’ll sleep on an old leather Chesterfield,” Paul says. But other times it’s because Lizzie is away. “It feels like home, so I’ll have the boys over and we’ll stay up drinking beer, fixing and modifying our motorbikes.”

“When you love something,” Lizzie adds, taking up the conversational baton, “you immerse yourself in it.”

Their son, Norton, at just five, is immersed in it, too, and is already and instinctually setting a similar course to his parents. “He has an amazing engineer’s mind. Designing and making is how he centers himself, and he becomes very calm,” says Lizzie.

“I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be here, but hopefully my work will be around for hundreds of years,” continues Paul. “What’s really cool is that Norton might nurture and hold on to these skills so that they can remain in our family.”

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Ramón Cubiró’s story begins in the coastal town of Sitges back in 1923, before he was even born. The opening of Autòdrom Terramar, Spain’s first purpose-built motor racing circuit, brought glamor, innovation, theater, and danger to the seaside resort, and also enabled the country’s inaugural Grand Prix.

The steeply banked, 1.24-mile oval was used for speed-record attempts, tests, and races until it closed in 1957. However, almost 100 years later, the spiritual home of motorsport in Spain inspired Ramón, a painter and restorer, to set off on a mission to first restore, then create his own painstakingly miniaturized slot cars. He sought out “unknown models with a beautiful story behind them” from the ’20s and ’30s, a period he regards as the “Golden Age” of motorsport.

“The wonderful Autòdrom Terramar was a crucial find for me,” says Ramón, whose workshop in Barcelona is a 45-minute drive from the historic circuit. “Here begins my hobby and passion for the beginnings of the motor world, [its] personalities, iconic brands, and emblematic circuits.”

To accomplish his first release, a limited edition run of 250 faithfully reproduced 1922 Austro-Daimler Sascha slot cars, Ramón assembled a team of modeling artists who shared his vision for Velasor—the name of his busienss—and were impassioned to accompany him on “this wonderful journey,” no matter how many fiddly hours it involved. Working in their spare time and during the evenings, they took twelve months to complete the project. When photographed up close, the slot cars could momentarily fool the unwary into thinking they were the real deal.

Originally designed by Ferdinand Porsche as the car of his dreams, the Austro-Daimler Sascha was revolutionary for its time. Achieving a top speed of 89 mph, the high-performance four-cylinder vehicle was known for its maneuverability, fuel-efficiency, and detachable fender, which made it lighter for racing.

The 1:32-scale Velasor replica, known as VLM 1 ADR Sascha and released in 2017, weighs in at just 58 grams (more than ten thousand times lighter than the original vehicle) and measures 4.3 inches long by 2.09 inches wide. Four different versions were crafted, each depicting one of the Sachas that were entered into the 1922 Targa Florio road race, the event in which the Sacha scooped first and second places in its engine-size category.

Piloted by miniature figures sculpted to look like the motorsport aces that raced them—Alexander Kolowrat, Lambert Pocher, Fritz Kulm, and Alfred Neubauer—the cars are identified by the suits of a poker deck. “The little Sascha who gave life to Velasor took us to places and to meet personalities directly related to his history, such as the grandson of F. Porsche and Alexander Kolowrat,” explains Ramón. “With each car that we reproduce, we have a special bond and contact with some personality of the time, linked to a family member of the designer, driver or car.”

Meticulously fabricated with a minimum of ten functional and mobile features, Velasor models are a feat of quirky human endeavor. “Perhaps the most intricate part is the process of giving mobility and functionality to all the pieces with special characters that each model has,” says Ramón.

A closer look at the Sacha, which comprises 232 parts, reveals working front suspension springs, wheels that can be removed using a special key, and a toolbox that contains a full set of tools. Beneath the engine cover, which is fastened to the base of the chassis by a belt with four metal buckles, there’s a replica of the ADS-R engine. As fully functional slot cars, those are not only the “how do they do that?” aesthetic details that make Velasor models so distinctive.

“For me it is the charm of knowing that they have life on a track which many collectors like to do. We tune the cars to work and give them free after-sales warranties, with a wide assortment of replacement parts or repairs should they need it.”

The second Velasor release, a replica of the 1914 Peugeot L45 Grand Prix Racer, or VLM 2 Peugeot L45, features movable front and rear shock absorbers, a rotating starter handle, removable front drum brakes, and a tail box with two spare wheels inside.

To give Velasor models maximum credibility, Ramón and his team research and plan each project fastidiously. After all, when the worlds of slot car racing, miniature model making, and historic motorsport are combined, a knowledgeable enthusiast is likely to have particularly exacting standards.

“It’s difficult because I have to choose a model whose history, race, [and] driver, have a special charm. I’m always trying to surprise both the collector and myself,” says Ramón. “Once the model that we will make has been chosen, the process that I like the most arrives, that of collecting all kinds of documentation, contacts, plans (if any), photos, books. All of this is well studied by me and also by the designer, who at the same time begins to make sketches and drawings in 3D. Thus begins the construction of the prototype, through the pieces that are made in resin, until reaching the final modeling process. Once all these pieces are final, production begins.”

Measuring approximately 3.94 inches and weighing just 2.47 ounces, the VLM 3 Bugatti Brescia project is Velasor’s latest and most micro design. Ramón describes them as “little gems.” He adds: “With each model, we try to improve ourselves. For this new reference, we are working with the original plans provided by the Bugatti Trust, which implies a challenge in reproducing it even more faithfully.”

The materials chosen for each model reflect that which was used to build the original, full-size automobile and can include metal, wood, leather, brass, rubber, and resin. We use all kinds of precision tools and small machines such as lathes and milling machines, we are like a small watch shop.”

Since each car is assembled and painted by hand, to overcome fatigue during the process, Velasor modeling artists tackle different stages in turn. “A great deal of concentration is needed, but all the steps are so diverse until a model is made that we alternate between them,” says Ramón. On occasion, parts are manufactured outside the Velasor workshop due to their complexity and finish, but “it is in our workshop that we give life to the more than 250 parts that can make up each car,” Ramón emphasizes.

Fancy downsizing? Each model costs between roughly $560 and $680, inclusive of a wooden display plinth, an owners manual that tells you the history of the vehicle, a certificate of authenticity, and a specification card. It’s possible to buy the full set of each edition, but as collectors items, this depends on availability.

“Feedback is the greatest reward one can have,” says Ramón. “It is incredible how after the work and dedication that one puts into each car, one is rewarded with precious messages, calls, and visits to the workshop. The reaction that most moved me was that of an English collector who conveyed to me exactly what I felt about Velasor with his words. That someone, who did not know me, could see in my work all the effort, passion, and dedication invested and [for him to] admire it in the way that he did [was] very gratifying.”

When deconstructed and decoded by Ramón, the meaning of Velasor is as follows: “Vel” stands for velocidad (velocity), “as” represents aces of the steering wheel, and “or” is borrowed from the end of words including motor, honor, and valor.

When asked to reveal the subject of the next project, Ramón says we’ll have to wait and see.

“There are several models that I would like to make, but only two keep me awake and not because of their beauty, nor because of their prestige as a brand, but more as a challenge as a miniature. Those are top secret.”

***

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The room is bright and warm. Signwriter Terry Smith stands at an easel, his chest rising, pausing, and falling; each brush stroke is a breath held. He appears entranced, locked into an irregular but comfortable rhythm with his paintbrush, its once crimson-lacquered handle worn to bare wood. A prickly whiff of paint thinner hangs in the air.

Working from left to right, Smith supports his painting hand using a mahl stick, which he calls his third arm. Its round, padded head glides across his work surface, collecting chalk dust from the positional renderings he uses as a spacing guide. In signwriting circles, this known as the pounce method, but Smith doesn’t rely on it.

With the brim of his flat cap resting on the frame of his glasses, his eyes are cast in shadow, but I can see them darting, repeatedly, to his right. “I’m projecting the finished letter in my mind’s eye,” explains Smith, who has been signwriting, the traditional way, since the mid-’70s.

“I won’t follow the chalk marks—they show me where I need to start and finish, but it’s up to me and my brush to get it right. If you can’t freehand when painting lettering, you won’t earn a living out of it. It’s a sixth sense that’s difficult to teach.”

Using the inside edge of a paint pot as his palette, Smith manipulates the bristles of his brush with a series of strokes to find its “sweet spot.” All brushes, he says, have a point at which they perform their best because of the way their bristles have been laid and fastened. “When you use them day in, day out, you get to know what they’re capable of.”

From tip to tip, an artist’s paintbrush comprises three main parts; head, ferrule and handle. Each brush’s specific anatomy, such as size and brush shape makes it a character in its own right, says Smith. Once you know how to get that optimum chisel, he says, the brush give you what you want. “By making friends with them you can get the best result from them, but if a brush starts to shed its bristles, it’s had its day.”

Gradually, letters emerge from a mesmerizing sequence of swirls and curls and quick-fast flicks. With a lift and a twist, Smith adds a flourish to the foot of the final letter. He paints those impeccably straight lines with a tremble in his hand. Undetectable to the naked eye, it’s not an ailment but a deliberate and exacting technique that helps persuade paint to part ways with a brush; think of it like a singer’s vibrato.

Had life panned out a little differently, we might not have been on our own in Smith’s studio. Of his two sons, it’s the one who emigrated to Australia that inherited his creative flair. The final project they worked on together was a mural of the Brighton Belle electric train; it remains Smith’s largest single work to date. Spanning over 50 feet, it occupies three panels set into the arches of the forecourt in England’s Brighton Station. The project took five weeks for them to complete. “I miss bouncing ideas off each other,” says Smith, as he sets down his paintbrush. It’s time to take a break.

Over black coffee and chocolate biscuits, Smith pores over photographs of his signwriting accomplishments. They include scenes from Goodwood’s Revival—“I paint the ‘Gentlemen, start your engines’ kind of stuff”—and a restored 911 that was used as a promo car for Private Motor Club magazine. It’s a commission that he’s particularly fond of: “The livery was inspired by a Porsche that raced Le Mans in 1972,” he explains. “When signwriting a car, you have to ignore its curves because you want the artwork to be true to its original design and form; you don’t want to elongate anything whether that be lettering, a logo or an image.”

With steam rising from his cup, Smith recalls a “bitterly cold” assignment that took place in a dusty Dutch barn. On occasion, he admits, his paintbrushes have played second fiddle to his portable convection heater. Cold hands are not conducive to effective signwriting.

As he flips through this deconstructed portfolio of work, Smith explains why he refuses to post on Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat in order to attract new business: “My reputation and word of mouth seem to do the trick and I’ve won more jobs doodling on the back of an envelope than any other way. Over the years I’ve walked into shops, picked the pencil out from behind my ear, roughed something up, and bingo, I’ve got the job.” He has no website or email address to his name: If you want to make inquiries you’ll have to contact Terry Smith Signwriting the old-fashioned way; by picking up the phone.

He eats lunch overlooking fields that fall away into the sea within four miles. Home, for the moment, is a bolt-hole in West Sussex, but fundamentally, it’s wherever Terry parks his VW camper van. Bearing the same sign-written name as his automobilia shop, “Old’s Cool,” the van is the place where he reacquaints with his nomadic self. In 40 years, Smith has relocated 13 times, but his current casa—a converted police traffic control office with a trio of outbuildings that once housed panda cars and are now in service as a signwriting workspace, garage, and store front—is ideal.

It was several studios ago, back in the ’80s, that a salesman first came knocking at Smith’s door with a vinyl cutter. “I said, I’ve got a project for us to do,” recalls Smith, his tone hinting at mischief. The mano a mano that followed, he tells me, was a civilized competition between craftsmanship and computer.

“After he’d set his machine up, we started at the same time and we finished at the same time. I then said, ‘Well, there you go bud, that machine is £10,000 and I’ve got to buy countless rolls of vinyl to feed it. I mix my colors by eye, in a thimble, for what I need to do the job.’” The salesman countered Smith’s appraisal with the argument that vinyl is more efficient because it doesn’t involve drying time. He didn’t convince Smith.

“I instantly decided I wasn’t going to subscribe to it. I wanted to keep going, hoping that there would be a nice little niche for me to inhabit.” He continues with a word of caution: “If you’re even thinking about vinyl, I’m not your man. This is a different thing, this is hand done. I also don’t price it per letter, this is not like putting an ad in the newspaper.”

For centuries, buildings, boats, and all forms of transport have been distinguished by hand-painted signs. Once upon a time, Smith says, “You’d see a signwriter in a high street, they were as common as decorators or plumbers.” He’s a stickler for period correctness. “If an object pre-dates vinyl, then it absolutely shouldn’t wear it. If it’s a vehicle I’m signwriting, I match its vintage to a typeface from that era. The vinyl boys often get it wrong, plumping for something they see on a screen that wasn’t even designed when the object they are working on was built.”

Smith laments the days when a recognized qualification in signwriting could be obtained at the City & Guilds of London Institute: “Now it’s just left to nutters like me to drum it into people.” Back then, he says, a true signwriter could distinguish subtle differences in the handling of lettering that made it identifiable as an individual’s work. “The process of vinyl printing is genius, but to call it signwriting is a travesty. That’s why I call myself a sign painter these days.”

To nurture newcomers to his craft, Smith runs courses and hosts workshops at the Brighton Fishing Museum, West Dean College of Arts and Conservation, and at home. He hopes to discover someone who has got what it takes to inherit his paintbrushes. If you sign up, be prepared to switch off: “I wouldn’t dream of having a mobile phone in my studio—the last thing I want when I’m in the zone is interruption.” Previous experience using small, fine paintbrushes, he says, is desired. Left-handed artists need only apply: “One of the tidiest workers I’ve ever seen was left-handed, she was fantastic.”

Before he lets me try my hand, he shares some basic principles: Typeface is the design of lettering; font refers to how a typeface is displayed, such as size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed). He lifts a practice board off the floor. On it, the alphabet has been painted in Gill Sans, one of Smith’s preferred typefaces. It was designed by the English artist and type designer Eric Gill, and he based it on Edward Johnston’s 1916 “Underground Alphabet”, which is used on London Underground signage. Its clean and rounded proportions, without extending features known as serifs, make it ideal for beginners.

“Any signwriter worth his salt has a repertoire of typefaces in his head that can be done without needing to reference anything, but by anyone’s standards, Gill Sans is straightforward to copy because it requires a minimal amount of brush strokes. With those perfectly round O’s, it screams 1930s—it’s such a lovely type.”

Smith is adept at defusing impatience in a student. “We’ll get on to that in a minute,” he says, knowing full well that without proper practice of the basics, dropped shadows or gold leaf are going to be an uphill struggle. Slowing down and cultivating an intuition for how fonts and effects can be applied to different typefaces is all part of the signwriter’s sixth sense: “You have to know how to play with them.”

I’ve assigned myself the task of painting a slogan on a chest that belonged to my grandfather. It’s going to be a surprise for my dad. We settle on a speedy to accomplish “one stroke” style named Flash before transferring the words using the pounce method. As I grapple with a mahl stick, paintbrush, and pot, Smith says: “My one Achilles’ heel is getting A’s, V’s, and anything with a diagonal line that needs to be symmetrical not to look like a tent that’s falling over. It’s easier when they’re italic.” His favorite letter? An S: “I love the free-falling sweep of its shape.”

Occasional mistakes can be wiped away with a dab of white spirit, but Smith says that imperfections will add personality to the sign written piece. Typically it takes four hours for the enamel paint that I’ve used to dry, but our time together has come to an end.

Before saying goodbye, we pause next to a Fordson van. It’s just a few shades of blue darker than Smith’s denim dungarees and the word “signsmith” is emblazoned on its side. When not parked in the courtyard that separates his living and work spaces, the van earns its keep as a mobile billboard. “It’s my trademark,” explains Smith. “Me and Ford, we’re inextricably linked—my mum and dad were employed by them, it’s how they met.”

As I drive home, away from the mist that’s rolling in from the sea, I think of Smith in his studio, now dark and turning cold, I hope that soon he will be joined by a protégé. Until then, it’s up to him to keep the craft alive.

Terry Smith: 01243 377948. Click here and here for more information about the courses Smith runs.

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This year’s running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was the most exciting in years for a host of reasons. One of them was that for the first time since 1965, the car at the front of the pack on Sunday afternoon was a Ferrari.

Speaking of 1965, that was an incredibly captivating edition of the French endurance classic, too, and the gold-embroidered tricolore French flag used to start it just sold for a head-snapping €396,000 ($425,660). Offered at the RM Sotheby’s auction held on the eve of this year’s Le Mans race, this fringy piece of old cloth is now one of the most expensive pieces of automobilia ever sold. It even sold for more than four actual cars (a 1983 Rondeau, a 2000 Porsche 911 GT3, a 1993 Venturi, and a 2005 Spyker) offered at the same auction, and those were cars that actually raced at Le Mans. You could almost buy a brand-new Ferrari 812 GTS or a pair of Romas for that money.

But history counts for a lot, and ’65 was a wild and important year. Held right in the heat of the Ford v Ferrari era, the 1965 Le Mans race was the first one broadcast live on American television. For the first time since 1957 a non-factory team won the race, and Goodyear rubber took its first major international race victory. A jet turbine-powered car finished in the top 10, and there’s a legend about a “ghost driver” doing a stint in the winning car. A Ferrari won Le Mans for the sixth time in a row (a streak only bested by Porsche, with seven wins from 1981-87), and for the final time until 2023.

For the race, 51 cars lined up to start. Nearly half of them had either Ford or Ferrari power as the two companies were in the midst of their on-track international slugfest. Ferrari brought its latest P2 series of prototypes, while private teams ran older 250 LMs and the new 275 GTBs represented Maranello in the GT class. Ford, meanwhile, was riding high from a win at Daytona and had improved GT40s with both 7.0- and 4.7-liter power, while Cobra Daytona Coupes took the fight to the 275 GTBs.

Le Mans begins not with the traditional green flag used everywhere else but with a gold-embroidered French flag, and typically someone notable dips the tricolore to set the cars off on their 24-hour chase. In 2023, Lebron James started the race for some reason. In 1965, it was the slightly less famous Maurice Herzog, France’s then-Under-Secretary of State for Youth and Sports.

All eyes were set to see whether Ford or Ferrari would win the world’s most important sports car race, but in a way, they both lost. The GT40s got off to a blistering start, but by the third hour things started to go wrong, and by seven hours in all of the GT40s were out of the race. Head gasket problems plagued the Cobra Daytonas, and in the end only one Ford-powered car finished the race, in eighth.

The Ferrari P2s, meanwhile, were running but kept cracking their brake discs and lost tons of time in the pits to fix them. With the factory teams out of the running, it was up to the private racers. The 250LMs of French privateer Pierre Dumay and Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team (NART) were running reliably and comfortably in first and second. Dumay’s car ran on Dunlop tires, with whom Ferrari had an official relationship. Chinetti’s car ran on Goodyears. Despite requests from Enzo to slow down and give Dunlop the win, Chinetti just ordered his drivers—”Kansas City Flash” Masten Gregory and future F1 champion Jochen Rindt—to go faster.

Ironically, the French car blew one of its Dunlop tires on the Mulsanne straight, which gave the NART car a lead it never gave up. Dumay’s 250LM finished second, and a 275 GTB finished third. Porsche 904s, other Ferrari prototypes, a Cobra, an Iso Grifo and the Rover-BRM turbine car rounded out the top 10. There were just 14 finishers. Legend has it that at some point Masten Gregory’s trademark glasses fogged up enough that he couldn’t drive and that Rindt was nowhere to be found, so backup driver Ed Hugus stepped up to drive the car for a stint, but this has never been proven.

According to RM Sotheby’s, the starter flag was given to Jacques Maury, the mayor of Le Mans, after the race and stayed with his family until going to a collector about 10 years ago.

Just as the flag started an exciting race, it was also the first lot of an exciting auction that saw €20M in total sales and seven Le Mans veteran race cars sell for over €1M each. Bidding on the flag was slow but steady, going in €5K increments between someone in the room and someone on the phone, both Ferrari fans, surely. It took 14 minutes of back and forth before the underbidder finally bowed out. That the new Ferrari 499P won this past Sunday seemed like some poetic justice for that crazy price.

We’ve been picking a Sale of the Week each and every week for over two years now. Naturally, we’re looking for cars, or maybe the occasional truck, and one time we picked a motorcycle. Meanwhile, automobilia, garage art, or whatever you choose to call these accessories is not in our price guide and it doesn’t often make headlines. But it is a huge ancillary piece of the collector car hobby, and results like this remind us to pay attention. $460,000 neon dealership signs, $210K slot-car tracks, and now $425K French flags are all out there, and people pursue them with the same passion as their cars.

By the way, if you think $425K for a flag is wild, the most expensive flag ever sold at auction is a Revolutionary War era American flag that sold for $12.3M back in 2006.

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The beauty of Hot Wheels, like many of the toys we treasure, is the way they inspire kids to use their imaginations. Turns out, Hot Wheels does the same for big kids, too. 

Mattel’s iconic die-cast vehicles have been inspiring car lovers of all ages since 1968, and now some of those kids are turning their actual cars into life-size Hot Wheels on NBC’s new hour-long show Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge, which debuted on May 30. 

Like the iconic toy cars that we grew up loving, the competition is good, clean, family fun. And although it airs at a time—Tuesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern—that’s not exactly family friendly, each episode can be streamed on Peacock the following day.

Hosted by aw-shucks nice guy Rutledge Wood, Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge features two “superfans” who are tasked with turning their dream designs into reality. Each contestant has a touching story to tell about a car that changed their lives, and an identical model serves as the basis for their build.

“Buckle up for the ride of your life,” Wood says in the intro, “where car-loving Hot Wheels fans get the chance of a lifetime … transforming nostalgic cars from their past into life-size Hot Wheels of their dreams.”

The winner of each round gets $25,000 and a spot in the finals. The overall champion (of 16 contestants) gets an additional $50,000, plus the honor of having their custom creation made into a Hot Wheels car that will be sold to the public. 

Wood, who auto enthusiasts may know from the American version of Top Gear, is joined by fellow judges Dalal Elsheikh, a Hot Wheels ambassador and designer for Ford Motor Company, and car culture influencer Hertrech “Hert” Eugene Jr. Each week also introduces a new celebrity judge, who in the premiere episode is Terry Crews, host of America’s Got Talent.

The first two superfans to square off are 24-year-old Jadejha Edwards, of Houston, and 58-year-old “Jerzey” Jim Farrell, of Forked River, New Jersey.

Jadejha chooses a 2009 Chevrolet Camaro to match the car her aunt drove when Jadejha went to live with her as a teenager. Now a cybersecurity engineer, Jadejha says her aunt offered her constant encouragement and a safe place to live and dream. “Who I am today,” she says, “started right there in that car.”

Jim, a custom van outfitter, selects a 1969 Dodge Charger like the one that he and his father restored together—and painted bright yellow—decades ago. This one wears black matte paint, just as his previous Charger did prior to its final paint job. “Seeing that car again feels like I’m 18 years old, man,” Jim says.

Given one week to design and build their cars, each contestant receives help from three experts from the “Car Pool,” who are charged with making their dreams a reality. It all begins in the “Chrome Zone,” where hundreds of actual Hot Wheels serve as inspiration. Once the build begins, there are plenty of hurdles to clear along the way. That includes a curveball thrown by the Hot Wheels crew more than halfway through the build: the Inspirationator 5000, the huge centerpiece of the set, selects an actual Hot Wheels car, and the fabricators are required to incorporate one of its design elements into their own cars.

Jadejha wants the Camaro to be green and have a low, wide, futuristic look that reflects her job in cybersecurity—and the sense of indestructability she felt whenever she rode in her aunt’s car. Jim requires two things: the Charger must be yellow, like his first car, and pop a wheelie. That last criterion prompts him to pull the engine from the front and put it in back; he also wants the engine to be a Hemi V-8.

Although we know that each team has seven days to complete the work, the editors of the show manage to manufacture some drama by making it look like the cars are completed just in time. Regardless, both are gorgeous successes and receive plenty of praise from the judges. Jim’s Charger can indeed pop a wheelie (thanks to hydraulics), and that’s enough to steal the show and take the win.

The real winners, however, are those of us who remember the first time we imagined driving one of those spectacular little cars on the track, the street, or some remote two-track. Yes, the show’s jokes are a little lame, and we want to know more about the specifics of each build, but the kids are going to love it all. Even some of us kids who remember playing with their first Hot Wheels cars 55 years ago.

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We’ve just fallen down a Slot Mods rabbit hole. In case you didn’t know, the Michigan-based company creates bespoke, handcrafted 1:32-scale slot car tracks for the rich and famous.

For a hefty price, Slot Mods will create your dream track or replicate a real-world track, complete with aluminum Armco crash barriers and little details from a moment in time or a notable event.

A “Custom Scenic Megatrack” will set you back at least $75,000, although a more “affordable” “Standard Scenic Raceway” is available for $50,000. In both cases, you’re looking at a long wait before you can get your slot on.

Which is where the Slot Mods Porsche 917 Le Mans Slot Car Raceway came in. It was advertised for sale via auction on Bring A Trailer, but bidding finally closed at a whopping $210,000, including fees.

The track is built in the style of the 24 Hours of Le Mans course as it appeared in the 1971 movie Le Mans and is housed in a replica Porsche 917 body.

Remember that Scalextric set you yearned to find under the Christmas tree as a child? This is that with the coolness level cranked up to eleven.

Cool enough to tempt the Scalextric social media team into tweeting about it.

Yes, we know it’s not a Scalextric track, but how could we not share this incredible slot car track hidden within a Porsche 917 body shell

Created by the magicians over at Slot Mods, this beauty is currently for sale over at https://t.co/E8uig8TsHI pic.twitter.com/tWoKXz6Nh1

— Scalextric (@Scalextric) April 2, 2023

The 917’s body features a clamshell design that opens via remote control to reveal a 13 feet long by 6 feet wide layout with hand-painted track surfaces, structures, signs, landscaping and spectators. Note the Dunlop bridge, Esso “Mr Drip” and Martini barn.

The set, which has been owned by the vendor for a decade, also features trackside lighting, grandstands, hay bales, trees, shrubbery and 19 slot cars.

Highlights include a Ford GT40 modified as a camera car, Ferrari 512S Coda Lunga, Lola T70, and a Porsche 917 in Martini livery. Naturally, the 917 driven by Steve McQueen in the 1971 film is also present and correct.

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After 14 years in Formula 1, 10 years as a chief mechanic, 167 consecutive Grand Prix races and 668 pit stops, Alastair Gibson typed out his resignation. Disenchanted with a day job that’s one of the most pressurized but well paid and sought-after in motorsport, he hit send on the email without hesitation. Officially terminating his own employment to become an artist was one of the most “pleasing” moments of his F1 career, “because I did it on my terms.” It was time to sink or swim.

“I was tired,” explains Gibson, as he stares into the aluminum eyes of a 1.2-meter long Mako shark. Manufactured out of a pair fuel tank flap valve plugs, they are painted as black as the ocean’s abyss. “The passion was gone, I switched off to it completely, and if you haven’t got the passion you can’t do that job.” The race-to-race existence, which included stints with the Benetton and BAR Honda GP teams, combined with jet lag, politics and personal battles for supremacy (within and between race teams) had taken its toll.

“It was a real emotional drain spending all my effort and time making a beautiful race car that sometimes only lasted 5 laps before it got smashed off the track. I’d think it was such a waste of energy and enthusiasm,” says Gibson, a Sixties child born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Leaving his hometown to pursue his dream of becoming a GP mechanic during the apartheid policy era had been difficult. “Having that passport wasn’t great,” but a humble attitude and a lot of graft got him “to where I was,” and by the late-Noughties that wasn’t a good place. “I’d go to the check-in counter at an airport and not know where I was going. I’d be disoriented when the hotel alarm clock went off in the morning and then I’d go to the race track, stand in the garage and for a split second, and think: Where am I?”

Fortunately, Gibson could see a life beyond rebuilding race cars; he wanted to sculpt sea creatures—from sharks to sturgeons—using carbon fiber and salvaged parts. “My father thought I’d lost my marbles,” he says. “My whole life had been motor racing, preparing a vehicle to do a certain job, to win, to be safe, and to achieve what those people above you wanted to achieve, but dumping that responsibility was like a breath of fresh air.”

A decade and a half later, with a studio in Northamptonshire that employs six (known as Carbon Art 45) and with pieces sold to F1 glitterati including Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, evidence suggests Gibson’s risk is reaping its rewards. The business often attracts clients that have such a high-profile that non-disclosure agreements need to be signed. “I was naive to what it would take to make a success of it, I put all my money that I saved into it and sold a couple of cars. I’ve worked harder than I worked in Formula 1,” says Gibson. In the early days, the funds he raised building, designing and restoring motorbikes, including two Brough Superior land speed motorcycles for Jay Leno, helped keep his creative start-up afloat.

At the shallow end of the Carbon Art collection, a shark keyring or mackerel magnet, from £95 ($114), is an affordable way for a petrolhead to dip their toe, but venture deeper, and you can “get a bit groovy” for £585 ($704) with a red bellied baby piranha. Dressed in iconic seventies GP racing livery and suspended mid-air on a semi-flexible stainless steel stand, they make dinky but eye-catching decor, but so too does the 100g floating shark paperweight. The £185 ($221) piece has a base is made from a gear used by Sergio Perez during the 2016 season.

Each sculpture, which take months to develop, is available in three sizes (the biggest measures in at 3.5 meters) and all of them are produced to a limited run. Designs can also be given bespoke treatment but taking the plunge and investing in a larger, personalised, piece of work, will come with a five figure asking price. “The weird thing about it is if petrolheads have £15,000 to spare they’d rather buy another car or another engine for their car, so it tends to be art lovers that buy my pieces,” says Gibson. “If you buy a sculpture it’s got a lifetime guarantee. I’d hate to think one of my best pieces was in a loft because it’s got a piece of it broken off—bring it back and I’ll fix it.”

Nature and engineering, explains Gibson, are inextricably linked, and biomimicry, when a man-made product imitates nature to solve a design challenge, is a practice that’s widespread in automotive. Cooling vents that mimic fish gills to enable an engine to breathe is one such example, and when choosing the base material for his sculptures Gibson applied the same methodology. “My take on it is if god were designing them and he had free reign on materials he would have used carbon fiber because it’s light, it’s strong, it doesn’t rust, and it wouldn’t sink to the bottom of the salty ocean.” It also looks extraordinary when the light catches it.

“Carbon fiber in the sunshine is a religious experience, it’s beautiful, it’s mind-blowing,” he says, succumbing to a moment of near rhapsody. Baring three layers of titanium teeth, a two-tone tinted blue and charcoal grey mako shark has caught his eye. Shimmering in the daylight and coated in a UV protective lacquer to prevent fading, the finish is an intentional nod to a shark’s natural colouring. “When you’re swimming underneath a shark and look up, it’s grey, but looking down on a shark, it’s blue.”

There are two distinctive sides to Carbon Art 45. Upstairs, which is a production line of finishing touches, and downstairs which is a powerhouse of hardware including a milling machine and lathe. There’s also  “Margarita’s Dirty Room” with an extraction table where carbon-fiber pieces are prepared using a blaster, grinding wheels and a sander for the more delicate elements.

It’s at Gibson’s workstation where sculptures start their life as wood carvings with a center line that allows him to choose its “best” side. This half is 3D scanned and mirrored to create a perfectly symmetrical digital (CAD) version which forms the template for moulds and patterns. To decide which part of a GP car to incorporate into each piece, Gibson raids his cave of reclaimed components that are sourced from teams including Red Bull, Williams, and Aston Martin. “I’ve got another unit that’s just absolutely full of stuff,” he reveals. “The problem is I’ll spend a whole day there because I’ll look for one thing, find another, and another.”

Taking a flat sheet of carbon fiber, which looks and feels like a fragile sheet of nori (the dried seaweed that’s used to make sushi) but is actually five times stronger than steel, he manipulates it into the curve of a mould. Warm hands are a vital tool. “It’s a case of rubbing it to fit but you don’t want to stretch it too much because then it would look like a pair of laddered stockings.” Multiple layers are placed on top of each other, a process known as laminating, which enhances the structural integrity of each piece. “I learnt how to use carbon fibre in Formula One because we made a lot of our pit equipment out of it; water towers, car stands, that sort of thing. It was great because if you made a mistake, you chucked it in the bin, but it’s £40 ($48) a meter and we probably spend about £50,000 (60,220) on it a year, so I don’t do that now!”

Impregnated with a resin that cures at room temperature, the carbon fiber has to be stored in a freezer at -20°C to prevent it from going hard prematurely. When it’s ready to be cooked it goes into an autoclave that increases in temperature at a rate of one degree per minute, up to 120°C, then reduces it back down again just as gradually to prevent stress. To guarantee each sculpture receives a top-notch paint job, Gibson ships them to the Mercedes Grand Prix team paint shop, which conveniently, is next door. “A lot of the really cool paint jobs we’ve done in the past are thanks to them being able to experiment.”

If it hadn’t been for his late father, who imported vehicles into South Africa for Porsche Motorsport, “I would probably have been a marine biologist,” says Alastair, whose obsessions with automotive as well as what lives beneath the waves can be traced back to when he was a boy. During the South African motorsport season Alastair would help his dad prepare and test cars for events such as the Springbok Championship Series and spent time in the company of “big characters” such as Peter Sutcliffe.

“I’d come home from school and there would be beautiful 904 and 906 Carreras in the garage. We’d take them out to this open road and I was blown away by the technology.” Off-season Gibson and his parents vacationed in a holiday cottage, “Fisherman’s Rest,” on the coast. “My dad and I weren’t fishermen but we loved going down to the beach to see what local fishermen had brought up from the surf. Invariably they caught sharks, but this was the mid-’70s and no one gave a s**t about the planet, so they used to drag them onto the beach and leave them to die. They were seen as vermin in the ocean. I used to grab their dorsal fin, put them in the shallows and walk them round for a bit – some of them fired up again!”

Today, Gibson is a proud patron for the Shark Trust and finds himself humbled by the aspirant artists that come to Carbon Art 45 for work experience. “The world is a difficult place so it’s amazing when someone finds their thing,” concludes Gibson, who was brave enough to swim free from the F1 fishbowl to find his happiness.

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It’s hardly a scientific assessment, but the most successful Lego sets are those based on boxy vehicles with straight lines and angular edges. The Land Rover Defender, Caterham Seven, and Mercedes-Benz Unimog provide the evidence to support our case.

Which might explain why the Lego Audi 90 Quattro IMSA GTO has caught our eye. It’s as though its oh-so-1980s shoulder pads-style arches were built with plastic bricks in mind. Its sharp-cornered body is almost a visual metaphor for the way the 710-hp monster treated bends. Why slow down when you have this much grip at your disposal?

For a brief and exhilarating period, the Audi 90 Quattro dominated America’s IMSA GT Championship, winning seven races to finish second in class in 1989. Audi would almost certainly have won the constructors’ championship had it not elected to miss the opening races at Daytona and Sebring.

Audi moved to the IMSA series after the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) banned the use of all-wheel-drive in the Trans-Am series. The Audi 200 Quattros driven by Hurley Haywood, Walter Röhrl, and Hans-Joachim Stuck dominated Trans-Am in 1988, winning eight of the 13 races.

“We were so good with our traction, they banned us from Trans-Am. So the next step was IMSA,” Stuck told Road & Track.

The race car shared little with the production Audi 90—only the wheelbase and roof remained. The rest of the car boasted tubular spaceframe construction, a first for the company. With a massive KKK turbocharger fitted to its 2.2-liter five-cylinder engine, the 90 Quattro GTO could hit 62 mph in 2.7 seconds before going on to reach a top speed of 195 mph.

Stuck, who won four consecutive IMSA GT races in 1989, said: “This was one of my favorite cars … The weight and power ratio and all-wheel drive system. The sound. We had this pressure valve before the turbocharger, which gives the pssch-chirp-chirp! And then the ability to do with this car what you wanted… It was like being in heaven.”

Audi pulled out of IMSA after the 1989 season, moving to DTM to race the V-8 Quattro, so we’ll have to assume that the 90 would have dominated the 1990 series. A case of what might have been.

This isn’t an official Lego set. MOC stands for ‘My Own Creation’ and it enables you to create a Lego kit on commission from unused Lego parts. The 90 is the work of US creator JMPmodels, who says it’s “the most realistic and accurate version you’ll find and is mainly aimed at experienced builders”.

The 358-piece kit costs around £100 ($121) after you’ve bought the PDF instructions. Details include the five-cylinder engine, exhaust, dashboard, and seat for one Lego minifigure. Just add ‘pssch-chirp-chirp’ soundtrack and flames from the exhaust.

As for the next MOC, does anyone fancy coming up with a design for the Ineos Grenadier?

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Tread quietly up the creaky staircase and don’t stop until you reach the roof. Where the steps run out you’ll find a workshop, tucked beneath the rafters, where classic cars made of precious metal are sculpted in miniature, often wearable, form. The space, compact and functional, belongs to goldsmith Wendy Roelofs, but its precise location will remain one of Amsterdam’s best kept secrets due to the precious nature of her work. Blow gently on any surface and the dust that’s formed out of silver shavings will swirl prettily into the air.

Lucky to be one of the trusted few invited to visit the canal house in which Wendy’s studio is hidden, it feels as though I have tiptoed into an alchemist’s laboratory.

Among the instruments laid out on her multi-level, antique work bench (some of which belonged to its former owner, a fellow jeweler), there are tiny screws, pins, and parts, as well as hammers, pliers, files, and saws. There’s also a loupe attached to a pair of protective glasses, the key magnification aid that allows her to see millimeter-minute details such as steering wheels, grilles, and headlights more closely. The contents of a glass jar in plain sight catch my magpie eye: fragments of old bullion awaiting their transformation into something new, evidence of her pledge to make only in recycled metal.

She is quick to quell a fanciful rumor about metalworkers that emerged in the Middle Ages. “In the old days jewelers, who sell the jewelry, and goldsmiths, who make the jewelry, were revered because of the myth that we were able to turn lead into gold, but unfortunately for me, that is not the case,” she says, mid-flow, in what appears to be an act of sorcery.

“Yes, the silver has gone cherry red,” Wendy confirms, as she prepares to combine the 1:160 scale chassis of a Morris Minor to a mechanism which will turn it into one half of a pair of cufflinks.

By annealing the silver (heating it in the flame of a gas-fueled soldering torch until it takes on a pinkish hue) she makes it “more workable,” explains Wendy, who uses chemical agent, or “borax,” known as a flux in metallurgy, to aid this part of the process. Once rosy, the silver parts are relaxed enough to be fused together using molten silver solder. It’s fascinating to watch. Before a final buff and polish, the piece is plopped in a specially formulated pot of pickle that will rinse off excess flux, oxidation and firescale. I’m enthralled.

At 13, Wendy knew goldsmithing was what she wanted to do. “I’d read a Dutch romance novel about a young girl who took over her father’s jewelry business when he died,” she recalls. “Of course, it was full of struggle and hardship, and of course a man came along to save her, but the thing that struck me was her knowledge. The one thing people can’t steal from me is what’s inside my head.”

Specializing in the appraisal of antique jewelry, Wendy’s career brought her to Amsterdam more than two decades ago. Disenchanted by the lack of freedom and creativity allowed when working for a large auction house, she went freelance in 2016 and discovered her niche in crafting classic car trinkets.

Her first piece, a “tiny, very simple necklace” she made as a tribute to her Citroën 2CV “Guv,” represented a culmination of all the things she loves.

“I always said I’m married to my car,” laughs Wendy, pausing her inspection of a Lilliputian-sized Citroën DS, to allow me a closer look at the 8mm gold ring on her finger. Engraved with the Guv’s tire tread, the idea for the design, which has become one of the most coveted in her collection, was born when a friend going through a divorce asked her to repurpose his wedding band.

“Jewelry is an emotional thing—you feel it, you are drawn to it, and I always think ‘wow’ when someone wants to wear my work.” The rings, which bear the distinctive pattern Michelin used for all Citroën Type A tires, are “hefty” by nature and built to last. “I work on my own car and I want to dive into the engine bay wearing things that can handle that,” she says, going against the mechanic’s rule of thumb that says to remove trinkets when tinkering with cars.

Wendy runs an online store to sell her pieces, which range from 1:87 or 1:43 toy-size scale models of the Renault 5 Turbo, Jaguar E-Type, and Porsche 356 (many of which have moving parts and some of which can be fully deconstructed “like a sort of puzzle”) to dinkier, vintage vehicle–inspired tie pins, espresso spoons, pendants, bracelet charms, and earrings. However, it’s when she takes her business, Truly Precious Vehicle Jewellery, on the road to car shows that she gets a true sense of how her pieces cast a spell on kindred vintage-car lovers.

“I pack my whole shop into a small trailer, attach it to the 2CV, and off I go,” she says. “The anticipation if I will sell or not is hard, but the people are so lovely, even if they just come to see me for a chat.”

With such a varied collection of pieces—“I probably give people too much choice,” she confesses—the processes employed to craft them are diverse. The little cars, for example, “that have taken over my life,” are made using an ancient technique called lost-wax casting, and start their life as 3D-printed models that Wendy sources online. She then uses them to form wax replicas (an incredibly fiddly process that requires patience, a steady hand, and a heat probe) that are cast in gypsum and filled with molten metal.

By nature, this traditional method doesn’t always deliver perfect results, which Wendy reveals by showing me a tiny Topolino that came out with only half a roofline and holes in its doors.

“The caster I use has the expertise but can’t control the process, it’s just how the metal behaves, and I’m OK with that because I can fill it all in with silver solder,” reassures Wendy.

“The trickiest job is always the job that’s on the bench right now,” she says, refocusing her attention on the dinky DS, a bespoke commission. “This has lots of opening parts, including the hood and the rear, and you see the steering wheel is not yet in the right position, it’s moving—but I’ll get there, I break through my own boundaries constantly.”

Is her range guided by what other people want? “No, it’s driven by what I want. It started with Citroëns, including the odd types like the Dyane and Acadiane, but I appreciate all old cars. I prefer classics to moderns, and I’ll not make it if someone asks me for something like a 2020 Mercedes SLK.”

Whatever your automotive persuasion, with so much skill and attention to detail involved in their manufacture, it’s impossible not to delight at the sight of a slender bookmark that’s topped with a silver 1:220 scale 2CV measuring less than a centimeter, or its 1:43 scale, 8.6-cm-long, deconstructible sibling that has been oxidized to emphasize the shape of its lines. These are keep-forever items.

Wendy has taken a particular shine to working with second-hand antique silver, “a reflective material that takes on the color of the environment it’s in,” but her favored material also represents a conscious choice, one that means her pieces are available to “people that love their classic car, or any classic car” at a more affordable price. A pair of stud earrings start at £25.00, key rings from £14, and miniature cars from around £60. Working the same designs in gold or platinum could multiply their value by tenfold, and less precious metals are less malleable.

“I’m not about making money,” explains Wendy, who draws her main income from appraising antique jewelry. “I have a job to pay the bills and provide me with security, but anything that’s left over I pour straight into this. In each piece I am putting a part of myself out there and I found it very hard to put a price on that. Perhaps I should charge more, but I want people to buy my cars, I want to see that joy.”

Hand-finished and hallmarked with her initials, EWR, with the addition of a single chevron beneath the W as a nod to Citroën, the appeal of Wendy’s precious metal creations also lies in their sustainable credentials. From base material to the packaging they are presented and shipped in, they are as kind to the environment as is possible.

“Almost everything you see here is recycled,” she says, gesturing towards reclaimed timber shelving and the containers filled with old precious metal upon them. “It’s important to me. I’m a big advocate of vintage and working with vintage, and it’s why I feel strongly about driving an old car. They’re not bad; let’s reuse more things please! We are keepers of it all for the next generation.”

Frustratingly for Amsterdammers who wish to acquire a parking permit for a newly purchased old-timer vehicle, their time has run out. “They’re not banned from the streets,” Wendy says, “but [the government] is phasing them out.”

Keeping to normal working hours at her one-meter-by-one-meter workbench in the loft is not an aspiration for Wendy. “I get my best work done at night. As soon as I’m in the flow I tend to keep going, sometimes until two or three in the morning.” Outside, the day is beginning to fade, and I suspect that once I’m gone Wendy will work by lamp light as moonlight pours in through the sky light above.

With a leather apron tied around her waist for protection should anything hot or harmful fall into her lap, she sets about warming the body of a 1:220 scale Land Rover which is held in position by her “third hand,” a manuverable pair of tweezers on a weighted base. “I can carelessly heat up the whole car to attach the eyelet when it’s made of silver, but if it were gold I’d have to be very careful and more precise because the switchover point of the metal is much quicker, and platinum is even trickier to work with.”

Theoretically, it’s this necessity for precision that qualifies trained jewelers to take on a more lucrative side hustle in dental work. The tools, Wendy tells me, are similar too, but the temptation hasn’t gotten the better of her. It’s here, in this humble attic, that she finds true happiness combining her practice and her passion by crafting tiny automotive treasures.

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Does the eight-figure price of an early series Ferrari 250 GTO have you feeling a bit down? Join the club. For all but a select few, these are unobtanium machines. Period.

But that doesn’t mean the magic of such a gorgeous shape can’t be enjoyed on a smaller scale. The world of scale remote control (RC) has long been an avenue to simulacrums of the automotive hobby’s most alluring silhouettes, and this YouTube video showing a scale recreation of arguably Ferrari’s most iconic car is a perfect example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blnZJRbNWrM&ab_channel=%E5%A4%A9%E8%B5%8B%E4%B8%8E%E8%89%BA%E6%9C%AFTalent%26Art

The craftsmanship is the work of someone known as Liumutou, who originally posted the video to a Chinese website called Bilibili. (The video appears to have been taken down now.) Armed with a spot welder, he mocks up a tube spaceframe in the shape of the swooping Italian stallion around a scale RC chassis.

From our mildly trained eye, it looks like a 1:8 or 1:10 scale chassis with an electric motor up front that drives the rear wheels, working suspension, and functioning steering controls. Not content to leave an exterior detail out, Liumutou even fabricates a quad-tip exhaust—with working smoke effects!

He then takes it to a whole other level by hand-forming the aluminum sheet metal bodywork, painstakingly forming each gorgeous curvature with a small hammer and dolly—the same method used in the early sixties on real 250 GTOs. We won’t exhaust you with every detail here in the text, but man alive the way that hood bulge comes together is satisfying to watch.

For the tighter bends and creases, he snips tabs into the aluminum that can be folded into more compact curvatures. The finned shapes are then spot-welded into place, and a generous helping of soldering material is used to fill in the rest of the weld lines. After a hefty amount of file work and some body filler, the surface is ready for paint.

The finishing touches truly feel like a mic-drop in the detail department: a gas cap that opens and closes, tiny door handles, little leather straps to fasten the hood down, and working headlights and taillights. (Again, the delight for RC folks tends to lie in the exacting level of detail—doubly so if you can make a piece function, like those blinking turn signals.)

While most scale RCs these days use polystyrene and plastic for their bodies, there are still a select few that opt to craft their bodies out of sheet metal. Having seen a few of these up close, I can say with confidence that a metal-bodied RC just—as the youths are wont to say—hits different. If you’re in need of a mental break from this weird ‘tweener week between the holidays, sitting back and watching this stunning machine come to life might be just what the doctor ordered.

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Even the most expensive road safety features are worthwhile. They are only paid for with money.

The words in the E21-generation BMW 3 Series brochure are underlined. It’s not so much subtext as spelled out in enormous neon script.

Later, more underlined text. “The striving for perfection in a motor car is not necessarily cheap, but it is worthwhile.”

They are two of my favorite lines in a car brochure. BMW is making abundantly clear that you might be paying through the nose for your small, kidney-grilled saloon, but you’re damn well getting a better car because of it.

The sentiment is echoed in BMW’s E12 5 Series brochure from around the same time, while Mercedes-Benz, in its 1986 literature for the handsome W201 190D, has a similar message. “Top-quality performance does not, of course, come cheap,” it says. “But with the 190 diesel models you can count on the best possible return on your investment.”

This assurance to the prospective customer that a car was demonstrably better than its competition used to be a central tenet of car brochures.

Flip open most Citroën leaflets from the 1950s through to the 1990s, and you’d see several paragraphs on how the company’s hydropneumatic suspension was unrivaled for its bump absorption. Saab would tell you how its cars were safe not just for their crash performance, but because every control was designed to be easy to operate, and its refinement made long-distance driving easier. And the Germans would assure you that your considerable outlay was well-spent on considerable engineering.

It’s a brand of self-assurance and assumed customer education nearly absent from modern brochures—if you can find them at all. Not only have physical brochures nearly disappeared from car dealerships—removing that kids’ right of passage, scooping up a dozen brochures while your parents do the boring car-buying bit, apart from anything else—but increasingly few manufacturers even offer a downloadable PDF, and those that do make you input your name, address, and your first pet, ready to hold onto your personal details for as long as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation regulations allow.

Journalistic colleagues have been complaining about the latter for a while now, since a good brochure and price list was one of the last bastions of reliable, easily digestible technical information on a car, a useful resource for factual reporting. Whether you wanted to see how much a carmaker charged for heated seats, or wanted to double-check the cubic capacity of a particular model’s engine, the brochure was a one-stop shop that allowed for quick and easy comparison across, say, a model range or with a competitor car.

Today, most of that information is locked away in online configurators, or behind unnecessarily complex and flashy websites, in an ironic but equally annoying parallel with the visually jarring touchscreens that most manufacturers now push on customers.

That’s the other problem. When you do find a brochure today, the information contained within is barely worth absorbing. Page after page on how an infotainment system will apparently make your life better, a few more pages of a well-dressed but bored-looking thirty-something staring out of a café window waiting for electricity to trickle into their EV of choice, and then a few more pages still on colour and trim which, this being 2022, usually offer a choice of eight shades of silver for the body, and six shades of off-white for the cabin.

What you do not get, which older brochures show in abundance, is people who actually look like their lives are being enriched by the car in question. It’s all very clearly staged and always has been, but I’d much rather see people dragging climbing gear out of a brightly coloured station wagon, or frolicking on the beach beside a convertible, or dropping expensive-looking shopping into the boot of a sleek Italian coupé. Such images sell a dream, not simply a product.

People have complained forever that all cars look the same but they’ve always been talking out of their bottoms. There might, however, be a kernel of truth in the idea that we’re approaching a kind of automotive singularity, where you can expect more or less the same experience from almost any car, and perhaps that leaves little room for creativity or differentiation in a brochure.

A brochure used to highlight how a particular engine or significant increase in refinement, safety, or handling prowess would be a genuine improvement on its predecessor or the competition. But we’ve had diminishing returns with refinement, reliability, or the fundamentals of handling for a while now, and the gap between attributes that used to be unique to certain marques has shrunk too.

Your Citroën probably rides little better than your neighbor’s Kia, for instance, so that’s two pages of brochure copy you aren’t going to read. A BMW 1 Series is no less affordable, thanks to PCP financing deals, and objectively little better, thanks to the march of progress, than a Vauxhall Astra. The days of “we’re expensive but we’re better” are long gone.

And why put your car in a quirky scenario to show off what you could do with it, when almost every car is some kind of compact crossover and yours will offer no more or less “lifestyle” than anyone else’s? The battleground is now how much driving you don’t need to do, and how many screens you can gawp at while you’re not doing it.

Thankfully, the likes of eBay, and enormously popular shows like the Beaulieu Autojumble—at which I picked up another 20-odd brochures recently—have made it very easy to find these glorious tomes from the past, even if their newer counterparts have fallen by the wayside. Online prices can feel a bit rich but do make them easy to find, while at the Autojumble some acquisitions cost me as little as 50p (~$1.1), so it doesn’t have to be an expensive hobby.

We’d love to see truly creative and compelling brochures make a comeback, and inspire and inform future enthusiasts and collectors in the same way they have for decades. The sad reality is there’d be little worth reading in them if they did—but at least we’ve got those old brochures as the perfect accompaniment for the cars they helped sell in their day.

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Whether it’s road-trip nostalgia or memories from a special era, car, or motorsports series, automotive memorabilia has long helped accentuate the cars that drive our hobby. You might have a bookshelf full of first editions, 1:43-scale models, or signs perched on your wall; chances are if you like cars, you’ve got a thing or two to remind you about them while you’re not behind the wheel.

Recent auctions have shown that even toys can reach full-size pricing. In September, a Mecum auction of over 600 pedal cars saw 21 of these mini-mobiles sell for over $10,000, including a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner Superbird that sold for $59,000. Signage is another popular bit of memorabilia reaching new heights: In August, a four-foot advertising sign from a short-lived gas company “Musgo Gasoline” sold for $1.5 million (the previous world record for an antique advertising sign was $400,000). That said, automobilia has something for every enthusiast at almost any price point.

If you are interested in getting into the memorabilia game or add to your collection, there are several auctions this fall for you to check out. The upcoming “Passion for the Drive: The Cars of Jim Taylor” by Broad Arrow Auctions presents a wide array of cars, but also includes 499 no-reserve lots of automotive memorabilia up for auction October 14–15. RM Sotheby’s 16th Annual Hershey sale October 5–6 will have 85 lots of memorabilia, Bonhams Audrain Concours Auction September 30 includes 23 lots with 11 more October 9th at the Zoute Sale, and Barrett-Jackson is offering over 60 items in Houston from October 20–22. Christie’s also has some James Bond automobilia at its Sixty Years of James Bond charity sale.

We sifted through a wealth of curiosities at the upcoming sales and highlighted just a small swath of what you’ll find this fall.

Chevy truck jukebox

This Carson City CD jukebox made in the 1990s is modeled off a 1947–55 Chevy truck. It holds 100 CDs and has speakers built into the front and back so the truck can sit in the middle of a room. The lights work and flash when the music is playing, and the airhorns on top are actually tweeters. I don’t know any smart speakers that look this good.

Two 6-foot-long halves of Ford GT design models

This is actually two separate auctions, each for a side of a Ford GT model car. The models are almost 6 feet long, but only 16 inches wide. Both liveries would look amazing hanging on a wall. With the value of 2005–06 Ford GTs nearing half a million, this can be a considerably more affordable way to get a portion of one in your garage.

Original bottle of Ford tomato juice

Looking for a gift for a Ford fan that has everything? This is the listing for you. As a farmer himself, and with hundreds of acres around the Dearborn, Michigan plant, it’s not a surprise Henry Ford made use of the land. Stories suggest he let his employees and charities use the land to grew their own produce for free. Ford made a cannery out of a school house on the property in 1938 and, for three short weeks, Ford bottled its own tomato juice. Who knew?

Neon signs

Neon signs go hand in hand with 20th-century car culture. Even if they’re not car-specific, these signs put you back in the driver’s seat as you pass through small-town America. Broad Arrow’s event in October will include 30 different neon signs, including those of traditional beer brands and some gas station displays, but here are a couple that stood out: a 12-foot, porcelain neon Buick sign and a 14-foot, porcelain Pontiac sign. Although not exactly automotive-related, how great would a Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer or Tap Room (double-sided) sign look in a garage? For those who like both types of music, country and western, check out this “Honky Tonk sign.

Ford Mustang 5-cent kiddie ride

A one-off build for a Ford dealership, this five-foot tall ride plays “Mustang Sally” as you (or your kids) pretend to be a cowboy. It’s surprising Ford didn’t make more of these to entertain kids at dealerships while parents filled out the paperwork on a new car. Winning this auction could be a money maker, though at a mere 5 cents per ride, you might wait a while to recoup your investment.

1/3-scale James Bond BMW 750iL stunt model

Sure, it’s not an Aston Martin or a jet boat that 007 drove in the films, but this four-foot-long stunt model did appear in Tomorrow Never Dies when it was powered by an air cannon to launch it off a model car park. Talk about a conversation starter when you show others you own one of double-oh-seven’s “real” cars.

Ferrari engine book stand

Not only are you getting a limited-edition, numbered and signed Ferrari book; it gets to sit on a beautiful, red-headed V-12 “bookshelf.” This would make quite the nightstand.

1954 Mercedes-Benz Formula 1 “child’s car”

Your kid can be the neighborhood Moss or Fangio in this pint-size 219 Streamliner. Packing a 9-hp, 125cc motor and good for 40 mph, it’s sure to make for quick trips down the block!

Painting of Nigel Mansell

This acrylic painting from 1992 is signed by Michael Moore and features Nigel Mansell’s famous “Red 5” Williams F1 car with Renault/Elf/Camel livery in a 43×25-inch frame. This is the car Mansell used to secure second in points in 1991’s F1 season and finally win his world championship in 1992.

IndyCar and Formula 1 models

There are a total of five lots of mostly 1:43-scale Indy cars and Formula 1 cars up for auction with some autographed on the case they sit in. Although not listed out, cars from drivers like Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi, Bobby Rahal, Alex Zanardi, Al Unser Jr., Nigel Mansell, Michael Schumacher, and Ayrton Senna are pictured. With 129 models included between 5 lots, it’s an amazing chance to build an entire collection.

Which of these upcoming auction items may tempt you to make a bid this fall? What type of items are you keeping an eye out for to add to your collection?

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Just as important as the shape of a race car is its livery. Graphics, colors, and typography complete the car’s personality, distinguish it from competitors, and provide instantaneous visual identity. Over many years, sponsoring brands gain worldwide recognition and become unmistakable icons for motorsport fans while also being readily recognized in the wider cultural realm.

Portuguese illustrator Ricardo Santos infuses his passion for racing into his art to create his own interpretations of his favorite racing liveries, and he explains why they have endured.

BMW M1 with BASF

The BMW M1 with BASF colors is a good example of a livery completing a car’s personality. The wedge-shaped M1 served as a perfect canvas for the spiral that was part of the BASF cassette logo.

In my artwork, I always like to bring out the decoration beyond the limits of the car’s form. The idea is to reinforce those shapes and to make the decoration a graphic representation of the movement and the vertigo of speed that motorsports represents. There’s nothing better than opening the BASF logo beyond the limits to hypnotize and involve us in this vertigo. This is the Procar Series BMW M1 driven by Hans-Joachim Stuck in 1980.

Tyrrell Formula 1

The blue used by the Tyrrell Formula 1 team is unmistakable. The idea in the illustration of Jackie Stewart’s 005 was to reinforce this blue by using it almost as a single color throughout the illustration.

One of the graphic points that fascinates me the most is the pure contrast between the blue and white of the Elf and Goodyear logos. It’s so direct and effective in the message and the opposite of what is done today, in which there is an exaggeration of colors and colorful stripes and shapes that often make it difficult to read and identify the sponsoring brands and even the cars.

The work above was made for a Racer magazine cover, and the concept was the same I used for the Tyrrell 005 illustration. For Jody Scheckter’s P34 six-wheeler, I just added more detail and some graphical contrast, with those background stripes, to reinforce the presence of the car.

 John Player Special

The simple black and gold of the John Player Special livery on the Lotus 97T is punctuated by Ayrton Senna’s iconic fluorescent yellow helmet (a color used only in 1985 and 1986, suggested by Sid Mosca, who painted the Brazilian driver’s helmet to maximize its contrast with the car).

This set of colors and pinstripe shapes is instantly recognizable even today. I tried to explore them in the simplest way possible, by just adding white stripes that represent the rain that fell at the Estoril Circuit in 1985 during Senna’s memorable first victory in Formula 1.

Sunoco/Porsche+Audi

The Sunoco/Porsche+Audi livery designed for Team Penske by artist Terry Smith is a good example of what makes an iconic race car. For this illustration for Racer magazine, it was enough to show a little bit of the Porsche 917/30 for it to be immediately recognizable. That’s what I tried to represent in this work, in the simplest way possible, using the car’s background color and highlighting the yellow and the logos.

Lotus 49

Before the advent of sponsorship, race cars were painted in colors associated with the country of origin. Lotus used the well-known British Racing Green for the first few years, to which a yellow stripe was added years later.

The Lotus 49 was the first car to use the most famous and successful engine ever in Formula 1, the Ford Cosworth DFV. In this illustration made for a Racer magazine cover, I tried to highlight and make a contrast between the British team’s 49 chassis and the Ford engine, using the car’s original colors. The graphic contrast reinforces the successful association of two technical innovations that revolutionized Formula 1 and provided the Lotus team with many victories.

Alitalia Lancia Stratos

A timeless design by Marcello Gandini, the Lancia Stratos boasted a Ferrari engine and the unmistakable colors of the Italian airline Alitalia. Perfect. This is more of a technical illustration than a graphic one. The idea was to demonstrate the technical aspects of the car, which allowed it to compete both on normal public roads and on forested dirt tracks. In the process, it became a rallying legend.

McDonnell Douglas DC-9F Lancia Stratos

This illustration is part of a work I did with some of the most important cars that used the Alitalia colors. Here you see the Lancia Stratos and the tail of the McDonnell Douglas DC-9F with the livery that was equally and masterfully used on the racing cars. There’s nothing more effective in terms of graphics and communication.

Martini Racing

Martini Racing stripes are probably the most famous racing car livery in the world. Immediately recognizable, the livery makes any racing fan delight. In my illustrations, it allows for a countless number of combinations, whatever the car, year, or competition. I love it.

This red Lancia Delta Integrale was used only in one race, the 1989 San Remo Rally. Normally, cars with Martini sponsorship were painted white, but the marketing department of the Italian vermouth brand wanted to try the red background. The idea didn’t work very well—at the time, many photos and publications were still in black and white, which caused the car to have little contrast between the background color and the Martini stripe colors. This idea was corrected at the next race, with the return of white as the background color of the car.

An unforgettable association, Lancia and Martini. So simple and effective, yet so strong graphically and in brand communication.

Martini was also linked to Porsche. Curiously, in this work, I thought the Martini stripes looked good inside the car’s shapes instead of extending them through the background of the illustration. I just wanted to highlight the simplicity of the graphic concept behind the Martini graphic image and the beauty of a Porsche racing car.

The Porsche “Moby Dick” is another iconic racing car. In this illustration made for Racer magazine, I wanted to highlight the huge tail of the 935 by using an angle that didn’t deform the car too much but which allowed for some exaggeration in the size of the rear. All this accompanied by Martini colors, of course.

Plymouth Superbird

The Plymouth Superbird is one of the most recognizable American car designs. It always reminds me of a rocket ship, so I did this exercise of having the Superbird in a kind of mirror to reinforce the idea of a car that could be launched into space. The fact that this NASCAR version, which was driven by Richard Petty, is painted in only one color makes it so simple and immediately recognizable.

Gulf

Graphically, the Gulf livery was not an example of creativity. They simply used a stripe in the middle of the cars, just like many racing cars of the time used the colors of their countries. But what makes the Gulf graphics line so special and recognizable are the colors. That contrast between baby blue and orange works perfectly.

In this illustration, I tried to represent this successful formula of color use, putting even more emphasis on the orange to try to reinforce the idea of how well a race car looks painted in baby blue, even though it is an unaggressive color for a race car.

***

Visit ricardo-car-artwork.com to view more of Santos’s art and to purchase prints.

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There are Instagram accounts and fan sites; eBay sellers holding the rarest beasts in the field; dedicated obsessives boasting hundreds of examples in their collections and displaying these pieces in their homes like hunters mounting their hard-won, taxidermied prizes.

Welcome to the passion of the vintage steering wheel, and to one of the most storied names in car culture—the vintage Momo, the face that launched a thousand apexes, the timeless Italian circle with the deliciously tidy name.

Born into a wealthy Milanese family, Gianpiero Moretti found racing while studying political science at the University of Pavia. If you believe the lore, at the age of 24, he designed his first wheel in a garage in 1964—the leather-covered rim was thicker and smaller than the industry average, for a finer sense of control. When the legendarily skilled John Surtees won the Formula 1 World Championship for Ferrari that year, he used a new Moretti wheel. Moretti said the helm was ordered personally by Enzo Ferrari; other accounts hold it had been specified by Surtees himself, and that il Commendatore needed to be convinced of the benefits, attached as he was to a traditional wooden rim.

Whatever the truth, Moretti’s work made a dent in the culture. The accessories company he founded in 1966 was called Momo, for Moretti Monza, hat-tipping the Italian track. In the early years, the firm sold not just wheels but racing suits and other gear, reflecting Moretti’s romantic vision—and embodiment—of a pro’s track life and neon personality. (No less than Mario Andretti once called Moretti a “flamboyant, likable guy.”) Ferraris soon came with Momo wheels, and in the late 1960s, when the Porsche 917 went to Le Mans with a factory-installed Momo Prototipo, you could buy a virtually identical wheel for your road-going 911. In the years that followed, Momo parts landed wins from Sebring to Salisbury, and the company became an OEM supplier to manufacturers as varied as Mazda and Rolls-Royce.

Steering-wheel collectors appreciate the racing aura, but also the uniquely Italian sense of myth—that shrugging approach to history, where record-keeping is often seen as nuisance and facts rarely compass the bolder, brighter romance. With early and uncommon Momos often trading hands at four-figure cost, the wheels can seem like attainable relics of a simpler time, where the hand-worn leather provides obvious evidence of the connection between body and machine. [Smith’s “Weissrat” BMW 2002 features a vintage Momo, whereas editor Larry Webster’s 911 has a modern reproduction -Ed.]

Mads van Appeldoorn runs the Momo fan site patipatina.com. He has owned around 500 vintage wheels, though his collection currently holds only 50, including an early, 380-millimeter Monte Carlo made by Moretti himself, before creation of the Momo label. Prototipos seem to be “the one to have,” van Appeldoorn explains, not least due to the Porsche connection and because a version of the wheel is still made today. But the prime appeal, he claims, is in the aesthetic perfection that Moretti laid out.

“The ratio of spokes to circumference, the size of the spoke holes [if there were any], the way the leather has been treated and stretched around the rim—it just felt right, balanced. You might say a Nardi”—Italy’s other wheelmaking titan—“is not that different, but for me, it starts with the hub pattern: first bolt at 12 o’clock, straight in the direction of driving. It feels harmonious and calm.”

Naturally, values vary. More common vintage Momos in rough shape can be had for as little as $20. Sought-after rarities from the 1960s, like the Sebring or Monte Carlo, can take years to find and are priced accordingly. Parts can also be pricey. Vintage Momo-made marque horn buttons (logos shifted over time) and vintage solid hubs (new ones are collapsible) often fetch hundreds of dollars, which doesn’t sound like a lot until you notice that the hubs are indifferently cast pot metal and the horn buttons are made of cheap-looking plastic the diameter of the top of a soda can.

Chalk it up to Italian charm—and part of the fun. There is no singular great source for vintage-Momo information, Appeldoorn says, not even the company itself; manufacturing changes were never well-documented, even for high-profile signature wheels named for racers like Lauda and Andretti. Or take the Prototipo: It began life as a flat-spoke wheel in mostly large diameters, 370 and 380 millimeters. Spokes were later dished for strength, the leather and stitching evolved, and engravings and fonts were altered and moved around. Still, even for the brand’s most storied offerings, nobody logged those alterations in company books. This is, interestingly, where an enthusiast’s typical obsession with minutia blurs against the unprovable. If you want to know, Appeldoorn says, you have to dig on your own.

Moretti sold his company to an American firm, Breed Technologies, in 1996. Momo remains based in Italy but is now owned by the MW Company, with a design office in Los Angeles. MW’s creative director, Howie Idelson, a co-founder of Porsche gathering Luftgekühlt, says the brand is influenced heavily by American desires, “because aftermarket equipment is so restrictive in Europe.”

And what about the idea of a road-going tool, someone’s hard work, displayed as dust-gathering “art” on a wall?

“I love it,” Idelson says. “I think it’s a tribute to how strong the brand is, the history and story. And it ultimately comes down to this recently renewed passion for driving old cars—that steering wheel is a connection, the experience coming into your hands and body.”

Four years ago, Momo launched its Heritage line, a reimagining of vintage models like the Prototipo and the Grand Prix. These new wheels retail for around $300 and offer the perfume of vintage aesthetics—primarily distressed leather and classic logos. They aren’t literal reissues, but they’re a nice nod to the obsessives, and the feel is right. Which matters most of all, Idelson says.

“I think ‘simple’ is a good word here. The Prototipo is a great example. It’s not invasive, and the spoke concavity—people seem to like the position it puts them in. It looks at home in any car of the era.”

“My first one came in a vintage Porsche 911, 20 years ago,” van Appeldoorn says. “A beat-up, sunburned Prototipo, cracked leather, a bit greasy, worn aluminum, lots of patina. But from that moment, I was caught by the idea of vintage steering wheels in vintage cars. The only palpable connection between the driver and the road.”

This feature originally ran in the Hagerty print magazine RADIUS, a perk of one of our exclusive member programs.

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The steering wheel of Ayrton Senna’s 1988 World Championship-winning McLaren MP4/4 Formula 1 car was about 10 inches across. Now imagine that same steering wheel rendered as just one tiny, 0.2-inch part among 300 parts in a scale model kit of his McLaren that, when completed, is no more than four inches long. Believe it or not, there are people who build these for fun.

Most of us assembled a plastic car model (or three) as kids. That every town had a hobby shop and the aroma of Testors paints filled the basement seems today like a quaint amusement from the distant past. However, for a small but loyal group of hard-core hobbyists who are more like jewelers or watchmakers than modelers, car modeling remains a serious business borne of a rabid obsession for miniaturized realism.

For more than 40 years, one small Italian boutique, Tameo Kits, has fed the hobbyist’s habit with an extensive menagerie of metal kits, surviving against market changes and social forces that has thinned the ranks of modelers and model companies.

A peruse through Tameo’s catalog (available at the company website, tameokits.com), which the company playfully dubs “Turtle Soup,” is a stroll through some of the highlights of Formula 1 and sports car racing. Everything from the forgotten AGS Cosworth JH23 from the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix to Jody Scheckter’s 1976 six-wheeled Tyrell P34, to Alberto Ascari’s Ferrari 375 from the 1952 Indianapolis 500 are rendered in 1/43-scale kits that sell for $50 to $125 depending on the level of detail.

The kits are produced using a combination of old-world metal-casting techniques, modern photoetching, and 3-D printing, and they are shipped around the world in individual 3 x 5-inch cardboard boxes. “Since 1981 we have produced over 700 models that are always in the catalog and constantly in production,” says the company’s founder, Luca Tameo. “I think that Tameo Kits is the only company in the world that has kept the entire production in range without ever running out of a single reference.”

For modelers who work in the fiddly 1/43 scale, a relic of early 20th century model railroading that was later embraced by popular British toymakers such as Corgi and Dinky, the Tameo name is a gold standard. That’s partly because of the kit quality, partly because of the sometimes-obscure subjects that are not offered as models by any other company, and partly because of the Tameo’s longevity.

“Tameo is a survivor of the classic European model car companies,” says David Barnblatt, a model builder and Tameo distributor through his Venice, California-based company, Vintage 43. “During the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, there was a vibrant industry of 1/43rd artisan model car makers in Italy, Germany, France, and the U.K.. There were also a few in the US and Japan. Nearly all of the companies have vanished due to competition from diecasts and the readily available plastic model kits that are larger at around 1/24th scale. But Tameo stuck around because they specialized in Formula 1 models and they were also technically a few notches better than the rest in precision quality and ease of assembly.”

Tameo, who is now a very youthful 60, started the business out of his house when he was 16, building models on commission after his father, a manager at Fiat, bought him his first kit, a model of a Lancia Stratos rally car. He sold the finished model and used the money to buy two more kits, selling those as well. A lifelong fan of Formula 1, Tameo “felt the need to make something that was entirely mine,” and produced his first model from scratch, a 1978 Arrows Ford A1 which was an obscure gold-and-black F1 car sponsored by the German beer company, Warsteiner.

He subsequently met and befriended Andre-Marie Ruf, a French pioneer of small-scale metal car modeling who produced what are now highly collectible kits bearing his initials, AMR. Ruf taught Tameo the art of sculpting parts in wax as part of the prototyping phase of kit design, and in 1983 Tameo designed his first kit in 1/43 scale, Nelson Piquet’s 1983 Brabham BT53 F1 car.

“Ruf was a model-car maker who firmly held on to a certain sense of principles,” says Barnblatt. “One of the most important to him was that shrinking a car down 43 times smaller doesn’t always make a good miniature.  A sense of interpretation needs to happen when shaping the master pattern, where the ‘feeling’ of the shape of the car can be accentuated or improvised in such a way that the model takes on a life of its own.” There is no mistaking an AMR model, says Barnblatt. They can be spotted in a line up, and “Tameo took some of these principles to heart and developed his own style. Especially in his early model Ferrari kits, which are still available today.”

Nowadays, a staff of six employees at Tameo Kits S.R.L. operates out of a two-story, 8600-square-foot factory on northern Italy’s Ligurian coast, south of Turin and near the border with France. The company produces a range of kits, starting with its simplest SilverLine, which are mostly models of vintage Formula 1 cars that are oriented towards beginning builders with about 100 parts each. The typical kit includes a cast metal body and floor, plus wings, suspension pieces, whatever engine components would be showing around the closed bodywork, and wheels and tires. These kits sell for around $50.

At the opposite end of Tameo’s range is the WCT Line, which are no larger than the SilverLine kits at around four inches long but feature removable bodywork and exposed cockpits, chassis, and engines. They have around 300 parts and, in the hands of an expert builder, are the dazzling Fabergé eggs of the model world.

Compared to your typical plastic model, “Our kits aren’t exactly the easiest thing to assemble,” acknowledges Tameo. “It takes skill and excellent equipment to be able to make a finished model of good quality.” To aid builders, the company’s website features an extensive tutorial on building the kits. Some basic metalworking tools such as files, snippers, and tweezers are needed, as is good light and, especially for older folk, a jeweler’s magnifying glasses. The paints and glues also tend to be a little different from the plastic kits you may remember. A good place to start is an enclosed sports car like Tameo’s 1970 Ferrari 312P coupe, a relatively simple kit of few parts that only requires spraying the body with one color. Patience is a necessity, but compared to plastic kits, it’s easier to undo a mistake with metal and start over.

The main ingredient in Tameo kits is “white metal,” a relatively soft, pliable alloy of tin and copper extensively used in 1/43-scale kits today and which traces its hobby roots to toy soldiers. White metal remains popular with modelers because it’s easy to cut and file and it gives an unexpected heft to an otherwise tiny model.

Internet research, graphic computer modeling, and 3-D printing now stand in for hand-sculpting wax masters from grainy photos in magazines and books. Tameo has spent 30 years perfecting a centrifugal casting process that involves cutting the shape of a kit’s parts into a matched pair of plaster discs, then spinning the discs at speed while molten metal is poured into the center. The centrifugal force pushes the liquid metal into fine crevices and cavities, meaning Tameo can cast the parts with more precision. They emerge from the separated discs as giant metal snowflakes of tiny suspension and brake components. The snowflakes are then cut up, the individual parts going into small baggies for the kits. Much of the excess metal “flash” is recycled for further use.

It takes Tameo about two months, “if we focus,” to design and engineer a new kit. “The choice of the models to produce is always very difficult because it is a question of ‘guessing’ whether a new kit will be successful or not,” he says. “Of course, if the choice falls on the big teams like Ferrari, Lotus, or McLaren, the guarantees of a good sale are greater. I must say that lately we have been registering great interest in minor Formula 1 cars. That is, those cars that have never won or that have distinguished themselves only for very particular designs or captivating decorations.”

Other considerations, such as steep licensing fees, has meant that Tameo now shies away from newer F1 cars and produces mainly models of historic race cars. However, that means wading into the morass of tobacco sponsorship on older race cars. The regulatory agencies of many countries lump in model kits with toys under a blanket ban against tobacco advertising. That forces Tameo to ship its kits without tobacco logos, meaning modelers demanding perfect accuracy must go online for aftermarket decal sheets that contain the right logos.

While Tameo sells to more countries today than ever before, the overall market has been in decline for several years, he says. That’s partly because of an invasion of finished models from producers in China that offer highly detailed diecasts for the same or less than a Tameo kit. “To survive we decided not to compete with them, but to find our market niche by turning to model makers who do not like the diecast model but prefer quality, detail, and the almost total absence of compromises,” says Tameo. “I must say that, even in the face of constantly decreasing numbers, this way to produce models has proved to be a winner for us and has guaranteed us, until now, our survival.”

Another problem is that modeling hasn’t made the generational jump from older builders to younger people, who are more attracted to electronic entertainments. Says Tameo: “There are still model makers who have followed Tameo Kits since the early ‘80s, but we can’t see the right generational change because young people are no longer interested in modeling but prefer other leisure activities.”

The company has spent a lot of time updating its older catalog listings, redesigning kits from the 1990s using new technology and materials. It has also begun producing a range of accessories, such as more accurate tires and detailing bits, that modelers can use to dress up their kits.

Barnblatt hopes more collectors will be willing to venture into attempting a model kit, “which would easily become the centerpiece of their collection.” It’s one thing to have a wall of model cars, quite another to say that you built some of them yourself. Says Barnblatt: “There is a world of interesting artisan model cars out there, old and new, that can contribute to an already impressive diecast car collection.”

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Buenos Aires is an overwhelming, vibrant, bustling city of 15 million people where passions run high and classic cars run hot. However, it’s in the Argentinian capital’s Avellaneda barrio that metallurgist and sculptor Mario Tagliavini finds his lust for life, making scale replicas of iconic vehicles in solitude.

Loneliness, he says, is something creatives are uniquely qualified to cope with: “I have ideas in my mind and only I understand how to manifest them.”

Smooth, but not seamless by design, his sculptures comprise a skin built from commonplace components such as hex nuts, bearings, gears, and piping that were formerly earmarked for scrap. From the Porsche 911 which sports a bicycle chain for its bumper, to the front wing of a Ferrari 250 SWB that’s been shaped out of wrenches, bolts, cogs and screws (some of which have had their heads decapitated from their threads) they are fascinating to visually deconstruct.

“We don’t all see things the same way,” says Tagliavini, who hopes his work awakens people’s imagination to the potential of using unwanted items as art supplies. “I don’t think of things as inanimate objects, I think they have a soul with the possibility for new life.”

Choosing a fifties F1 monoposto [single-seater car] as the subject for his first “basic” sculpture back in 2016, a piece that Tagliavini admits was built with impatient enthusiasm, “I shaped it quickly, but I liked it a lot”, it was dynamic in its presentation with two of its wheels suspended in mid-air. Created without the disciplines of scale or proportion (something which he is now fastidious about) Tagliavini treated it like any usual four-wheeled prototype and put it in front of the public at Autoclasica [an elegance competition in Argentina for classic and vintage cars] to see if it was acceptable to their taste. It sold straight away.

A year later, his sculptures came to the attention of exhibition organizers responsible for the Buenos Aires International Motor Show, and impressed by his aesthetic, they invited him to display his work. “It was the biggest and most rewarding surprise, I was called to present with some of the best automobile artists from my country at the event of the year. I still can’t believe it.”

Gaining such approval from his peers was a turning point for Tagliavini, “if you’re sure of what you want, you must go and do it”, but keeping a modest view of his own talent is important to the 56-year-old. “All that show of affection for my work is super gratifying, but at events I distance myself from my pieces and just stare at people’s true reactions.”

As a result, his models have become increasingly intricate, ambitious, and sophisticated. “I must see each new job as a challenge that forces me to study form. I try to demand myself with more neat finishes or more realistic details, each one is a new adventure.” To make a Maserati 300 GT’s interior upholstery appear plump, Tagliavini used an airbrush to create the illusion of shadow, and to authenticate his 1:5-scale representation of a Mercedes Benz 280 SE he stamped the iconic three-pointed star emblem on the wheel cups and radiator mask. It’s these touches, he says, that give his pieces a “delicacy” that sets them apart from other automotive and upcycled art.

Other recreations have included a “huge” 1930s Delage D8 120 crafted to a 1:4.5-scale specification, and a Chevrolet El Camino (both of which occupy his living room), as well as items that have gone to private collections such as a 1:5-scale Jaguar E-Type on stainless steel spoked rims, and a beautiful Royal Enfield 350—the only motorcycle Tagliavini has ever sculpted.

During Tagliavini’s childhood, cars were “always part of the landscape.” His father, a mechanic, fettled vehicles back to full health in a small workshop at the back of the family home, “I was almost forced to caress them when going out to play,” but it was his dad’s act of restoring a 1946 Ford Coupé for father-son adventures that left the greatest impression. “I wanted to make my own toys, and used everything that I could to recreate parts of a car. The materials I used had little substance, paper and glue, but when I got older and learnt how to weld, it all changed.”

Dismantling his process, there are two key stages; the first is to research, and the second is to manufacture. “I immerse myself in the web,” explains Tagliavini, who uses photographs, documentation (including original plans if they’re available), as well as diecast models to calculate the dimensions of his pieces and devise accurate, annotated templates.

Next, he bends and sculpts wire rods and mesh to create a three-dimensional frame, “a tedious job,” but a vital one. Get the shape wrong, paying particular attention to the roof, and it could ruin the entire representation. “It is what an observer generally sees at first sight and defines its silhouette to a great extent. So, if I do not get it right, I do not continue until I achieve it.”

To an untrained eye, choosing which consumables to use could be considered even more cumbersome, “it’s a matter that takes a lot of time” imparts Tagliavini, who uses his trusty welding torch to blast them into permanent formation. “I don’t always get scrap according to the size I need so trying to match them in such a way that the least amount of empty space remains can be tricky.” So too, he reveals, is manipulating pieces of 2mm-thick acrylic to take on the shape of a windscreen, set of headlights or windows. Patience, heat and more often than not, an awful lot of revisions are required. Forging, filing and mirror polishing bumpers is also an exercise in traditional, painstaking handmade techniques, but despite the hazards they pose, he is reluctant to wear protective gloves: “It makes me less sensitive to tools and parts.”

Turning wheels out of MDF or plastic is Tagliavini’s current method of production, and although he’s passionate about preserving heritage crafter skills, he’s looking to revolutionize their fabrication with a 3D printer. Their metallic rims, for now, will still be bespoke made using moulds and castings. To finish a sculpture, any sharp or “aggressive” edges are buffed away, but it’s only once a piece has received a client’s approval that Tagliavini will consider a job a job well done. “I get angry, I get happy,” he says. “It’s hard to be someone by my side so I don’t have an assistant, but all these steps, from first to last, I show on my social networks to encourage those who want to dare to be able to do them.”

During a heatwave, when temperatures can hit more than 40°C, Tagliavini’s workshop isn’t the obvious place to make a soothing escape, but it’s “phenomenal!”, he rhapsodies. Sketching, welding, milling and much, much more, it’s a hive of one man’s worth of activity, yet, it’s also a museum of machinery and automobilia. On the walls, there are car parts, road signs, paintings, posters and toys, and on the benches the tools of his trade – from hammers and clamps, to heat guns, lathes, an anvil, a grinder and a computer—promise the stirring inevitability of creation.

Almost apologetically, Tagliavini justifies his interior styling choices—“I spend many hours in there, and it’s hard for me to let go of things, a lot of the scrap I buy ends up decorating my workshop, I just can’t lose these items”,—but there’s something charming about the idea that his hoard of artifacts has grown so great he has to display them on rotation. “I have been collecting for years, I had an antiques business and bought more than what I sold.”

Despite imposing his own social distancing measures, Tagliavini is soothed by the company of low-level music, “it helps me to relax and concentrate, silence creates an emptiness in me that I don’t like”, and he’s always glad of a second pair of hands when the time comes to part ways with a piece: “yes, they are heavy, sometimes up to 50kg.” It’s a natural and gratifying step, but “letting go” of a car sculpture, which will have been his sole creative focus for months, can be a deeply moving matter. “I feel a very strong connection with them,” says Tagliavini. “And I’m not ashamed to say it, but with some, I feel I shed a tear.”

Via Hagerty UK

The post One man’s scrap is this brilliant metallurgist’s sculpture appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Times have changed, that’s for sure. Remember “the classic racing game,” Mille Bornes, first launched in 1954? After a quick peek at Apple’s App Store and its Google Play counterpart, there are no fewer than four apps heavily based on the game. Let me assure you, however that this is not a hit piece on a younger generation smearing the successes of the past atop a new form of media, subsequently ruining it like pineapple* on pizza. On the contrary, it’s a testament to the game’s staying power that it has been able to evolve and survive in different media for different audiences.

A quick primer: The game is meant to simulate a road race of 1000 “milestones,” be they miles or kilometers, with each hand representing one race. Players cast distance cards to make progress, while hazard cards pose obstacles, remedy cards counter hazards, and safety cards prevent hazards.

Mille Bornes’ creator Edmond Dujardin was heavily influenced by the work of William Janson Roche, who created the nearly identical card game of Touring all the way back in 1904. One distinguishing element of Milles Bornes, however, is the mileage posted on the distance cards, reflecting a new era of effortlessly traveling hundreds of miles in one sitting.

The digital homages of today seem pretty close to Dujardin’s intended gameplay, albeit with a dramatic change: Most versions played on a device are one-player-only games. Be it smartphone or mobile tablet, this evolution of the game misses the joyous point of Mille Bornes. Sabotage! Players must expect treachery at every corner from their competitors, who are the usual suspects (friends, family, co-workers) in their everyday lives. That personal touch adds tension to the luck of the draw, ensuring competitive moves no less aggressive than those experienced on a race track. And while a computer may work hard to beat you to the checkered flag, it doesn’t hold a candle to the analog experience offered by in-person Mille Bornes.

That’s because Mille Bornes is a take-that game, with outcomes depending on how the four players interact with each other. Participants can choose to gang up on another player, ensuring their swift demise. Or perhaps everyone can take a turn getting pushed under the bus (or safety car, as it were). There’s also something satisfying in the physicality and tactility of a board game. Open up the box and you’re greeted by a simple set of instructions, a more formalized instruction booklet, scorecards, and playing cards stored in a plastic container.

The first category of cards to consider in Mille Bornes’ deck are the distance cards. These allow the cardholder to move at a snail, duck, butterfly, jackrabbit, or a soaring bird’s (?) pace. The goal for us Yanks who move around in FREEDOM UNITS is to travel 1000 miles as individuals, or 5000 miles when working with a partner.

And here’s where things gets deliciously diabolical. The red hazard cards are given to someone that must be stopped by any means possible. Well, by five means: stop sign, car accident, flat tire, speed limit (no more than 50 miles per turn), or an out of gas penalty.

As a child (in the pre-internet era) it was also fun to try to pronounce (read: mock) Mille Bornes’ French words while doling out a punishment. To this day I still think it’s more sinister to hand someone a “cree-vee” over a mere flat tire. And because you can’t get the same satisfaction from a game played on a smartphone, I’d encourage you to smash the like button if you agree.

The obvious counterpart to the hazard cards are these green-hued remedies. They are a soothing contrast to the angry red iconography of the hazard cards and include a green light, tank of fuel, auto repairs, replacement tire, and an end of speed limit sign. (This is also a good time to mention how much cooler the older, mid-century graphics are compared to later examples.)

The problem is that you always need a green light to get back on the road, so if you got a wreck/flat/out of gas hazard, you need at least two turns to get back on the road. It’s fair to say that remedy cards are not what you really want, as they are merely a bandage on the problem.

Instead you want a solution that both solves an issue permanently, and gives you the opportunity to rub salt in the wounds of your competition. You want a safety card, also called a coup fourré!

Your life is so much better with a coup fourré in your hand, be it the fire truck (immune to stop signs and speed limits), the driving gloves on a steering wheel (immune to accidents), the puncture proof tire (no crevés for you!), or the fuel truck (no more gas shortages). And while it’s great that you keep a sabotage at bay, the real perk is that you also take control of the game. You can lay down some mileage, or you can sabotage the saboteur without waiting for your turn. Or both, as coup fourré enablers get two turns after the saboteur foolishly attacked them.

And while the proper pronunciation for coup fourré is in the previous embedded link, I can still picture my mother giving a sinister smile, with a curt yet celebratory chuckle as she pulled one of these babies out and proclaimed “KOO-FRAY!” It’s the small victories that are indeed the sweetest. Turns out they are also unforgettable.

Digging through the Mehta family’s old score sheets gave me a newfound appreciation for Mille Bornes, and the overwhelmingly positive effect it had on my childhood. The game was challenging enough to entertain adults, but still easy enough that children could beat them. According to those tally sheets, yours truly even won the game at least once. I was a lucky kid with a damn great childhood, which makes me appreciate the fact that I didn’t lose our original copy of Mille Bornes. The only fly in the ointment is that my recent eBay purchase was made in vain.

Four chairs is fair, but what shall I do with enough cards for eight people? How embarrassing for me!

Perhaps we need another Hagerty contest, right after the esteemed Sam Smith completes his Volvo 240 endeavor. Yes, let’s focus on getting your 300-word essays in for that Swedish number first, but this begs a rather obvious question: What would you do for your own copy of Mille Bornes?

*Let the record show that I have no problem with pineapple on pizza. In fact, if we’re talking about pies made by your average American franchise restaurant, it’s one of my favorite options. So there.  

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Fluorescent yellow and wide open, its black-rimmed eyes stare back at you. Deep-set within a hollow, skeletal body, are they glowing, or are they glaring? It’s up to you to decide. Nose to the ground with its shoulders hunched, this spineless creature is poised to make chase, but it can’t come and get you because it can’t even crawl. Sinister sounding, but magnificent looking, this imposing yet motionless monster is the devil you do know, reincarnated. This is Jonny Ambrose’s “Monster 917”; a two-and-a-half meter sculptural interpretation of the 1971 Le Mans-winning Porsche.

Elongated and polygonal in form, its bones are made from 1000 pieces of tubular carbon fibre and aluminum that have been connected using more than 250 individually CAD designed 3D-printed joints. Described as a “ridiculously complex” construction by artist Ambrose, “I wanted to create it, so I found a way to create it, that’s just how my mind works”, the piece, which sits stationary on hexagonal wheels, is inspired by what Ambrose refers to as the original Porsche 917’s secret advantage—its super lightweight spaceframe chassis. Built from small magnesium-alloy tubes it played on the strength of a triangle.

Once you’ve stopped fixating on the Monster’s eyes, your eyes will “read” the black, stylized carbon-fiber framework from front to rear fin before noticing the half scale inner aluminum chassis. What you won’t see, Ambrose discloses, is the 4-mm piece of hardwood he’s hidden inside one of the tubes. Its exact whereabouts, “I’m not going to ever divulge,” says Ambrose. “I was being playful, but I like to incorporate wood in all my sculptures, even if it is a very minor fraction.”

In the market for a Monster? You’ll be required to part ways with almost thirty eight thousand pounds, a steal in comparison to the tens of millions it’ll cost to buy the real deal, but a pipe dream for most. “Its size and sheer cost is for a very small part of the population,” acknowledges Ambrose, who has produced a limited-run coffee table alternative; the 40-cm 3D-printed Skeletale 917. At £1790 it’s lighter on the wallet and weighs just 1 pound. “Even the palm-sized sculptures are sold with a wooden plinth,” he says, keen to bring the conversation back to his fancy for timber.

Nephew of a wood turner, and grandson to a man who found great pleasure in spending weekends showing his protégé how to use hand tools in the spirit of make do and mend, “I realized quite early on that wood is a very versatile material that you can cut, change, shape and mould,” Ambrose made his first “rudimentary” car sculpture at play school. “I remember being let loose with hammers at nails at the age of four, you know, health and safety went out the window in those days. I like to think the three blocks of wood that I randomly nailed together resembled the Lotus 72 F1 car, but I’ve still got it, and looking at it now, it really doesn’t.”

At home, pencil in hand, his childhood happy place was sketching the quick and colorful cars he saw fighting for the podium during Formula 1 and Rallycross races being broadcast on terrestrial television—a Brabham BT44 was an exciting contrast to the brown and rather bland daily drivers typical of the seventies. “It was a visual overload, the small front wheels and huge back wheels on Formula 1 cars create a really raw, extreme shape that just shouts power and speed. I was, and still am, fascinated by their form.”

Ambrose’s first “proper” wooden car sculpture, with roll cage, came to fruition in a design technology class at the age of ten. After sixth form, “university seemed the obvious step”, and he obtained a degree in Fine Art, but “making a living out of the way you express yourself creatively” hadn’t been part of the curriculum and as someone who has a tendency to be quite insular, Ambrose, like many artists, struggled to kept the wolf from the door. To cover costs, he spent many successful years designing and developing computer games before committing his undivided attention to creating automotive works of art.

The culmination of this potted history was the birth of Monster 917’s older sibling in 2017, a one of one wooden sculpture named Le Mans Langheck, meaning long tail in German. Inspired by the same iconic car yet incomparable in form and composition—“a lot of artists are known for their one particular style, but for me it’s all about experimenting, I never want to become pigeonholed”—it is one of the first works he produced after going full-time, and technically, one of his finest.

A streamlined composition of chromed steel, reclaimed Iroko hardwood and sustainably sourced English oak, it was a manifestation of Ambrose’s fascination with the aerodynamics of automotive design. Making the invisible, visible, he meticulously manipulated a single sheet of wood that rests on the top of the car to represent the airflow that rushes up, flows over and swirls away from a Porsche 917’s body when traveling at speed.

“It took a lot of effort and head scratching,” he says. “Of all the materials I use, working with wood is the most enjoyable, but it’s got a life of its own. It’s a natural material and as you cut, plain or bend it, the vagaries of its grain mean that it only takes a nick here or there, for a piece to no longer work. There’s no undo button so it can be a pleasure, but also a pain.”

Consequently, a single wooden element can go through three or four iterations before perfection is achieved, and the Le Mans Langheck’s imagined airflow adornment proved one of the trickiest. “When steam bending you design a jig to clamp the piece whilst it’s still hot and pliable, but you have to work quickly. The Langheck’s airflow feature had several difficult twists in its tail, but the hardest part was creating the bend in the wood that sweeps over the 917’s nose—all the while working against the grain.”

Working in 3D, says Ambrose, lends itself to making extraordinary vehicles, from the BMW Batmobile to the Morgan Aeromax, Lamborghini Diablo, Bugatti Atlantic, and the Formula E Gen 2 EVO car, appear even more extraordinary. The skill lies in making sure the overall form is recognizable and the magic lies in the illusion; circumnavigate the Monster 917, and the lines parallax against one another to create new, intriguing angles and formations.

Ideas will often arrive in the dead of night, so Ambrose has become accustomed to sleeping with a notepad at his bedside. Scribbled through bleary eyes, in daylight they can sometimes be difficult to decipher, but it’s when he begins exploring them digitally, that concepts resurface and evolve. “Using 3D modeling software, I’ll get the form together quite quickly and play around with the proportions, but then comes the practical part of designing the components and how they will fit together within the limits of the materials I plan to work with.”

To maintain good housekeeping, Ambrose tidies his various sculptural styles into series, including Aerodynamic, Airflow, and Streamlined, but his workshop is a maker’s haven of organized chaos. An eclectic hoard of materials, including rare hardwood offcuts, await their fate with Ambrose’s saws, drills and finishing machines (the metalwork and 3D printing is done off-site) but when the lights go off at the end of each day they disappear into the shadows. Only the eyes of Ambrose’s sleepless Monster glow in the dark.

Via Hagerty UK

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In my circle of friends, there’s not a single car enthusiast who doesn’t have a shelf or drawer of toy cars, whether 1:18-scale models they built themselves or 1:64 Hot Wheels they bought at the grocery store in a blister pack. We love our full-size vehicles, but having miniatures around is an unofficial prerequisite to becoming a card-carrying member of the enthusiasts club, and a way to pay homage to vehicles we can only dream of parking in our garages.

On my desk, I’ve got a Ford GT, a Corvette ZR1, and a V60 Polestar, all vehicles I’ve enjoyed driving in recent years. In my trophy cabinet, I’ve still got the Porsche 959, Ferrari 288 GTO, Ferrari Daytona Spyder, and second-generation Volkswagen GTI kits I assembled many years ago. My favorite piece, however, is a 1:18 die-cast scale model of an early Arancio Borealis (that’s orange, to you uncultured masses) Lamborghini Gallardo signed by its designer, Luc Donckerwolke.

While I haven’t built a model in decades, the game has clearly changed. Social media has connected builders around the world, allowing them to share techniques, brainstorm ideas, and order custom parts with more convenience and speed than ever before. Plus, technology has given the community the ability to push achieve new levels of realism. Case in point? Martin Aveyard, of British Columbia.

Flick through his Stoke Models Instagram page, and it’s clear that Aveyard is passionate about cars and possessed of a broad range of talents honed to exceptional standards.

An advertising industry creative director by profession, Aveyard has a keen eye, as his finished work and the photography he shares on Instagram bears witness. His 1:24-scale builds are incredibly detailed, and he doesn’t stop with the vehicles themselves—that background above ain’t generated by no computer.

Take this gas station set, for example. Although Aveyard says it’s not quite finished, the hand-built set is already stunning. He’s installed LED lighting and designed the fuel pumps himself, and the attention to detail of the station rivals the twin-turbocharged, Lamborghini Countach model it frames.

Although that Countach sprung from Aveyard’s mind, it’s the kind of modded exotic that you can easily imagine cruising the streets of Tokyo, a product of some provocative Japanese tuner shop like Liberty Walk or Tec Art’s.

While Aveyard starts with basic kits from recognized names in plastic-car modeling—Tamiya, Aoshima, Hasegawa, and Revell—he often takes inspiration from real-world tuners. Thanks to 3D-printing, his creations range from precise scale replicas of factory-spec cars to others that exist (in full scale, at least) only in our imaginations.

Aveyard’s first-generation Skyline GT-R began with a stock model that he combined with an R32 kit. From there, he 3D-printed the tires to fit barrels deeper than those of the stock R32. “Then, I went to Speed Hunters to see what that exact engine looks like, because Rocky Auto out of Japan does these RB26 swaps into Skylines,” he says. “After that, I 3D-printed the exhaust, the intake, the battery, and all that stuff in the engine bay.”

Even the camber plates on Aveyard’s restomodded Skyline are accurately modeled. After examining this build, you’ll understand that Aveyard is the sort of person that refuses to settle, taking it upon himself to craft pieces according to his own standards and vision.

Aveyard was disappointed with the quality and accuracy of the wheel and tire set that came with his Revell Jaguar E-Type kit shown below. He wanted a period-correct, spoked set—so he designed and printed it himself.

“The 3D printing is crazy because I printed those spokes unsupported—as they’re being printed, they just float in air, and then finally they connect to the hub. When it’s done, you’ve got an actual hub with three-tenths of a millimeter diameter spokes out to the outside of the rim. I won’t overestimate or underestimate what the printer can do; when I print, if it doesn’t work, I’ll try something else, but I’m amazed at how often it works.”

3D printing is key for any modern-day modeler to customize or improve their final product, but the technology is young enough that its improvement curve is steep. According to Aveyard, printing that spoked wheel and tire assembly takes his printer three to four hours

“I bought a new printer recently, which cut the printing time to about a third. For example, the model that was out last year was printing eight seconds per layer, and now it’s two and a half seconds per layer.”

The scale modeling community is as welcoming to newcomers as it is meticulous about its subjects. According to Aveyard, you can easily find designs for many of the parts you may need online.

“There are a few big online sites and on some of them you can download free models. I needed a gas can—a jerrycan—so I downloaded the file and printed one out and stuck it on the roof of one of the models. There’s a guy called BlackBoxSTL and he’s putting out wheel files, seats, and full kits as well. He’s pretty much releasing designs weekly and he’s put together quite a portfolio of pieces. You can go to his Cults page, pay five bucks, download a set of wheels and tires, and print them out at home.”

On the other hand, there are times when you can’t buy off the (digital) rack. In those cases, Aveyard improvises. “For me, I build on my own 3D files. Fifteen or twenty years ago, I got into 3D modeling just for fun and then I did some of it for work. I did some architectural rendering and logo design using 3D models, and I kept the skills up, so now if I need to make anything, I can throw it together.”

Caught the bug yet? The learning curve for model-building isn’t steep, and you don’t need to spend the equivalent of a Miata on a set of specialized tools.

“You obviously don’t need a 3D printer,” Aveyard laughs. “You can build kits as they are, but my recommendation for people is always to get an airbrush. The control you have with the paint is so much better … mine was $100. If you see all this stuff on Instagram and then you try and do it with brush painting or spray cans, you’ll be disappointed. I always tell people to invest a little bit of money and time to learn the airbrush, because the quality increases tenfold.”

Aveyard doesn’t stick with miniature builds, either. Ten years ago, before he dove deep into modeling, he restored a 1972 Triumph Spitfire ten years ago, doing everything himself except paint. He hasn’t honored it with a scale replica, at least not yet, but he’s got some plans for the vintage Brit.

“If I had known 25 years ago what my Spitfire would still be worth today, I might have picked a different car,” he says. “I would like to convert it to electric because I’ve seen a lot of people converting DB4s and E-Types to electric and some shops are even charging a million dollars to do it, but I think there’s a way to do it for less.”

Aveyard doesn’t build his models for profit. Not a single one is for sale and he doesn’t take commissions. Like many of us, this hobby provides a change of pace, an escape from a busy work and family life.

“My kids are a little older now, so I had a bit more spare time, and I wanted something a little bit quiet. I sit downstairs after everybody’s in bed for an hour … it’s like a meditative hobby as opposed to something that’s loud, like grinding and welding, which I can’t do in the house at night.”

Aveyard may not sell his models, but his 60,000 Instagram followers prove that gearheads and model builders alike appreciate his work even when they can’t own it themselves. He’s clear-eyed about his popularity, though: “It’s almost like I’ve got a kind of a tailored skill set for Instagram, because there’s a lot of fantastic builders out there that maybe don’t have the photography skills, and then there’s people who photograph die-cast models that do an amazing job. I think I’ve been lucky to have a skill set that kind of combines both to present the work in the best possible way.”

Passion without regard to profit or popularity. It’s a lesson that’s rare in our hobby. Most of us can’t set aside the constraints of budget when it comes to our real-world vehicles, but poring over Aveyard’s models is a delightful, meditative escape—for observer as well as creator.

The post Martin Aveyard’s world-class 1:24 models are pure car zen, but he won’t sell appeared first on Hagerty Media.

For those of us without the cash or space to build a collection of actual cars and trucks, the next best thing is automobilia. While some of the least expensive and most popular auto-related collectibles are miniature diecast vehicles, ephemera offers a direct, authoritative connection to the vehicles we love.

Delyele “Del” Beyer’s collection started with ephemera—dealership catalogs, manuals, magazines, and the like—when he was a kid growing on a Wisconsin farm in the 1920s and ’30s. When Beyer became a successful businessman, he began buying just about anything related to the auto industry, from bigger items like vehicles, gas pumps, and signs, to more and more literature. Now, nearly five years after Beyer died in September 2017, and almost four years after Vanderbink Auctions sold off his automobiles in September 2018, Beyer’s massive stash of smaller paper-based automobilia is being auctioned by Matthew Bullock Auctioneers.

Online bidding begins on Saturday, April 9, at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. Before you bid, it is important to note that in addition to the hammer price, there is an 18.5 percent buyer’s premium, a 7 percent tax, and an additional charge of 3 percent for invoices paid by credit card, as well as shipping charges. That’s a lot. It may be worth it, however, for some of the unique items that Beyer collected through the decades.

Among the 641 items on offer are dealership catalogs, paint charts, upholstery samples, manuals, parts catalogs, racing programs, stock certificates, postcards, trading cards, and games. Marques range from well-known names like Ford, Chevrolet, and Cadillac to obscure ones like Hotchkiss, Le Francis, Lloyd, Klein, Paramount, and Russon.

There are also bound books of Motor Magazine from 1906–43, Blue Books from the 1920s and ’30s; Branham Reference Books from 1920–56, Motor Age magazines from the early 1900s, and bound volumes of Automobile Quarterly (including Volume 1/No. 1 from 1962).

Tractor aficionados can bid on items from Oliver, Case, Fordson, Allis-Chalmers, Ferguson, Wallis, Avery, Huber, Frick, Hart-Parr, and, of course, John Deere.

Here are 12 of our favorites (in the order they appear in the online catalog):

The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile Coachbuilding

Selling on eBay for $150 or more, The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile: Coachbuilding covers history of coachbuilding and includes an alphabetical list of makes with informative history of each, along with a supplementary list of lesser-known carrozzeria where there is insufficient information for a full entry. First published in 2002, it is considered the Bible of coachbuilding.

Group of 25+ original 1920s Indianapolis 500 photographs

One of several original photo lots on offer—including a binder with 40 images—this one is the most historically significant. Among the 25 black-and-white images is one of 1920 Indy 500 champion Aurora Gaston in his Chevrolet #4 Monroe Special. A notation on the photo reads, “The Winner: Fate made a sudden and dramatic entrance into the annual 500-mile race; snatched success from Ralph de Palma and dumped it in Chevrolet’s lap.”

Group of 3 Chicago Automobile Salon souvenir books

The Chicago Auto Show, the nation’s largest auto show, was first held in 1901. This lot includes three hard-to-find “Salon” souvenir books from the early 1900s: 1918, 1920, 1929. How much fun would it be to pore over these on a rainy day?

1915 Milwaukee Automobile Show program

The earliest show program in the auction, this one from the 1915 Milwaukee Auto Show features a simplistic but beautiful cover and has a horizontal format, unlike most magazines and programs that are oriented vertically. In addition, it is measures only 6.25 inches by 9.25 inches, which must have made it easier for showgoers to handle while they ogled the cars on display.

1915 “Funny Stories about the Ford” pamphlet

This little booklet offers some amusing stories about Henry Ford’s motor car. You’ll find some hidden Ford propaganda in there, too.

For instance: “A farmer living ten miles out in the country went to town to buy a Ford. He wanted to drive the car home immediately, and the agent went along to show him how to handle the car. When the five-mile post was reached, the car came to a dead stop. The agent jumped out, looked over the car, saw that there was plenty of gasoline and oil, then raised the hood and exclaimed, ‘Well, I’ll be blamed if the factory didn’t forget to put a motor in this car.’ ‘Well, how on earth did it run this far?’ ‘Oh,’ the agent replied, ‘A Ford will go half way on its reputation.’”

Real subtle, Henry.

Large group of Mobil gas truck photographs

The best of two lots chock-full of Mobil gas truck photographs, this one has so many black-and-white pics that the auctioneer didn’t bother to count them, although there must 50 or more. There are also two matted color images. The fun of this lot must be finding the cool surprises hiding in this collection.

1966 Ford Gold Truck Award

If you like Ford, love Ford trucks, and own a 1966 model, how could you possibly take a pass on this? The shadow box award features a “gold” model of a ’66 pickup and was given to a Ford dealership “in recognition of truck sales leadership.”

Group of 2 Superior Cadillac hearse and ambulance brochures

Unique because of the subject matter and age, these Superior Cadillac Hearse and Ambulance Brochures (which look to be 1949 models?) are colorful and detailed, and they would make great conversation starters. We were struck by the image of the smiling, dancing girls across the top of the ambulance brochure, which left us scratching our heads and wondering, “What in the world is that about?”

1954 Studebaker Engineering Manual for Salesmen

If you’re into Studebakers—and even if you’re not—you’ve gotta love this “Inside Facts” salesman’s manual. Horizontally formatted with tabs for Specs and Index, Beauty, Comfort, Performance, Economy, Safety, Dependability, Transmission, Power Steering, and Accessories, the manual lauds the ’54 Studebakers as “distinctively different.” The same can be said for this spiral-bound beauty.

Group of 7 1953 Corvette brochures

It would be cool enough to own one sales brochure from the inaugural edition of America’s Sports Car, but how ’bout seven? “With an eye to the future, Chevrolet introduces an experimental model.” Well, that experiment certainly turned out to be a successful one. With a ’53 Corvette valued at $224,000 in #2 (Excellent) condition, this might be the closest that most of us will ever get to owning one … let alone seven.

1960 Ford: All The Facts binder

Less colorful than the Studebaker salesman’s book above, this spiral-bound binder covers everything about Ford’s 1960 model line, from the Falcon and Fairlane to Thunderbird and station wagon. Fascinating, especially if you love Ford.

Hart-Parr Tractor catalog

We just had to include a tractor catalog, and what better one to choose than Hart-Parr? Never heard of it? If you’re a farmer, you have. That’s because Charles Walter Hart and Charles H. Parrnames are widely credited with having designed and built the first successful gasoline-powered tractor, the machine that revolutionized agriculture—giving this vintage catalog a cool connection to both automotive and farming history.

Other treasure catch your eye among the listings? Let us know in the comments below!

The post 12 original brochures, catalogs, and photos to jump-start your automobilia collection appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Thinking in reverse; it’s a particular kind of logic that painter and lately-turned linocut printer Etienne Butterlin performs when conjuring up a new hot rod linocut design. Rendered in dark plum, deep red, and moody blue inks on brown paper made from wood pulp, they are striking, dynamic, and hand-pressed in limited runs.

To begin the process, Butterlin sketches a heavily simplified line drawing of the vehicle he wishes to depict. In contrast to the super-realist approach he applies when creating one of his acrylic on canvas automotive paintings, keeping the linocut form free from fussy details is key to success. It’s at this stage of composition that the backwards “brain gymnastics” commence, because Butterlin has to decide which parts of the car need to be carved out of the lino block. Once he’s committed to it with a gouge, there’s no going back.

“Everything I remove will be the color of the paper, and what remains of the lino will be inked and printed,” explains Butterlin, who must flip the image before transferring it on to the lino plate to ensure the finished print appears the same way around as his original drawing. Then, allowing elements of the design to evolve organically as he etches, Butterlin relaxes into the more organic and experimental act of engraving.

Bold and directional “speed lines” bring prints, such as his one of the iconic Pierson Brothers’ 1934 Ford coupe to life. With details such as tire tread omitted, other striking features of the car—most notably its sweeping laid-back windshield—are given permission to stand out.

Reminiscent of Gus Maanum’s ink drawings (a post-war artist who made his name in America producing illustrations of competitors’ hot rods for inclusion in souvenir racing programes and booklets) Butterlin’s prints are stylized to reflect the automotive artwork that emerged during the early days of land speed racing.

“Hot rodding had already started to grow before World War II, but the post-war era offered an incredible space for the development of this phenomenon,” explains Butterlin, who lives in France. “It was such an exciting period, there was so much creativity and empirical intelligence, everything seemed possible.”

It’s still in its infancy, but Butterlin hopes his linocut series will allow people to access his art at a more affordable price point. It’s his astonishingly realistic acrylic paintings (and charcoal drawings), however, that he is best known for at present.

Focusing predominantly, but not exclusively, on “poor boy vintage race cars” (that’s hot rods from the Forties and Fifties to you and me) Butterlin’s pieces have featured some of his favorite customized and classic car rides. There’s the Rolling Bones 232B, the Rolling Bones Hot Rod Shop’s famous 1929 Ford Model A—which had a starring role at the 2021 Goodwood Revival, and a vehicle which Butterlin had ridden shotgun with its owner on a 3100 mile pilgrimage across the USA—as well as the Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union Silver Arrows.

Each is a demonstration of Butterlin’s incredible trompe l’oeil technical ability, and he’s open to commissions that will allow him to expand his repertoire. But it’s his painting of the “Monkey Pecker,” a 1934 Ford coupe built by the famous Texan hot rodder Brian Bass, that puts a twinkle in his eye: “The metallic blue color was a challenge, and I think I succeeded in recreating it.”

At home in his dedicated studio-cum-office and library, Butterlin likes to paint and print to the rhythm of jazz, blues, Fifties Rockabilly or Western Swing, but he doesn’t find comfort in the familiar. Artistic technique, he believes, should evolve in response to the challenges that depicting different subjects presents.

“At the beginning, my paintings were darker, probably because I’m a fan of Renaissance painting, and chiaroscuro,” says Butterlin, whose apartment lies 18 miles from the Bugatti town, Molsheim. “I’m trying to bring more luminosity and complex lights into my paintings. My style has really evolved since working on a salt lake series a few months ago, but there is still a long way to go to get to where I want to be.”

Working from photographs, and often returning to images many years after he first captured them, Butterlin frequently combines several images that he has taken using Photoshop to compose the scene he has in mind.

“Sometimes I add what is missing, such as drivers and a background,” he says. “The photo is a starting point, on which I can rely, but from which I must escape. Once it is composed, I transfer it on the canvas, and start to paint. When the image is a composition from several photos, the light and the atmosphere is created while painting, as well as the speed effects.”

Butterlin hasn’t always lived for, nor tried to earn a living from, his automotive art. This journey began in 2019 when his ten-year tenure as editor-in-chief at the French hot rod and custom magazine, PowerGlide, came to an end in his mid-forties—an age he feels is particularly challenging in which to make a career change. It’s not been an “easy adventure” but with a degree from the Strasbourg School of Decorative Arts behind him, and years of experience working as a photographer and graphic designer, Butterlin channelled the same give-it-a-go attitude that compelled him to start drawing cars at the age of 14.

“In my teens, I fell in love with everything about the ’40s and ’50s and started to buy vintage and American car magazines. In a 1989 issue of the French magazine NITRO, there was an incredible article about the English Low-Flyers car club and the traditional ’40s hot rods they drove. It included a series of pictures that were shot at an airfield in the U.K.”

At this time, Butterlin feels, the hot rod scene was dominated by “’90s street rod crap,” which he says was characterized by garishly colored cars, digital dashboards, and billet aluminum wheels. “Seeing these guys with flat black flathead powered cars, low key in-progress hot rods, and wearing WWII jackets was a true revelation for me; I discovered the ’40s roots of hot rodding.”

Convincingly, Butterlin insists the act of building his own hot rods helps him to “paint them more easily”, and as he settles down to work on his current restoration project: a 1929 Ford roadster powered by a flathead V-8 that he keeps in a rented barn beside his Chevrolet-powered modified roadster. “I love the creativity that hot rodding offers,” he says, assuming a comfortable demeanor. “It’s a restoration job, like for any old car, but it leaves much more freedom and creativity.”

Whether it’s with a wrench, a paint brush, or a gouge, Butterlin will always find a way to channel his passion for these hopped-up ’n’ stripped-down cars.

Via Hagerty UK

The post Etienne Butterlin’s hyper-realistic hot rods dazzle in paint and ink appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The holidays are now in the rearview mirror, and 2022 is in the driver’s seat. Is it possible that you didn’t receive everything on your wish list? Fear not, because we’re making it easy for you to give yourself something special. As a Hagerty Drivers Club® member, you can save 20 percent on your purchases at The Shop with promo code DRIVENOW. Check out our Hagerty Gear at The Shop and start shopping!

Automotive Sticker Pack

This set of six vinyl decals feature backings that allow you to easily apply them to anything you think could use a little automotive flair. They also use an ultra-removable adhesive just in case you need to do some quick redecorating!

Fill ’Er Up Tumbler

Double-wall 18/8 stainless-steel thermal tumbler with vacuum insulation and clear acrylic push-on swivel lid. Features a fuel-gauge design reading Fill ’Er Up underneath. Top it off with a max of 20 ounces of fuel. Designed exclusively for The Shop by Hagerty.

Redline Rebuild Baseball Cap

Show your love for Davin Reckow and the Hagerty YouTube channel, Redline Rebuild, with this snazzy hat! Unstructured 6-panel black, washed chino twill cap, woven appliqué with black-satin-stitch border, and fabric strap with antique brass sliding buckle.

Barn Find Hunter Baseball Cap

Speaking of Hagerty YouTube channels, if you’re a fan of Tom Cotter and his series, Barn Find Hunter, you’ll want to check out this handsome hat. It’s perfect to wear, whether you’re out searching for hidden gems or just hanging out at home. Made of 100% cotton, this unstructured cap features a fabric closure and antique brass buckle grommet tuck-in.

Shift Happens T-shirt

An updated design of one of The Shop’s best sellers. Soft to touch and designed for versatile driving conditions. This short-sleeve tee is made of 100% combed ring-spun cotton, 30/1 fine jersey.

Driver/Backseat Driver Mug Set

Who will get which mug? We’ll leave that up to you decide! Either way, this set of two 12-oz, matte-grey stoneware mugs is sure to be a morning conversation starter. Hand wash recommended.

The post Give yourself the gift of cool Hagerty gear from The Shop appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Step into the home, office, or even garage of any passionate gearhead and you’ll likely find the walls are dotted with rare posters and artworks for all manner of automotive culture. The chances are, many of those collectibles could have come from one dealer, Paul Veysey.

Over 30 years Veysey has amassed an astonishing collection of 3000 vintage car and movie posters and established a successful business buying and selling artwork online and at motoring events.

Now planning his retirement at 70, Veysey is selling the lot, offering automobilia and film fans the chance to add to their collections at reduced rates.

Pay a visit to drivepast.com and you’ll find an extraordinary range of posters from obscure Russian racing flicks, to ’20s temptresses including The Speeding Venus, gloriously gaudy ’50s B-movies like Guns, Girls and Gangsters, as well as major Hollywood hits such as Bullitt or the Cannonball Run. In amongst them there are fabulous road and racing foldouts featuring cars from Alfa to Volvo. It’s a treasure trove of awesome illustration and terrific typography that tells the parallel stories of cinema and the automobile through wonderful imagery.

The story of how Veysey gathered his collection and formed Drive Past began when his wife Helen bought him a “British quad”—the standard film poster size in the U.K.—of Checkpoint.

“It was a rather wonderful movie, starring James Robinson Justice, and had all sorts of terrific graphics on the poster, and the thing that appealed to me was the motor racing content, which was based around the Targa Florio and James Robertson Justice with a team of racing Lagondas,” says Veysey.

“I started to fossick around and see what else I could find. I found a couple of other bits and pieces, and mostly by a process of osmosis sucked in a great deal of information quite quickly. I soon knew what some of the pitfalls of buying posters were, in terms the rules that movie posters from various countries comply with, in terms of size and shape. So I just went on and on and soon I had several hundred of these things. I wasn’t restricting myself to any particular country because, in fact, some of the greatest graphics come from places like Belgium in the ’50s, France in the ’20s up to the ’60s, America in the in the ’50s and Britain, up until the time when photography and CG took over. So really my collection started at the dawn of cinematic time and ran up to the early 1970s.”

Alongside selling posters online and in person at events, Veysey wrote a book, Motor Movies the Posters, (you can buy a copy from Drive Past or elsewhere online) which traces motor racing and the motor car in movies from the birth of cinema and the motorcar. “I believe it sold both copies,” he quips, downplaying an expertise honed through decades of research, using the skills he previously deployed in a broadcasting and journalism career.

Veysey’s collection is eclectic but there is a common theme. “It’s always been the artwork for me, and whilst I’d prefer those that contain motoring content, I’m sure as hell not going to turn down aviation or the bad girl movies from the States in the ’50s, because that’s where some of the most terrific artwork lies.”

For anyone starting or adding to a collection, prices of posters and artworks range from less than a hundred dollars to several thousand. But, says Veysey, the most important thing is to “buy what you like” and make sure it’s the real deal.

“Once you’ve established what you like, talk to somebody who knows what they’re doing, so that when buying what you like, if you can afford and want an original, you make sure that’s what you’re getting.”

While, of course, there is nothing wrong with buying reproductions to decorate your home, Veysey warns that checking the quality and provenance of posters that are claimed to be original is of utmost importance as there are fakes around.

“I had two guys, both absolutely loaded, come to me on my stand at Goodwood and say ‘Look what I bought.’ And they were fakes. In one case I had the same original poster on the stand for considerably less than he paid for his fake.”

The most important features to look for when assessing originality are size, paper quality, folds, and smell, explains Veysey. “It means breaking it down to its component molecules, checking sizes, checking paper quality, checking smell, checking fold vines, because it was only really from the ’80s onwards, that posters weren’t folded to go to the cinema. And a lot of people who are buying posters don’t really understand that.”

At one Le Mans Classic Veysey was on his stand with a very rare Fangio biopic film poster on display, and its authenticity was called into question by no less than Adolfo Orsi of the family that owned Maserati. “It never really made it out of Argentina. The Argentinian poster is a magnificent piece of stone litho work, with Fangio driving a Maserati. In 30 years, I’ve seen maybe four posters. Adolfo Orsi was on my stand and buying couple of things and he kept eyeing up the Fangio poster and he said ‘I did not know there was another one of those.’ This is one of the world’s foremost collectors of motor racing material. He took some convincing, it was a question of deconstructing and filling in the paper color showing in the folds and allowing him to smell it. Smell is a terrific thing, because paper being usually quite coarse, picks up smell of the past.”

Although Veysey is now retiring and selling the remaining 1500-or-so posters he has curated over the years, he says that he plans to continue to offer sourcing—and his nose for authentication—to collectors.

The post Perfect poster art: A veteran collector’s guide to getting started appeared first on Hagerty Media.

I often get accused (rightfully) of being a fanatic of communist cars. That’s obviously true … but not exclusively so! I’m a crazed fan of any automobile with a good story, and the more obscure, the better. This attitude attracts far too many immobile objects with non-existent spare parts into my possession, and I struggle to keep a single-digit inventory. The whole collecting thing, luckily, started small.  Ask my parents about the 55-gallon drum full of garage-sale Hot Wheels, Matchbox, and Majorette cars in their attic. Actually, don’t; you’ll be roped into trying to convince me to reclaim them.

In parallel, books started to wend their way into the picture. First was a Japanese catalog of every single car built globally in 1991, which my father brought back from a business trip to Tokyo. After that, in first grade, came a Lamborghini book, followed by a photographic history of Ford from 1946–1990. Interest turned into obsession by way of my first real paid job, in eighth grade: organizing a shed full of 1960–1970s car magazines for $5 an hour. In comparison to toy cars, the information density per square inch proved vastly higher. Overall content of obscurity on the bookshelf can far exceed what can be parked in one’s garage, or in my current case, driveway, friend’s garage, warehouse, or farm. I’d like to provide for you, dear reader, a brief window in to my car book collection. It should surprise nobody that the contents are mostly communist or Australian in origin, and nearly always valued at under $5.

Right now, my display method here in Germany is a simple iron shelf. Several boxes and shelves are, embarrassingly, still in my parents’ attic (next to the matchbox cars). The first book on hand, however, is one of my favorites: Lehrbuch für den Berufskraftfahrer (Learning Book for the Professional Driver) published in East Berlin in 1964. I found this in a flea market in the city’s Soviet quarter. The technical content is quite advanced for what the title suggests. It’s really a Cliffs Notes to the entire automobile, truck, and bus using a a very broad range of progressive technical examples. The best parts of the publication—by a large margin—are the illustrations within. Each vehicle is fictitious and meticulously drawn as conjured up by the illustrator. From the relevant details of how a two-stroke three-cylinder motor works (pertinent to Wartburg and Barkas ownership) to the driveline layouts of an imaginary finned bus with a mid-mounted flat-eight, it’s all here.

Next up is a book from Prague circa 1966, called Motorove Opojeni (Motor Intoxication). I found this by wandering into the warehouse of an online-only bookstore in Prague. After a few minutes of help from an employee I was browsing their collection on a desktop PC and easily filled my cart. It’s a bit tough to understand the target audience for this book, given the number of illustrations of child-like characters involved. Either it’s a study book for Czech MENSA-4-Kidz or some odd folk art preference. Either way, the content is bonkers. Especially fascinating are the pages showing the Cars of the World, including some practically un-Googleable Chinese stuff and an unusually progressive selection of American iron, considering the times. Also worth a look is the broad Japanese section.

On a separate trip to Prague, some years earlier, I had accidentally withdrawn about $600 worth of Czech Korunas from the hotel ATM thanks to a bit of extra zero-carrying in my exchange rate calculation. With this wad of cash in hand, my buddy and I figured we’d look for an old Skoda Favorit to buy and perhaps export. (Naturally.) Better than eating the exchange fee twice, am I right? At a local bar, we asked where we could find a neighborhood with old Skodas in it. After the waiter marked up our tourist map and we followed it for an hour and a half, we arrived at an old school, or Skola. ONE letter off—damn you translation error! On the way back, we stumbled into a book store that had me filling a backpack with old service manuals for Polski/Fiat 125, Moskvich 408, Lada Zhigulis, and various Skodas. Inside of many of the books are large, fold-out cutaways of mechanical and structural components ideal for framing. Right now that project is waiting on wall space. I still ended up carrying about $540 worth of Korunas home.

Back to the U.S. book markets. I was at the NASCAR Watkins Glen race and a friend of mine went to the book store of the Glen Motor Museum and I found this gem. After seeing my two most significant automotive market crushes in print, Australian and Russian, I had to move on it. One was a 1984 year-in-review of the Aussie auto industry. As the then-owner of a 1984 Aussie Falcon ute, 1971 Aussie Valiant, and a 1987 Holden Commodore. A few rows down was a 1958 global auto industry review, including an overview of the new all-aluminum Soviet GAZ Volga V8 and the line of 1958 utes (think Aussie El Camino) produced down under. Does it get any better?! Only if you read them with a glass of Finger Lakes wine on an astro-turfed patio at the iconic Glen Motor Inn.

On to Zagreb, Croatia, where the finds get even more bizarre. First off is Opis Samavoza, or “Description of the Self-Propelled Vehicle” in English. Printed in Zagreb in 1944, this book was allegedly banned and few copies exist. Or at least that’s the convincing story the fellow in the book store spun me. Even more curious is the Belgrade, Serbia minted Šta šofer-mehaničar treba da zna o automobilu, or “What a Driver-Mechanic Needs to Know about a Car,” if English is your language. But why on earth is there a brand-new 1946 Buick on the cover?! A little research suggests that Buick was an exhibitor at the Belgrade Auto Show of 1938, so perhaps the efforts continued post-war.

In other areas of obscure automotive media, I also am equally incapable of denying myself. I once asked a hotel if I could buy an Italian magazine out of their display case, because it had an ad for a Chinese truck that wasn’t even available in that market. A Yugo Florida brochure? I’ll gladly give 2 Euros plus 3 more for shipping. Forty-eight full-size Citroën and Porsche dealer posters from the early ’80s that I found in a barn in France? Totally powerless against it. A bunch of Russian how-to books featuring Ladas and Volgas discovered in a pile of car parts in Lithuania? It’s all packing material for my Moskvich roof rack, as far as I’m concerned, and much more of it is in the gallery below. My library will continue to expand—as long as it can be artfully displayed and reduces my overall project car count!

The post The only thing weirder than my obscure cars? My obscure car books appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Many Hot Wheels fans say that playing with the 1/64-scale models as kids sparked a lifelong love of cars and, for some, an automotive career. In Somerset, England, Lee Johnstone took the opposite route. The winner of the 2021 Hot Wheels Legends Tour, Johnstone didn’t play with the tiny hotrods as a kid, because he was 18 and in technical college when the first batch from Mattel hit store shelves in 1968.

Johnstone’s winning car is an utterly unique 1969 Volvo 1800S coupe that he built into a berserko 10-second gasser named “Ain’t No Saint.” The high-riding hot rod will soon become the next addition to the Hot Wheels Legends Garage line for all fans to enjoy. (A gasser built around a 1968 Mercedes sedan was one of the top finalists in this year’s Legends Tour.)

Hot Wheels Legends judges, which include brand executives as well as top car designers and customizers, make their choices based on “authenticity, creativity, and garage spirit.” Johnstone’s wild Volvo buries the needle on all three counts. His gasser is the culmination of nearly three decades of building and racing experience, much of it while limited by a tight budget. The Volvo is also a kind of celebration of British pop culture.

Who’s the Saint you say this ain’t?

Hot Wheels appeal to ages four to 104, give or take. Depending on where you fall within that range, the significance of Johnstone’s car and its catchy name might not be immediately apparent. He acknowledges that many might take it to mean “don’t mess with me,” and that’s fine with him. Its real meaning, though, is rooted in television.

For many car buffs around the world, the sporty little Volvo P1800 coupe, built from 1962-1973 (as the 1800ES sport wagon for the final two years), instantly recalls memories of watching The Saint a global TV hit that originally ran from 1962–1969. Syndication and streaming in later years grew the show’s fan base.

Roger Moore played the lead role of dapper do-gooder Simon Templar, an urbane and mostly reformed conman, jewel thief, and safecracker character created by author Leslie Charteris. Known affectionately or derisively as The Saint by either side of the law, Templar always seemed to be in the right place at the right time to help right a wrong.

He drove a white Volvo 1800 throughout the series, and the car became as tightly linked with the character as the Aston Martin DB5 did with James Bond in the same period. (Moore would go on to play Bond in the ‘70s and ’80s.) The graphic on the side of Johnstone’s car is based on the one seen in the show’s distinctive opening and closing credit sequences.

In another British connection, the Volvo P1800 had been assembled under contract for its first two years by Jensen Motors, a company perhaps most famous for its Chrysler V-8-powered Interceptor luxury GT. After 1963, production moved to Volvo’s home base in Sweden, and the model name changed to 1800S. (Corgi Toys offered a 1/64 model of “The Saint” Volvo.)

It’s a gas, gas, gasser

But enough Volvo history. What drove a British auto mechanic from Somerset to turn this one into a gasser? Essentially, it was for the same reason that a person climbs a mountain: Because it was there. Back in 2013, Johnstone was looking to get back on the drag strip with his own car after being an engine builder for others for many years.

“I started looking for a typical American gasser-type vehicle,” he tells Hagerty. “But the rolling shells I found were priced too high for me. I’d about given up looking, then I was skimming eBay and came across the Volvo. The seller had bought it to restore but found that would be too expensive. He was about to send it to the scrapyard.”

Johnstone picked up the shell for 800 British pounds, or about $1300 at the time. While it easily steals the show wherever it goes, “Ain’t No Saint” was built to race by Johnstone and friend Steven Wright, who also provided the workshop space and the trailer. Conveniently, an old RV that Wright was planning to scrap supplied its big-block Chevy. More help came from Wright’s son-in-law, Steven Spiller.

The Chevy is fed by dual Holley Demon four-barrel carburetors and a 6-71 supercharger, among other speed parts. This unsaintly Volvo logged its quickest time so far, 10.01 seconds at 133 mph, in September 2021 at the NSRA Hot Rod Drags at Santa Pod Raceway in Podington, Bedfordshire, U.K.

“That’s pretty damn good considering it’s an all-metal car and weighs about 3000 pounds,” says Johnstone.

Draggin’ Jag

The Volvo is not Johnstone’s first drag race car. He’d gotten his first look at the sport in 1967. After a few years of watching the races, he and a buddy decided to build their own car. They began by dropping an old Jaguar six-cylinder engine in a Ford Popular chassis. “You could buy old Jag engines for 30 pounds in those days,” Johnstone recalls.

Initially, they draped it with the fiberglass body of a Rochdale Olympic, one of Britain’s many “boutique” cars of the ‘60s, with about 250 made. The body, though, which was designed as a monocoque with steel subframes and other reinforcements, proved too heavy. The fledgling racers found a shop that was making lightweight fiberglass Fiat Topolino bodies for drag racers and bought one for 60 pounds.

“We began racing in 1972, but the car was a bit of a dog. We had a lot to learn,” Johnstone says.

The car continually evolved, getting a tube frame and a supercharger in 1974. The final version in the ’80s replaced the Jag mill with a Chevy and ran mid 8s at over 150 mph. When the car finally became “out of tag” (obsoleted out of the rules) Johnstone and his racing partner divided it up, each taking some of its pieces.

Johnstone later started working as a builder and tuner for racer Bob Glassup, who was running a wild Topolino fuel altered in nostalgia drags. That car ran low 6s at just under 200 mph.

Garage spirit

The Volvo build began with cutting. “We stripped it out and cut out some of the front end to fit the Chevy,” explains Johnstone. “We built it up and got a 6-71 blower, and had to make an adaptor plate and manifold.”

Other elements came into play by experimentation. “We didn’t really design the car, we just kept working on it, trying different things until we got it the way we wanted. Once we got it past being a rolling shell, it was just a matter of getting everything to fit and work. We wanted to keep it old-school gasser, where you kind of thread a chassis into the shell.”

The front beam axle and suspension came from a scrapyard Leyland Sherpa van, and a Ford 9-inch rear replaced the Volvo’s axle but kept the stock spring perches. The stance seems exaggerated, even for a gasser, but that’s not as the builders originally envisioned.

“It’s a bit higher than we anticipated,” says Johnstone. “We thought the heavy engine would sink the Sherpa’s springs a few inches, but they moved less than an inch. We ended up liking the result.”

The Volvo retains its original window hardware and some original glass, but a few purists have given Johnstone grief over cutting the car. “I just tell them, if we hadn’t done it, the body was going to the scrapyard.”

A friend with a paint shop gave the Volvo its green shade. “We tried to match it so we wouldn’t have to repaint the inside of the boot and the door jambs,” says Johnstone, also offering that “Ain’t No Saint” was not the first name they considered.

“We built the car in Wellington, so we were going to call it the ‘Wellington Bomber,’” he says, as an homage to the British WWII bomber. “We were going to make a fuel tank that looked like a bomb with fins, but then thought the idea was silly.”

11 seconds on the first go

Fresh off the build, “Ain’t No Saint” ran 11s in the quarter-mile. Further tweaking got it into the high 10s at 125 mph and then even faster.

“We kept at it,” says Johnstone. “We switched the carbs, got a better 6-71 blower and knocked off more time and added more speed. We wanted to make it easy to maintain so that it just needed a cool-off period between rounds.”

Johnstone eventually bought out Wright’s share in the car but continued to use his workshop and bought his own old RV to tow the Volvo. He made “Ain’t No Saint” a family project with his three daughters, who each take turns racing it.

In 2021, Johnstone and family ran the Volvo it at three major English events: Dragstalgia, the NSRA Nostalgia Nationals and the NSRA Hot Rod Drags. All took place at Santa Pod.

Fast lane to fame

With five seasons of racing behind it, “Ain’t No Saint” had built up a local following and more fans on social media. “Lots of people had been urging us to enter the Hot Wheels Legends, but  we just never looked into it,” says Johnstone.

Then, he says, just before the end of the 2021 season, a pop-up ad on his phone announced a pending deadline for the European leg of the Tour. He and his crew made a quick video and were able to use photos that a Hot Wheels photographer took at the Nostalgia Nats.

“We sent in our package, not expecting much. And then came word that we’d won.”

Since then, Johnstone says the car has become an even wider celebrity, and even a kind of bad-boy British hero—not unlike The Saint himself.

***

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The post Ain’t No Saint: How a scrapyard-bound Volvo drove the fast lane to Hot Wheels fame appeared first on Hagerty Media.

There’s a damp patch about half way through the long left-hander. Hitting it at full throttle the Ferrari briefly goes into a four-wheel drift and, for just a second or so, I picture myself as Phil Hill, sawing at the Nardi steering wheel and bracing myself as the lateral forces threaten to eject me from the open cockpit.

In my head I’m doing at least 100 mph, heroically handling one of the most successful Prancing Horses of the 1950s and 1960s, but in reality things are a little less dramatic. Twenty-five percent less, to be accurate, because the Ferrari 250 TR I’m driving is a three-quarter scale replica which is also about 100 percent quieter than the real deal.

This is the Ferrari Testarossa J (shorthand for Junior), built for Ferrari by England’s The Little Car Company, which is already making six Bugatti Baby IIs every week and will soon be assembling the Aston Martin DB5 Junior at a workshop which sits alongside a whole host of classic car companies at Bicester Heritage near Oxford.

Founder Ben Hedley explains that, just like the cars built for Bugatti and Aston Martin, the Ferrari has been designed to replicate the original 1957 Testarossa as closely as possible. Using drawings supplied by Ferrari and 3D scans, the chassis was recreated at 75 percent size, the aluminum bodywork was hand-formed and the Colombo V-12 was … replaced by a 12kW electric motor.

Don’t mistake this for some kind of Power Wheels-style kids’ toy though. The Testarossa J is fully approved by Ferrari, signed off by its test drivers and sold as a Ferrari. Of course, there is also a Ferrari price tag starting at over $100,000.

“We sent the first two prototypes to Maranello and said ‘What do you think?’” says Hedley. “They were blown away. They phoned up said they loved it. One of the board members said, ‘We thought you’d bring us a toy, but you brought us a little car.’ The only changes they asked for were a couple of minor amends to the dash, and they asked to take our badge off it. That’s the best compliment we could be paid.”

Like any Ferrari the Testarossa J can be individualized through the company’s Atelier scheme, with both modern and classic paint hues on offer, alongside a range of different colored hides for the interior and the choice of real Borrani wire wheels.

Just 299 are to be made and Ferrrari’s top customers were given early access, although unlike the limited edition Icona models you don’t have to be an existing customer to buy one.

Designed and built by engineers with backgrounds in motorsports and electric vehicles, from companies such as Ariel and McLaren Racing, it shouldn’t be surprising that Testarossa J is beautifully put together, and yet somehow it’s still strange to see a car so small and yet so perfectly formed.

The attention to detail goes as far as perfecting not just the shape of the tail lights, but even the exact design of frosting. The dashboard mimics the 250 TR’s, down to the font used for the numbers on the dials, but there are also nods to the Ferrari of today. The adjustable pedals come from the F8 Tributo, the suspension is by Bilstein coilovers, while brakes are Brembo discs and the period-correct tires are by Pirelli.

There’s also a manettino to switch between drive modes with Novice restricting power to just 1 kW and speed to 12 mph, Comfort allowing 4 kW and 28 mph, while Sport and Race unleash the full 12 kW, but my test car falls just a little short. A development mule with over 2000 miles on the clock it has 10 kW on tap, which should be good for about 45 mph.

Getting in requires detaching the quick-release Nardi wheel, climbing over the side and trying not to step on the hand-stitched leather seat. I shuffle down and settle in, only now noticing the large bolster cushion to my right.

“You’ll need that,” smiles Hedley.

To start I click the rotary gear selector on the dash to the right to go forwards and then release the fly-off hydraulic handbrake. The track is a short anti-clockwise circuit on an old airfield with a quarter-mile straight, swift left handers and a chicane.

My first few laps are for photos, taken at around 25 mph in Comfort mode, and with no helmet on, as you can probably see from my expression, the aero screen doesn’t do much to deflect the wind. Everything is to scale, except the driver so I’m fully in the airflow and rather keen to put my full-face Bell lid on. Even with the limited power, though the Testarossa J feels pretty lively from a standstill. It also steers and rides in a far more grown up manner than I expected.

Helmet on and Race mode selected it’s time to go full Phil (or three-quarters Phil anyway). Like all electric cars the Testarossa J has rapid, linear acceleration and it’s a matter of a few seconds before the little red sleigh is maxed out on the straight. The brakes have a solid pedal feel and do their job well—perhaps a little too well; for the first few laps I over-slow going into the corners, quickly discovering I could carry far more speed in and out. As my confidence builds so does my corner speed, to the point where I’m leaning hard into the bolster cushion just as Hedley said I would.

This really is a remarkably well sorted thing. A proper little race car. With a rollcage and harness in development, the prospect of a grid full of young guns battling for glory is very appealing. Watch this space, says Hedley.

The Ferrari Testarossa J may be a plaything for rich girls and boys, but a toy it most certainly is not.

The post This $100,000 Ferrari Testarossa J is definitely no toy appeared first on Hagerty Media.

What is it about toys that puts a twinkle in our eye and a smile on our face? Mattel asked one of its Hot Wheels designers, along with three collaborators, for insight into that question. Their three-minute perspective about “Why We Collect” is the first chapter in a new video series called Creator Stories.

 

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“The real reason people collect toys is, even as adults, they give us something to remember about the past,” says Kayoko Takahashi, owner of Spiral Toys in Japan. “I think collecting toys nourishes your heart.”

Hot Wheels staff sculptor Manson Cheung says toys make us feel good not only because of the nostalgic aspect but also because they offer us, in miniature form, the opportunity to own something we can’t have in real life.

“Everybody’s first car is most likely Hot Wheels,” Cheung says. “People come up to me at conventions and say, ‘I can’t afford the real sports car, but I have all the versions of this tiny car.’”

Rebecca Shipman, lead designer for the Monster High doll franchise, says it’s about holding onto to the joy of childhood. “When you see these toys, they bring back happy memories … It’s like the eternal kid that lives inside you wants to look at cool things and cool characters that speak to you.”

Japanese artist and sculptor Madsaki agrees. He says many people hang onto their toys so they can reach back and experience that youthful wonder all over again.

“If you have toys with you up until this time, there’s a sense that you can be a child all the time—your inner child,” he says. “That’s what a good toy does.”

The post Why do we collect toys? Mattel designers and collaborators provide some answers appeared first on Hagerty Media.

It’s rude to stare, but that’s exactly what artist Heidi Mraz wants you to do. Her car collages, made from thousands of tiny fragments of paper torn from magazines and manuals, are puzzles of information that when pieced together tell the story of the vehicle they depict.

When seen from afar, they take on the guise of a complex cubist portrait, but up close, the organized chaos of cuttings (that can be as little as 3mm) reveal themselves to be both written and visual snippets of history. This transformation, as the viewer becomes “actively engaged,” is when the magic happens, teases Mraz. It’s when her art becomes artifact, and if the rumors are true, the first look can even give you goosebumps.

“The human mind has a great capacity for making connections, so a subject may release or trigger a memory,” explains the Virginia-based art director turned automotive artist. “I’ve always had a thirst for context,” she continues. “When I’m drawn to a car I want to know more; who designed it, what its purpose was, why it has certain characteristics and who owned it. My mission is to share what I learn with others, using art as the vehicle, so that those stories live on.”

Your challenge, she adds, is to find the itsy-bitsy self-portrait that she’s hidden in each of her intricate collages, and when her current work in progress is complete, which spans the width of small parking space, it’ll make for one epic “Where’s Heidi?” game of hide-and-seek.

Before she’ll even contemplate any cut-and-paste activities, more than half of Mraz’s time is spent investigating a car’s past in official archives as well as libraries and online. She also photographs and sketches the vehicle’s form from different angles in order to study the way in which its design responds to light and shadow. These observations—particularly useful if the vehicle is black—are then used to make sure she places certain colors and shapes in the right place to give her collages their realistic sense of depth.

With a substantial paper trail giving validity to each of her automotive assemblages, it’s the human stories that are woven into them that make them particularly fascinating. “I talk to anyone who had access to the car and tend to ask questions to conjure up visceral memories,” says Mraz. “I’m always humbled when people open their homes or garages to share their stories, my life is so much richer because of this part of the artistic process.”

It was while creating a bold, and slightly haunting, collage that pays tribute to the mythical “Lady of the Lake”, a 1925 Bugatti Type 22 Brescia Roadster that was lost to the waters of Lake Maggiore for almost 75 years, that Mraz experienced a life-changing encounter. Comprising over 1500 hand-cut clues, including a scuba suit and a photograph that was taken when the car was exhumed, it took her 18 months to complete.

“There was so much myth surrounding the vehicle, so I decided to visit Switzerland,” says Mraz, who discovered the Bugatti’s story was tied to the tragic death of a young man. To establish a charitable foundation in his honor, the Bugatti was raised from the lake in 2009 and auctioned off. In 2019, the boy’s father agreed to dive to the bottom of the lake holding an ink-covered canvas Mraz had prepared for her collage so that the water could wash away some of the color, as it had washed away part of the car.

“It was a very emotional and powerful moment when I handed him the canvas,” says Mraz.  “As he went under, the canvas swayed to and fro, like the dance of a prima ballerina, down, down, down until they disappeared into the depths. Mauricio, was under water for quite some time. When he finally came up and broke the surface, the clock tower chimed 10:00, which was the same time nearly 10 years to the day when the Bugatti had been raised. It was an honor to celebrate his son’s life on this day, and in my art. I hope that I have done justice to his legacy.”

It’s Mraz’s mother who highlighted her gift for storytelling when she was a little girl, and in the same way that the basic structure of a narrative consists of a beginning, middle and an end, so too do the layers of her collages—the first tells the story of the marque, the second the model, and the third, and final, the people.

Using a dot of glue or a magnet to temporarily position each piece until she’s happy with the overall composition—an unenviable task when nothing matches in color, shape, or size—Mraz then permanently fastens them with an adhesive that she feels “helps authenticate the story I’m trying to tell.” In the past this has included nails, rivets, resin, concrete, plaster and most recently, steel entomology pins. The latter was employed to fasten over 1000 paper butterflies in place “just as entomologists would do with real specimens” after Mraz chose them as her medium of choice to depict the iconic Porsche 917Ks, chassis number #022. Why? “Both the 917 and the butterfly are lightweight, and each needed to undergo a metamorphosis in order to mature,” she reveals.

It was driving the autobahn as a passenger in her father’s car at the age of seven “going faster than I knew cars could go” that ignited Mraz’s passion for automotive, and the opportunity to exhibit at a weekly cars and coffee meet two blocks from her home in Great Falls, Virginia, that inspired her to explore the art of snipping and sticking as a means of speaking to car enthusiasts in a unique and meaningful way. The result, she concludes is “part eye candy, part history and part hide-and-seek.”

Via Hagerty UK

The post These stirring car collages craft story through organized chaos appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Frank Lloyd Wright, the master of mid-century modern architecture, was a total gearhead. Among more than 80 cars he owned during his life were machines by Bentley, Cord, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, and Cadillac, and he famously said, “A car is not a horse, and it doesn’t need a barn.” Instead, Wright was a proponent of the “car port,” integrating into his architecture a special space for the automobile.

Many have followed, as exemplified in a wonderful new book by design writers Thijs Demeulemeester and Bert Voet, appropriately titled Carchitecture Houses with Horsepower. It’s a celebration of what happens when the two great skills of building design and car design come together, with page after page of glorious pictures of machines and structures, along with fascinating essays on topics such as why the Saab was the perfect architects’ car. You’ll have to buy the book to find the answer, but in the meantime we’ve highlighted the car homes that we covet the most.

Japan

In Takamatsu, Japan, a client of FujiwaraMuro architects had an unusual request. He wanted his home to be as private as possible, except for the garage, which he wanted to be clearly visible from the street, and from inside the house as well. The result is the minimalist masterpiece in white, shown in the feature image at the top of this story and also in the above photo.

Belgium

The sunken garage of this modern home in Kempusche Vaart, Belgium, features a glass ceiling so that the owner’s Porsche 356 Speedster replica can be viewed from the comfort of his living room.

Israel

This light-manipulating box in Tel Aviv is called “In Praise of Shadows,” but it could just as easily be “In Praise of SLs,” as the integrated garage features a glass wall that allows the owner to view his car as the light streams across it.

Texas

Texas-based Matt Fajkus Architecture created this amazing home with a huge cantilevered living space providing car port shelter for the owner’s classics, together with a huge garage that takes up almost half of the ground floor.

Belgium

We’re loving the color matching of the industrial mesh frontage with the little VW Karmann Ghia that lives in the car port of this studio in Bruges, Belgium, created by BASIL Architecture.

Belgium

Built for a Belgian Maserati dealer, it’s no surprise that this home by architect Dieter Vander Velpen has a very special space to display the owner’s Maserati Mexico.

The Netherlands

The owner of this Tesla Roadster will have no trouble locating a plug to charge his car as this home in Arnhem, The Netherlands, shows the car driving right into the living room. The house was converted from an old industrial unit by Rotterdam’s Studio OxL.

New York

Finally, here’s a home by the man who started it all, Frank Lloyd Wright. Designed in 1951 for 26-year-old Roland Reisley in Usonia, New York, the amazing angular wood-lined roof extends to protect the owner’s Mercedes-Benz 300. Reisley still lives there, but we don’t know if the Benz does.

The post The intersection of cars and architecture is where we’d love to live appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Editor’s note: In the interests of preserving the authentic whiff of petrol that pervades this remarkable story from our U.K. colleagues, we have made only slight concessions to an American lexicon. All quotations remain untouched.

Alan Pooley’s pursuit of petroliana was purely sentimental, but the collection of more than 500 automotive artifacts that he amassed during three decades of buying for love not money is so remarkable that it could fetch up to £65,000 (roughly $88,600) at auction. Including over 250 oil cans, 60 two-gallon fuel canisters, and dozens of enamel signs, oilers, and pourers, it is set to go under the hammer later this year.

“The important thing about this collection is that it is completely fresh to the market, but the exciting bit about it is that no one really knew about it,” says Tom Godsmark, an associate and vintage specialist at Cheffins auction house, the agency managing the sale.

“It’s a big collection in terms of scale, but it’s the extensiveness that’s so interesting because it ranges from little items such as lapel badges, old match boxes, and advertising pencils for Rudge bicycles to a fully restored petrol pump.”

Among the pieces which the late Mr. Pooley carefully stored, restored, and displayed in sheds at his home in Norfolk is a two-gallon fuel can that, to the untrained eye, stands out because of the large lightning bolt and bold lettering embossed on its side. Those in the know will recognize it as one of the few surviving examples of a limited-edition run of Shell Racing cans that were produced in the 1930s. With an estimated value of £400 to £600 (approximately $545–$818), it’s one of the rarest pieces of memorabilia to have been discovered in its original condition.

An automotive body finisher by profession, Alan, who passed away in 2020, was equipped with the skills and patience to rejuvenate items in a state of distress and spent a great deal of his spare time doing so. “It could be quite a long process, but he was a master of the art and was able to bring them back up to a really good standard, it gave him a huge buzz,” explains Alan’s partner, Karin Burleigh.

His penchant for rescuing fuel canisters from ruin (originally known as “motor spirit” cans) extended to vessels produced by the Scottish Oil Agency, Mobiloil, Alexander Duckham & Co Ltd, and Anglos Taxibus Spirit. “If it wasn’t for him, some of those cans wouldn’t be in existence anymore, they would have just rusted into a little heap on the floor,” says Burleigh, who considers the “best” of the three sheds Mr. Pooley used to house his automotive memorabilia is the one in which he arranged his favorite pieces—on every available surface.

From to floor to ceiling—where oil pourers, Shell-branded hard hats, and Castrol Racing baseballs caps hung on hooks that he had fastened into the timber beams supporting the roof—Alan had curated his own at-home exhibition that showcased the containers, canisters, tins, tools, and signs that he treasured the most. “You name it, it was all there,” says Godsmark. “My first thought was Crikey! I imagine he liked going in there and just admiring it. I suspect it was a bit of a sanctuary for him.”

As a boy, Burleigh reveals, Alan cherished the time he spent with his grandfather, and as a man, the tools and Francis-Barnett water cycle that he inherited from him held huge nostalgic value. It’s this relationship and those heirlooms—which are not for sale—that she believes sparked Alan’s passion for automobilia and subsequent apprehensiveness to let any of it go. “He may have sold one or two things, but the majority stayed here,” she says. “Looking at the collection it looks like we spent our whole time at boot sales and auto jumbles, but honestly, we didn’t.”

With so many items in need of a new home, the collection will be divided into lots and auctioned gradually so as not to flood the market. “Collectibles such as gas pumps, fuel advertisements, enamel or tin signs are continually seeing a growth in value as the market continues to gather pace,” says Godsmark. “Values can be hugely varied, ranging from a few hundred pounds for a good example of an oil can right up into the tens of thousands for the best of class in petrol pumps.”

Of the six vintage motorcycles found in Mr. Pooley’s collection, Godsmark tips the 1937 499cc Norton Model 18 and 1966 649cc 650SS Norton as the ones likely to attract the highest bidders due to their condition, low mileage, and thorough documentation.

Making the decision to part with Mr. Pooley’s collection has been incredibly difficult for his three grandsons, who were entrusted with its care upon his passing, and the family’s biggest hope is that each of the items will find their way to “someone who will love it like Alan did.”

Via Hagerty UK

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There are mind-boggling world records—like the 3:43.13 mile that Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj ran in 1999—and then there are those that leave you scratching your head and wondering, “Wait, are you sure?” This one sent us down a rabbit hole.

We recently came across a video suggesting that in February 2021 a pair of filmmakers set a “new world record” by completing 10 loop-the-loops with a Hot Wheels car, using only gravity to propel the diecast toy. To date, the video has received an astonishing 2.6 million views. However, only two months later in India, Rohan and Rahul Dayal matched the number of loops, and last week the Guinness Book of World Records recognized the brothers as the record holders.

Guinness did not mention the previous 10-loop feat, which is bad enough, but then we stumbled upon a third video, posted in May 2021 by Sonic Zoom Tracks in Malaysia, which shows several Hot Wheels cars completing 12 loops. Odd, right? It gets odder.

None of those three Hot Wheels loop-the-loops is remotely close to the actual record documented in a fourth video. Posted in December 2020, it shows Andrew Scorgie and his son, Jordan, constructing and testing a track that starts on the roof of the family’s home and includes 36 loop-the-loops before it reaches the ground. After some initial failures and adjustments, all 36 loops are successfully negotiated by one of Jordan’s Hot Wheels.

Aside from the obvious confusion about who holds the world record—Guinness has not responded to our request for clarification—another question arose. Theoretically, couldn’t the Hot Wheels loop-the-loop record be broken over and over and over simply by maintaining the same angle and increasing the height and length of the track?

Probably.

“There is not a realistic inherent physical limit as to how many loops you can do,” says Paul Hosmer, Associate Professor of Physics at Michigan’s Hillsdale College. “It is more of an engineering, quality-control, and time-management issue, not an inherent limitation of physics.

“In the videos it appears that the car goes at an approximately constant velocity all the way, which indicates that various things like friction, drag, and energy losses into the track are helping to moderate its speed … So as is, I would think the loops could be added almost indefinitely.”

Hosmer adds, “If you made the track and cars differently, with lower friction and reduced drag, and probably if the track was not as flexible so it didn’t dissipate some of the energy through flexing, then you might attain higher and higher speed, and then perhaps some high-speed considerations might come into play … But as long as the speed is basically constant, you just aren’t going to run into any of these issues.”

As for the Scorgies’ apparent record of 36 loop-the-loops, Andrew Scorgie mentioned in the comment section of his video that he applied for Guinness Book of World Records verification long ago. Six months ago, in fact. By the time Guinness gets around to recognizing that record, a new one may have already been established.

One thing is certain: Hosmer won’t be the one to do it.

“Given my experience with Hot Wheels tracks as a child,” the professor says, “I would not have the patience.”

The post This crazy Hot Wheels story may leave you feeling loopy appeared first on Hagerty Media.

After wowing attendees for more than two years, the fabulously curated Hollywood Dream Machines exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum was packed up to make room for yet another display of silver screen legends. Bond in Motion, which opens September 25, lets fans of the most famous British special agent get up close and personal with more than two dozen vehicles used by Bond, or his ill-fated antagonists, over the course of 25 films.

Included in the display are cars, motorcycles, boats, planes, a snowmobile, a helicopter, and even submarines. The majority of the vehicles are the real thing, driven by Bond actors or stunt drivers, although you’ll also find a couple of scale model aircraft that saw screen time as well.

Perhaps the most iconic Bond car is the 1964 Aston Martin DB5 that’s been a Bond favorite since nearly the beginning. The example on display at the Petersen isn’t the one from Goldfinger, but it was used on film since 1995’s Goldeneye, with on-screen visits in five movies, including 2021’s No Time to Die, making it the Bond car with the most film credits to its name. Of course, the exhibit features plenty of other Aston Martins, including some gadget-filled examples and one Aston Martin DBS V12 that was crashed in Casino Royale.

Perhaps the most notable stunt vehicles used in Bond movies are the 1977 Lotus Esprit S1 from The Spy Who Loved Me known as “Wet Nellie” which transforms into a submarine, and the 1974 AMC Hornet X from The Man with the Golden Gun that completes a corkscrew jump. The latter is displayed along with a monitor that plays a looping clip of its famous leap.

The Bond in Motion gallery is so stuffed full of 007’s movie vehicles that this Hiller UH-12C used by Spectre henchmen in From Russia With Love was placed outside the entrance to the museum. It greets attendees as they approach.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area in the coming months, we can’t recommend the Petersen Automotive Museum enough; this preview only touches on the many vehicles on display and the behind-the-scenes tidbits disclosed in the exhibit’s many placards. Get your tickets on the museum’s website and prepare to be amazed by some of the greatest custom cars and boats this side of Q’s lab.

The post Celebrate 60 years of 007 with <em>Bond in Motion</em> at the Petersen appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Ramón Cubiró’s story begins in the coastal town of Sitges back in 1923—before he was even born. The opening of Autòdrom Terramar, Spain’s first purpose-built motor racing circuit, brought glamour, innovation, theater, and danger to the seaside resort, as well as the country’s inaugural Grand Prix.

The steeply banked 2-km oval track was used for speed-record attempts, tests, and races until it closed in 1957, but almost 100 years later, Spain’s spiritual home of motorsport inspired Ramón, a painter and restorer, to set off a mission to first restore, then create his own painstakingly miniaturized slot cars that revived “unknown models with a beautiful story behind them” from the twenties and thirties, a period he regards as the “Golden Age” of motorsport.

“The wonderful Autòdrom Terramar was a crucial find for me,” says Ramón, whose workshop in Barcelona is a 45-minute drive from the historic circuit. “Here begins my hobby and passion for the beginnings of the motor world; personalities, iconic brands and emblematic circuits.”

To accomplish his first release, a limited edition run of 250 faithfully reproduced 1922 Austro-Daimler Sascha slot cars, Ramón assembled a team of modeling artists who shared his vision for Velasor and were impassioned to accompany him on “this wonderful journey” no matter how many fiddly hours were involved. Working in their spare time and during the evenings, the project took twelve months to complete, and when photographed up close, the slot cars could momentarily fool the unwary into thinking they were the real deal.

Originally designed by Ferdinand Porsche as the car of his dreams, the Austro-Daimler Sascha was revolutionary for its time. Achieving a top speed of 89 mph, the high-performance four-cylinder vehicle was known for its maneuverability, efficient use of fuel and the detachable fender which made it lighter for racing.

The 1:32-scale Velasor replica, known as VLM 1 ADR Sascha and released in 2017, weighs in at just 58 grams (2.04 ounces, or more than ten thousand times lighter than the original vehicle) and measures 11.1 cm long by 5.3 cm wide (4.4 x 2.08 inches). Four different versions were crafted, each depicting one of the Sacha’s that were entered into the 1922 Targa Florio road race—where it scooped first and second places in its engine size category.

Piloted by miniature figures sculpted to look like the motorsport aces that raced them—Alexander Kolowrat, Lambert Pocher, Fritz Kulm and Alfred Neubauer—the cars are identified by the suits of a poker deck. “The little Sascha who gave life to Velasor took us to places and to meet personalities directly related to his history, such as the grandson of F. Porsche and Alexander Kolowrat,” explains Ramón. “With each car that we reproduce we have a special bond and contact with some personality of the time, linked to a family member of the designer, driver or car.”

Meticulously fabricated with a minimum of ten functional and mobile features, Velasor models are a feat of quirky human endeavor. “Perhaps the most intricate part is the process of giving mobility and functionality to all the pieces with special characters that each model has,” says Ramón.

A closer look at the Sacha, which comprises of 232 parts, reveals working front suspension springs, wheels that can be removed using a special key, and a toolbox that contains a full set of tools. Beneath the engine cover, which is fastened to the base of the chassis by a belt with four metal buckles, there’s a replica of ADS-R engine, but as fully functional slot cars, it’s not only the “how do they do that?” aesthetic detail that makes Velasor models so distinctive. “For me it is the charm of knowing that they have life on a track which many collectors like to do. We tune the cars to work and give them free after-sales warranties, with a wide assortment of replacement parts or repairs should they need it.”

The second Velasor release, a replica of the 1914 Peugeot L45 Grand Prix Racer, or VLM 2 Peugeot L45, featured movable front and rear shock absorbers, a rotating starter handle, removable front drum brakes, and a tail box with two spare wheels inside.

To give Velasor models maximum credibility, Ramón and his team research and plan each project fastidiously. After all, when the worlds of slot car racing, miniature model making and historic motorsport are combined, the knowledgeable enthusiast is likely to have particularly exacting standards.

“It’s difficult because I have to choose a model whose history, race, driver, have a special charm. I’m always trying to surprise both the collector and myself,” says Ramón. “Once the model that we will make has been chosen, the process that I like the most arrives, that of collecting all kinds of documentation, contacts, plans (if any), photos, books. All of this is well studied by me and also by the designer, who at the same time begins to make sketches and drawings in 3D. Thus begins the construction of the prototype, through the pieces that are made in resin, until reaching the final modeling process. Once all these pieces are final, production begins.”

Measuring approximately 10cm and weighing just 70 grams, the VLM 3 Bugatti Brescia project is Velasor’s latest and most micro design. Ramón describes them as “little gems.” He adds: “With each model we try to improve ourselves, for this new reference, we are working with the original plans provided by the Bugatti Trust, which implies a challenge in reproducing it even more faithfully.”

The materials chosen for each model reflect that which was used to build the original, full-size, automotive, and can include metal, wood, leather, brass, rubber for the tires and resin for the body and chassis. “We use all kinds of precision tools and small machines such as lathes and milling machines, we are like a small watch shop.”

Assembled and painted by hand, to overcome fatigue during the process, Velasor modeling artists take it in turn to tackle different stages. “A great deal of concentration is needed, but all the steps are so diverse until a model is made that we alternate between them,” says Ramón. On occasion, parts are manufactured outside the Velasor workshop due to their complexity and finish, but “it is in our workshop that we give life to the more than 250 parts that can make up each car,” Ramón emphasizes.

Fancy downsizing? Models cost between €500 – €650 each ($590 – $770), inclusive of a wooden display plinth, an owners manual that tells you the history of the vehicle and a certificate of authenticity and specification card. It’s possible to buy the full set of each edition, but as collectors items this depends on availability.

“Feedback is the greatest reward one can have,” says Ramón. “It is incredible how after the work and dedication that one puts into each car, one is rewarded with precious messages, calls and visits to the workshop. The reaction that most moved me was that of an English collector who conveyed to me exactly what I felt about Velasor with his words. That someone who did not know me, could see in my work all the effort, passion and dedication invested and admire it in the way that he did is very gratifying.”

When deconstructed and decoded by Ramón, the meaning of Velasor is as follows: ‘Vel’ stands for velocidad (velocity), ‘as’ represents aces of the steering wheel and ‘or’ is borrowed from the end of words including motor, honor and valor. When asked to reveal the subject of the next project, Ramón says we’ll have to wait and see.

“There are several models that I would like to make, but only two keep me awake and not because of their beauty, nor because of their prestige as a brand, but more as a challenge as a miniature. Those are top secret.”

Via Hagerty UK

The post Hard Craft: Ramón Cubiró’s marvelous miniature slot cars appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Marvin M. Tamaroff passed away this summer, in early July, at the age of 95. The auto industry will remember him as a pioneering dealer who helped shape the way cars and trucks are sold. Car enthusiasts, however, will remember him as the automotive world’s preeminent collector of car mascots and hood ornaments.

Tamaroff didn’t just collect these badges and figurines, either. An early member of the Classic Car Club of America, Tamaroff donated a collection of nearly 700 mascots to the CCCA’s museum within the Gilmore complex in Hickory Corners, a few miles north of Kalamazoo, Michigan, where they are on permanent display.

Tamaroff was born in Detroit in 1925. By the time he graduated from high school, World War II was raging and he went straight into the military. He found himself in combat in Europe by the age of 18 and spent six months in a German P.O.W. camp, where he contracted dysentery. After the war he returned to Detroit, where he enrolled in the General Motors Institute, GM’s in-house engineering and management college, known as Kettering University as of 1998.

When GM ran the school, a GMI diploma practically guaranteed you a job with the automaker. Tamaroff graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1949 and interned successfully with the company but, according to Tamaroff, his supervisor made it clear that he would never recommend hiring a Jewish engineer such as Tamaroff.

Still wanting to work in the auto industry, Tamaroff tried his hand at selling new cars, first at a Chrysler-Plymouth dealer and then at a DeSoto-Plymouth shop. He soon decided he could make more money in used cars, so he got a job on the famous row of used car dealerships on Detroit’s Livernois Avenue. He did well enough to start his own used-car shop, Marwood Motor Sales, in 1954, which he operated until 1969. That same year, he opened up his first new car dealership, a Buick franchise on Telegraph Road, in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, among what was then mostly woods and farms. Today, it’s part of a mile-long string of new car dealers on both sides of Telegraph.

Not only did Tamaroff break new ground with the location of his dealership, he was one of first car dealers to expand into owning a group of authorized dealerships for more than one brand. Over the years, that Buick store was joined, at various times, by Opel, Volvo, Mazda, Acura, Nissan, Isuzu, Dodge, Rolls-Royce, DeLorean, and Avanti. Tamaroff opened a Honda car dealership in 1971, one of the first Honda car franchises in the United States, starting with the 600-cc N600.

The Opel dealership is responsible for one of Southfield’s landmarks, “Tammy,” a lifesize replica of an elephant sitting in front of Tamaroff Honda, now painted red, white, and blue. The Honda store is located where the original Buick shop was—and the connection between the two is less strange than you might expect. In the 1960s, Buick dealers carried Opels so they’d have compact cars to sell. Opel advertised itself in the United States as the “Mini Brute,” and featured actual elephants in its ads. Opel has long since departed from these shores, but there’s still a pachyderm in front of a Tamaroff store on Telegraph.

With his success, Marvin Tamaroff started collecting classic cars like prewar Packards, a Hispano-Suiza, and a show-winning 1930 Mercedes. His car-collecting hobby soon spawned an enthusiasm for racing trophies, which extended to a fascination with mascots and hood ornaments.

Today we call them hood ornaments, and associate them with specific vehicle brands, like Rolls-Royce’s Spirit of Ecstasy. In the early days, however, these emblems were called mascots and were as likely to be custom accessories designed to reflect an owner’s personality and tastes as they were to be supplied from the factory. Mascots sprang from the desire to decorate the rather plain radiator cap and ran the gamut from fine art created by famous sculptors to humorous caricatures. Judging from Tamaroff’s extensive collection, there was an entire menagerie of cast and chromed animals, jaguars, greyhounds, plus lots of birds, pelicans, cormorants, and storks. Putting a car on your car might be a bit recursive, but ships and airplanes made frequent appearances.

Tamaroff’s collection of mascots and hood ornaments grew to 1100 items, likely the largest of its kind in the world, including many rare, one-of-a-kind, sculpted pieces. He even was able to acquire a large, dealer-display version of the Spirit of Ecstasy, but, without a doubt, the jewels of his collection are the Lalique mascots.

René-Jules Lalique was a French jeweler who switched to working with enamel, glass, and crystal in the early 20th century, just in time for the automotive age. Starting in 1925, Lalique’s workshop produced a series of 29 glass mascots, many of them in an art-deco style, that became de rigueur on the radiators of upper-crust cars. Six years later, the Great Depression descended. Dropping cash on an ostentatious hood ornament was no longer in style, and the Lalique firm discontinued the mascots.

Today, though, they are highly collectible and very valuable, with auction prices reaching into the tens of thousands of dollars. Tamaroff is said to have amassed two complete sets of the Lalique mascots, one of which he sold at auction in 2000 for $550,000. A number of Lalique mascots are on display at the Gilmore, as is another very valuable mascot: the elephant that Rembrandt Bugatti sculpted for his brother Ettore’s cars.

One admirable thing about Marvin Tamaroff’s collection of mascots is that he didn’t focus only on the elite end of the hobby. The unusual and oddball hood ornaments that are part of the collection show that his passion for history included a sense of whimsy.

Tamaroff initially donated 520 of his mascots to what was then the Gilmore Institute and made further gifts over the years. When the Classic Car Club of America built its own museum in the Gilmore complex, the collection was put on display there. After recent renovations to the CCCA museum, including a new display devoted to the art of the automobile, some of the Tamaroff collection is now on display in the adjacent Hickory Corners train depot, along with the Owen Morton collection of automotive badges.

Any excuse is worth a visit to the Gilmore, but if you can’t make it to central Michigan, the CCCA has put the entire collection online where you can view each item individually.

The post Remembering Marvin Tamaroff, innovative car dealer and mascot-collector extraordinaire appeared first on Hagerty Media.

In the early 1950s, Jorge Sordelli was an eight-year-old boy in Argentina. After seeing a movie in which a patrol officer pursued a car in the middle of the desert, he became fascinated with the world of cars. “I could see that its wheels were shaking violently. I became intrigued as to what was underneath the body of the vehicle to allow its wheels to shake at such high speeds without ripping off the axle,” Sordelli says.

He started searching for toy cars with proper suspensions but quickly learned that they did not exist.  Even at that age, Sordelli was undeterred, and he began modifying models cars with small metal notebook spirals that functioned like coil springs. That diligence, creativity, and inventiveness would lead him down a road that’s included a career in automotive design, as well as a passion project producing exquisite 1/5-scale cars.

At 10 years old, Sordelli was waiting eagerly every month for Popular Mechanics and Automundo Corsa (published in Argentina). He began contacting Ford, GM, Volvo, Saab, and Mercedes, requesting car brochures to use as reference for a project he had in mind. From the pamphlets, he selected vehicles that appealed to his sense of design and commenced drawing and painting them to fulfill his artistic hunger. At 11 years old, he attempted woodcarving and completed a scale model of a 1959 Valliant.

“This,” Sordelli says, “began my process of evolution and refinement, the incorporation of new materials, how to obtain all necessary information from a single photo, learning to create and complete surfaces and volumes, and to develop drawings and sketches in order to achieve the 3D reproduction of each design.”

Two years later, Sordelli began attending ING Huergo, a technical school in Argentina, to further his technical knowledge. As a student he developed his own design style, building his first scale model, a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB that he sold to one of his classmates. In Argentina, Ford offered young students the opportunity to visit its industrial center, and Sordelli jumped at the chance. He was drawn to the product engineering and development division and spent many days devouring product design information.

As Sordelli’s model-making skills improved, so did his renown. He received north of 50 scale-model commissions from car dealers who sponsored racing teams competing in Turisomo Carretera Series (similar to America’s NASCAR). At age 25, after earning a Master of Science Degree in Buenos Aires, Automundo Magazine published short articles and notes about Sordelli’s scale models that essentially opened the door to a lifelong career in product and vehicle design. Next came design positions with Mercedes-Benz and Ford in Argentina, but Sordelli also started his own company designing and developing tractors, self-propelled harvesters, trucks, and even a carrousel for Zoo Buenos Aires.

Sordelli moved to California in 2000, hired by the innovative concept car company Metal Crafters, of Fountain Valley. Soon after he was contacted by the curator of the Motor Racing Museum of Juan Manuel Fangio, in Buenos Aires, to help create the principal design lines for a replica of the Lancia Ferrari D50 F1 race car that Fangio drove in the Italian Grand Prix when he won the World Championship in 1956.

Years later, while working a Mazda Design Center, Sordelli was contemplating his passion and dreams for the future when he had the idea of restarting his love of combining craft and art. With the advanced technology available now that wasn’t imaginable when he was a kid in Argentina, Sordelli could develop and build scale model cars in an entirely new way. Fittingly, his first 1/5-scale model in the U.S. would be of Fangios’s Lancia-Ferrari D50—the same car he helped re-create for the Fangio Museum.

“The processes applied are similar to those used in the development of concept cars, plus manual artistic skills,” Sordelli explains. The challenge of incorporating these skills comes with using 3D CAD software and photographs to create computerized renderings for the model’s construction. This software enables the artist to view all angles and sides of the car as a three-dimensional object, giving him a full virtual picture of the “blood red” Ferrari race car that became Sordelli’s obsession.

The artist uses miniature fabrication tools to construct the tubular chassis and body parts for all of his models. To cast the engine block, carburetors, transmission, rear end, and tires, he provides blueprint software to a company that makes molds and can cast the metal parts on a computerized machine. “On the marriage of CAD and artistic creativity, CAD is a software that allows you to create any 3D geometry in parametric form that can be edited and resized at will,” Sordelli explains. The system allows developing parts, assemblies, and moving them in virtual space to observe and verify them in any position. In this way, the virtual prototype is built in three dimensions that start from an empty 3D space and the surfaces of each vehicle component are modeled sequentially. Many sketches and photos are used to ensure the greatest aesthetic realism, helping create a digital sculpture of the complete car.

After Jon and Mary Shirley won Best of Show at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2008 with their stunning 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Touring Berlinetta, Sordelli was so enamored with the classic that he decided, on his own, to build a 1/5-scale model of the rolling work of art using CAD. “My goal is to create beautiful and exciting scale models that incorporate a perfect balance between sculpture, proportion, hand craft, and technology,” Sordelli says. The Alfa Romeo 8C is an exquisite, rare machine that features prominently the collections of John Mozart, Sam and Emily Mann (Best in Show at Pebble 1988), and fashion designer Ralph Lauren. An 8C 2900B won the 2018 Pebble Beach Concours Best in Show.

Sordelli’s focus is “the optimal expression of historic and famous great cars,” which nurtured his interest in the celebrated and race-winning 1965 Essex Wire 427 Cobra (model CSX 3009). The car is nicknamed “Ollie the Dragon” because of its habit of shooting foot-long flames out of the hood scoop. Essex Wire was a huge provider of magnet wire for automotive, industrial, and energy industries in the ’60s, and it teamed up with Ford to enter the auto racing scene. As part of its competition history, the Cobra was campaigned by Dr. Dick Thompson, Skip Scott, and Ed Lowther, recording podium finishes in Pensacola, Watkins Glen, Road America, and Bridgehampton.

Sordelli couldn’t resist the challenge of constructing another 1/5-scale model of CSX 3009 using his advanced knowledge of CAD design software. “The body of the model is made of copper by electro deposition,” he says. “I am always looking to optimize the process, and in the Cobra’s case I used the following method: complete re-engineering and modeling of the surfaces in CAD, print the male body in 3D, cast the female mold in silicone resin, manufacture the body by electro deposition in copper, and rework the openings and development of the internal structure.”

Even as he presently works at the Studio-Lincoln-Ford in California, Sordelli is keeping quite busy on the side. His current projects include an Alfa Romeo Torricelli 8C Spider and a Karma SC1 Vision Concept. Plans for other vehicle projects include the Mercedes-Benz W196 Silver Arrow and a couple of Ferraris, the 335S and the 275 GTB. These projects are, as you might imagine, extremely time intensive. Sordelli says that they require 1000–2000 hours over the course of 4–6 months. Prices vary and are part of the discussion for any commission, but suffice to say it’s more than what you’d pay at the local hobby shop for a model car.

All of the artist’s final detail work, which takes place on his garage workshop table, now operates under the Scala Design Studio name. His vision is to create and deliver excellence, from concept to realization “through private commissions to fulfill the desires of other passionate car enthusiasts.” We’d say he’s achieved that, and much more.

The post Bringing vintage cars to life in 1/5 scale requires full-size talent appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Cars do not exist in a vacuum. They are pieces of design that function as part of a larger landscape, whether it be rolling country hills, concrete urban jungle, or suburban sprawl. But what if you could drop your very own car in an architectural dreamscape of your own imagination? That’s what Douglas Peterson-Hui is up to at The Architect’s Garage, a custom-order online art shop that will place your beloved set of wheels in the digital environment of your choosing.

Want to see your Jaguar Mark II parked in front of Stonehenge? Your FD RX-7 cutting a silhouette in the shadow of Osaka Castle? Your Jeep Comanche braving the elements on a frozen Montana lake? Just say the word, and Peterson-Hui will get to work harnessing pixels to make your vision a virtual, two-dimensional reality.

The Architect’s Garage started as a hobby webpage to share artwork. Fresh out of an architecture master’s program in Canada, having graduated during the thick of the COVID pandemic, Peterson-Hui needed an outlet for creativity while his job hunt was on pause. He brings a meticulous, Modernist, almost Bauhaus-esque aesthetic to these digital prints, thrusting what is often an ordinary vehicle into a surprisingly colorful, complementary environment.

“It’s been a way for me to combine my passion for architecture and cars into something I can share with others,” Peterson-Hui says. “How popular it’s become has been a really pleasant surprise.”

After he posted some of his artwork on Instagram, people started reaching out asking for commissions. What started as a few orders per month has now escalated to twenty or thirty a month.

To make these custom car-scapes, Peterson-Hui takes somewhat of an unconventional approach that stems from his architectural training and digital toolkit. “I use CAD and a 3D modeling program called Rhinoceros to start drawing the linework. It’s software really meant for industrial design products. From there I import to Adobe Illustrator,” he says. Each image takes two to three hours on average, but potentially more for a detailed cityscape with lots of detail. Base price ranges from $120-$160, approaching $200 for more labor-intensive projects.

The finished product is a hi-res digital file that gets sent directly to the customer’s email. Though The Architect’s Garage will sell a physical print, it’s (obviously) more expensive and involves the added wrinkles of shipping and any applicable international customs fees. If people want a physical print, Peterson-Hui encourages them to print it locally in whatever format they deem best. Of course, custom art of your car also makes for a kick-ass desktop wallpaper or phone lock screen. Print it on a t-shirt, slap it on a mug—the world’s your oyster.

 

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As for the environment in which the car will be depicted, clients vary in their vision, but essentially all reach out concerning their own car, or perhaps a family member or close friend’s.

“Some people have a clear idea, and it doesn’t always involve architecture,” Peterson-Hui says. “Maybe they have a specific location in mind. The rest of the time people just tell me to do whatever I want. I might base it off of where they’re from or something like that. I tend to like the full creative freedom and bring in architecture.”

One look at The Architect’s Garage Instagram page makes it clear enough that its creator has an affection for American and Canadian buildings of the 1940s and 1950s. It’s no coincidence these are very same buildings that were constructed amid a booming automobile culture, and designed around that expansion in personal mobility.

“Modernist and mid-century architecture has a real cleanliness, and that just makes for a great backdrop for cars, ” Petersen-Hui observes.

The artist’s personal taste skews in the direction of European cars, primarily Volvo 240s, of which he owns two real-life examples. Sweden’s famous “brick” styling lends itself way to geometric city scenes with lots of contrasting pops of color.

“I love the simplicity of the 240—like Modernism, it’s quite basic and utilitarian. They’re durable and easy to work on. I’m a fan of anything accessible to a wide variety of people. But I also like quirky French cars, or really anything with crazy styling that you don’t often see.”

Peterson-Hui’s architecture and industrial design ambitions haven’t disappeared. Following up on a university project in which he built and managed to sell a micro-home as a way of meeting demand for affordable housing, he is currently working on a teardrop trailer he can tow behind his Volvo. The design includes a built-in kitchen, polycarbonate doors, and a huge moonroof for stargazing. “It’s another way to stay busy, to keep building things,” he says.

Regardless of where his career goes, Peterson-Hui intends to continue making art for The Architect’s Garage. “People relate to ordinary cars, and what I do is an art project that anyone can be a part of.”

Speaking of, I wonder what my Z3 would look like at the foot of the Philadelphia Museum of Art…

The post Let “The Architect’s Garage” make your car the star of a stunning art print appeared first on Hagerty Media.

High-level video-game competitions, including racing sims, have become career opportunities, with the prize pools for major events running into the tens of millions of dollars. Sixty years ago, there weren’t racing simulators, and only major league athletes made a living playing games; but with sponsorship from a major automaker, one toy company gave young people the chance to race to win. The cars may have been tiny and the prizes well below seven figures, but the competition was life changing.

In the early 1960s, it was popular for big companies to sponsor youth competitions, often with college scholarships as prizes. General Motors had the Fisher Body Craftsmen’s Guild, the National Football League started its Punt, Pass, and Kick competition, and in 1961 Ford Motor Company teamed up with model maker Aurora Plastics Corporation to run the Ford-Aurora Model Motoring Championships, which ran for five years, starting in 1962.

Aurora—based in Hempstead, Long Island—was originally a maker of plastic model kits. By the late 1950s, however, kids wanted more than static models and the slot-car craze was born. In 1957, Scalextric in the U.K. introduced the first modern slot-car sets with 1:30 (later changed to 1:32) scale vehicles. By late 1959, the fad had crossed the Atlantic. U.S.-based Strombecker company was first to the stateside slot-car party with a system that used the bodies from existing 1:24-scale model-car kits.

Thinking that table-top layouts might appeal to parents more than the large-scale tracks, which could take up an entire room, Aurora jumped into the craze, buying the rights to the U.K.-based Playcraft’s Model Motoring HO-gauge racing set and introducing the first Aurora Model Motoring versions in time for Christmas, 1960. HO is technically 1:87 scale, so the cars and tracks are a fraction of the size of the larger scales (modern HO cars may diverge from the measurement). Aurora’s intuition proved accurate, and the company would sell over 25 million HO-scale race cars over the next five years, surpassing the sale figures of Ford and Chevrolet combined.

Someone at Ford apparently noticed, too. Since Aurora already cooperated with the Blue Oval in the production of accurate, licensed models, it was probably not too difficult to set up the racing championships. As with the NFL’s Punt, Pass, and Kick competition, there were local competitions held at popular hobby shops and slot-car raceways. Winners progressed to state, regional, and finally national championships, which were significant enough to merit a live television broadcast.

Though it was a national competition with thousands of participants, a group of three boys in Rapid City, South Dakota—a small city of about 43,000 people in the 1960s—came to dominate the Ford-Aurora Model Motoring competition. One of the trio made the finals in the event’s first year; of the four remaining championships, two belonged to one of these Rapid City contenders. The late, great Mark Donohue was famous for wanting an “unfair advantage” when he strapped himself into one of Roger Penske’s race cars. One might say that the Rapid City boys—Jeff Davis, Ron Colerick, and John Seele—had a similar leg-up on the competition.

Slot-car raceways proliferated in the 1960s. At its peak, the hobby generated a half billion dollars a year in sales, with as many as 3000 raceways in the United States. Compared to the simple figure-eight tracks most kids used at home, the raceway circuits were more complex, much longer, and much, much faster. The industry and hobbyists consistently developed stronger motors, lighter chassis, and stickier tires. Speeds, naturally, increased.

As the hobby grew, however, slot-car establishments developed a bit of an unsavory reputation among parents. Those shops charged per lap, and often had other coin-operated amusement devices like pinball machines. Both of those things could drain a kid’s piggy bank. Fortunately for the boys of Rapid City, their parents didn’t object to them hanging around a slot-car joint. That’s because Ron Colerick’s father Lloyd owned Toy Hobby Center, the nexus of slot-car in Rapid City.

“We had races every Friday night and all day Saturday,” Colerick told the Rapid City Journal in 2003.

Colerick was coached by Davis, a finalist in the event’s first year, who may have enjoyed even better odds than Colerick. “I spent hours racing at the [Toy Hobby Center] store. I was there so much that Lloyd gave me a job.”

With Davis coaching, Colerick would race for up to five hours a day at his father’s hobby store. When Seeley and Colerick made it to the semifinals in New York City in 1963, they asked Davis to come along as a coach. Colerick narrowly earned a spot in the finals, winning the last semifinal heat by just an 1:87-scale car length, about two inches. With the slowest qualifying time, Colerick also ended up in the worst lane for the finals, and an early spin-out made things even worse; but once he got going, nothing could break his focus.

“I was in kind of a trance. It was good that I had practiced so much that I was able to just race on reflex, Colerick told the Rapid City paper. “My age may have been an advantage,” he continued. “At 12 years old, I might have been numb to the pressure.”

That year’s finals were broadcast live on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, with play-by-play announcing by Stirling Moss. Aurora sold racing sets branded with the racing legend’s name, and Moss awarded a trophy that was almost as big as the young contestant.

Years before he could get his driver’s license or graduate from high school, 12-year-old Colerick won a $2000 college scholarship and a 1963 Thunderbird Sports Roadster (that’s the one with the fairings on the tonneau cover). That car is now owned by Aurora Model Motoring collector and guru Bob Beers. Lest you think $2000 a stingy amount for a college scholarship, consider that it would have covered all but $200 or so in tuition for the average four-year college in 1963—for all four years.

According to Thomas Graham’s book on Aurora slot cars, when Moss handed the young man the keys to his new T-bird, Colerick cheekily said: “Neat, man. I’ll let my Dad drive it sometimes.” The Aurora folks were less pleased with Carson’s ad lib—”You mean he gets a Thunderbird for that?”—since it sounded like a slight on the event’s significance. Perhaps in a dig at Carson, Aurora moved the broadcast for the following year’s championships to the popular I’ve Got A Secret game show, hosted by comedian Steve Allen, The Tonight Show‘s original host. Once again, Stirling Moss was on hand.

Seeley won a 1966 Ford Mustang in the ’65 championships, which was broadcast on the Mike Douglas talk show. He was likely the only 9th-grader in America with his own full-scale Mustang, and it made him a popular guy: “When you’re 14 or 15, and you have a brand-new Ford Mustang, that doesn’t hurt your appeal,” he said. Seeley sold the Mustang while in college, and it’s currently owned by Bob Beers.

Three finalists in five years, all from the same small city in the Midwest. It looks like a statistical anomaly—even a suspicious one—but the secret to the Rapid City boys’ success wasn’t breaking the rules. It was hard work, lots of practice, and some technical mods.

“We didn’t cheat, but we were making adjustments to the cars that the others guys at the national level weren’t even thinking of, ” Davis said. His finals were broadcast live on NBC’s Today Show since, as a major advertiser, Ford had some influence on network programming.

All three of the boys, now senior citizens, have said that the Ford-Aurora Model Motoring Championships were influential events in their lives. Seeley used his scholarship to go to Grinnell College, later earning a MBA from Dartmouth. After eight years with Proctor and Gamble’s marketing department, he started his own marketing, management and consulting firm in Boston. He’s currently the president of The American Consulting Group, an agency with clients at the top tiers of corporate America. “The people I interviewed with at Proctor and Gamble specifically mentioned this one event that signaled that I was someone who could focus and excel and was very competitive early on,” he said.

After serving for 43 years as a judge in Iowa’s 7th judicial circuit, Davis retired in 2019. Davis said that the discipline and commitment he learned from “an intense four or five years” competing in the Ford-Aurora championship was good preparation for law school.

Colerick started North Central Supply and NCS Manufacturing to make and sell doors and other related hardware for commercial buildings, employing dozens of people and passing on the lessons he learned as a young slot car racer.

“I always tell my employees that the competition gets pretty thin after 5:30 p.m. Staying a little longer and working a little harder will eventually pay off,” he said.

If only we could all spend those extra hours at a slot-car track, like this Midwest trio did. Who would have guessed that the same kids who haunted Rapid City’s Toy Hobby Center would make national television—and, decades later, point back to Aurora’s championship as a defining moment in their careers? Their stories prove that, whether full-scale or 1:87, simulated or real, cars have the power to influence and shape lives.

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June is that time of year when we celebrate the achievements of those graduating from high school or college. It’s also the time of year when we show fathers how much they mean to us. Here at Hagerty, we have some unique automotive-inspired gifts in The Shop for the dads and grads in your life, ranging from the whimsical to the practical. We’ve highlighted some of our favorites here; you’re sure to find something that they’ll love.

Automotive Sticker Pack

This set of six vinyl decals feature backings that allow you to easily apply them to anything you think could use a little automotive flair. They also use an ultra-removable adhesive just in case you need to do some quick redecorating!

Cool Heads Prevail Water Bottle

With quality construction featuring double-wall 18/8 stainless steel, this thermal tumbler has vacuum insulation and a clear acrylic push-on swivel lid. Its 20-ounce capacity means you’ll always have plenty of your libation of choice while you’re on the go.

Never Stop Driving

For the road scholar in your life, Hagerty’s Never Stop Driving explores the mental and social benefits of driving and engaging with automobiles. With gorgeous photos and engaging writing, the book also offers advice on how to enjoy the car hobby. Equal parts how-to and philosophy, Never Stop Driving illuminates our love affair with cars and car culture. Featuring contributions from Jay Leno, Patrick Dempsey, and Mario Andretti.

Never Stop Driving Pocket Square

Tucked in the pocket of your favorite blazer, this snazzy pocket square is sure to add a bit of driving panache wherever you go.

Racing Stripe Crew Neck Sweatshirt

With this slim-fit crew neck sweatshirt, you’ll be comfortable anytime you hit the road. Throw it on just before you head out in your convertible or wear it on a lazy Saturday afternoon—you’ll look great anywhere, anytime!

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Want to put your noggin in the same safe space as the King of Cool? Then you’re in luck as a Bell crash helmet worn by Steve McQueen during the filming of 1971’s Le Mans is up for auction.

Le Mans was McQueen’s take on the definitive racing film. Shot during the 1970 24-hour race, the original plan was for McQueen to compete himself, but insurers vetoed the idea. Instead, additional footage was shot of McQueen behind the wheel and then intercut with real racing material from camera cars, including a Porsche 908 fitted with three Arriflex cameras. It was an epic shoot that ran to five months, went $1.5 million over budge, and saw directors and writers disappear almost as quickly as the cars on track.

The crash helmet was mostly worn by Swiss actor Fred Haltiner, who played Johan Ritter, Michael Delaney’s teammate (played by McQueen). However the auction listing says that McQueen also donned the lid during filming, along with racers Brian Redman, Jo Siffert, and Derek Bell.

The helmet has been signed by 13 drivers and actors, including Jackie Ickx, David Piper (who lost a leg in a horrific crash during filming), and even Dr. Wolfgang Porsche.

This remarkable piece of movie and motorsports memorabilia comes with a set of gloves and photographic evidence of McQueen wearing it. The helmet is being offered at the Automobilia Ladenburg Auction and can viewed at the liveauctioneers.com website. Bidding starts at €18,000 ($21,782) and the auction ends on May 7.

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The news that Matchbox is introducing a new range of toy cars based on electric vehicles and made from recycled materials raises obvious questions. What sort of noise will children make when playing with them? Will there be a scale figure model of Elon Musk surrounded by a group of evangelists? And will this move prompt owners of classic Matchbox toys to convert their old models to electric spec?

Launching its new range of environmentally aware toys, Matchbox chose the obvious brand to capture the public’s imagination, starting with a scale version of the Tesla Roadster. Like the Tesla, however, Matchbox’s toy is yet to go into production, with sales beginning across online outlets and toy shops (remember those?) next year.

The toy Tesla is claimed to be made from 62 percent recycled zinc and 37 percent recycled plastic, with just one percent of non-recycled stainless steel used in manufacturing. The company adds that the manufacturing process is carbon neutral, while associated packaging for the toy car will be made from paper and wood fiber.

Also in the pipeline is a fuel station playset that will include electric car charging stations, as Matchbox seeks to raise environmental consciousness among children—although some might argue that it is adults that are in greater need of reminding.

Roberto Stanichi, global head of vehicles at Mattel, said the move would “empower the next generation of Matchbox fans to help steer us towards a sustainable future”.

Before the mini Tesla reaches toy chests around the world, Matchbox will introduce die-cast electric and hybrid models. The pack will include toy models of the Nissan Leaf and Toyota Prius, as well as the BMW i3 and i8 sports car—the latter which failed to excite many drivers—and the packaging will feature a paper foam inner tray. Prices are still to be announced, so young car enthusiasts still don’t know whether switching to environmentally-friendly models will cost them more.

Matchbox’s parent company Mattel plans to use 100 percent recycled, recyclable, or bio-based plastic materials in the manufacturing of all its products and packaging by 2030.

Via Hagerty UK

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There are many ways to turn the contents of your garage (your car or bike, rather than old washing machines and misshapen bits of wood) into something you’d be pleased to hang on the wall. Painting, sketching, photography … digital art’s big these days too.

One approach you might not have considered, but a pair of enterprising and talented individuals by the handles Stitchy_Mumma and C for Craig can supply, is to have your automotive sculpture rendered with needle and thread. And if it sounds anachronistic, the results are actually rather beautiful.

C for Cross Stitch custom-creates the artworks so it’s not a quick process, but that’s to be expected. Your chosen vehicle, created from reference photos, is first replicated in pixel art (charming in its own right) and the results are ready for review within five working days.

 

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If you give it the green light, then stitching itself takes eight to ten hours—but with a volume of orders to work through, there’s around a two-week wait before stitching can actually begin.

The company’s website says each artwork is framed on a 10-inch square canvas, meaning the vehicle itself ends up around eight inches long. And looking at the example artworks, that seems like plenty—each piece includes a surprising amount of detail, from alloy wheels to racing stripes and light dancing across the paintwork.

 

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Best of all, you’re buying from gearheads; the red hot-rod pictured above is Craig’s own 1930 Ford Model A Coupe nicknamed Old Red. Other enthusiasts have already got their requests in early by the looks of things too, with a couple of Porsche 911s and even a Ferrari Breadvan making an appearance.

Far better than hanging up a cross-stitch of a country cottage, we’re sure you’ll agree.

Via Hagerty UK

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Phil Hill was a motorsports legend, notching wins at races ranging from the 24 Hours of Le Mans (three times) and the 12 Hours of Sebring (four times). Most significant of all, in 1961 he became the first—and to date, the only—American-born driver to win a Formula 1 championship. Last month, Gooding & Company sold many notable pieces from his racing career, including the trophy for his 1962 win at Le Mans (estimated at $20,000 to $40,00, it sold at $27,500); his personal Chaparral Team jacket that he wore during 1966 and 1967, his final season in professional racing (estimated to go for $10,000 to $15,000, it was a deal at $3,375); and Hill’s copy of the script for what many consider to be the best racing film ever made, Grand Prix. (Estimated at $2000 to $4000, it sold for an eye-watering $63,750.)

This month, Gooding is set to auction fewer big-ticket items, which makes it a little easier for those of us with a couple fewer commas in our bank balance to get in on the action. Let’s take a look at some of the cool stuff going under the hammer in the next auction on Friday, March 26:

Photograph of Piero Taruffi at the 1954 Mille Miglia

Lot 21

Estimate: $500–$1000

Noted for his initial success racing motorcycles in the 1930s, Piero Taruffi raced for Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati, and Mercedes-Benz during his career. Most notably, he won the 1952 Carrera Panamericana and in the 1953 Panamericana, he finished second behind Juan Manuel Fangio. Taruffi won the 1957 Mille Miglia, which would be the final competitive edition of the legendary Italian race. In the 1954 Mille where this picture was taken, Taruffi went out of the race driving a Lancia. The photo is personalized and signed by Taruffi to Hill.

Photograph of Phil Hill in His Santa Monica Garage

Lot 22

Estimate: $100–$250

Taken by his good friend and renowned photographer John Lamm, the photo shows Hill posed with some of the tools of his second career as partner in Hill & Vaughn, one of the best restoration shops of the era.

Assorted Packard Sales Literature

Lot 26

Estimate: $1000–$2000

Hill was an enthusiastic owner of Packard motorcars throughout his life. A 1912 Model 30 Seven-Passenger Touring was in the family for many years and won best in class at Pebble Beach in 1973, 1999, and in 2013. A 1932 Twin-Six that he owned was later bought by Jay Leno and featured on his YouTube channel, Jay Leno’s Garage. The collected sales literature here includes brochures for 1950 (lower left, convertibles), 1954 (upper left), and 1956 (center). The brochure at the far right is for the 1948 Custom Eight. The lot also contains brochures for the 1949 Golden Anniversary and early models such as the 3-38, 38, and 48.

A Collection of Photographs of Phil Hill Racing

Lot 68

Estimate: $500–$1,000

Autographed by Hill, they include photos of Hill with Enzo Ferrari as well as racing at speed in an MG TD.

Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 and 1930s-Era Related Parts

Lot 138

Estimate: $4000–$8000

The predecessor to the 8C, the 6C 1750 (indicating a 1752-cc inline six-cylinder) was introduced in 1929 and was produced until 1933 in both naturally aspirated and supercharged versions. In 1929, the 6C won every major racing event in which it was entered, including the Grands Prix of Belgium, Spain, Tunis and Monza. That year’s Mille Miglia was won by Giuseppe Campari and Giulio Ramponi behind the wheel of a 6C. The car also won the Brooklands Double Twelve and the Ulster TT. In 1930 the car again won the Mille Miglia and Spa 24 Hours. A total of 2635 examples were produced. Parts in this lot include a supercharger, connecting rods, and steering column along with a taillamp and some dash fixtures.

There are many more items available; check out the catalog here for a full account of these historic treasures for car buffs and Phil Hill fans alike.

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The 2021 Hot Wheels Legends Tour will be open for submissions beginning in April. Returning for its fourth year, the tour offers fans the opportunity to have their one-of-a-kind vehicle immortalized as a 1:64 die-cast toy.

The Hot Wheels Legends Tour, presented by Mobil 1, is expected to draw more than 10,000 entries from 14 countries across five continents. The event will culminate in November, when the winner’s vehicle is announced as the next member of the Hot Wheels Garage of Legends.

Last year’s winner was a 1000-horsepower 1970 Pontiac Trans Am.

“Finding time to build isn’t always easy, but with many spending more time at home in the garage over the past year, we expect to see so many more passion-project submissions for the 2021 Hot Wheels Legends Tour,” says Ted Wu, Mattel’s global head of design for Hot Wheels. “Last year, we received thousands of entries, and with the added international stops, this year’s competition is expected to be more impressive with more vehicle variety than ever.”

Since its launch in 2018 to celebrate Hot Wheels’ 50th Anniversary, the Hot Wheels Legends Tour has grown from an American-based series of local Walmart events to the world’s largest traveling car show, bringing together builders and automotive fans through both virtual and live events.

The 2021 showdown kicks off with livestream stops in New Zealand on April 15, Australia on April 22, and the U.S. and Canada on April 29. Additional dates and live event locations will be announced soon.

Livestreams will be available to view on the Hot Wheels Facebook page, at Walmart.com, and through automotive media partners in some countries. Walmart will also host live events in the U.S. this summer. Fans can register or learn more by visiting www.HotWheels.com/Legends. You can also join the Hot Wheels Collectors Club for access to exclusive releases.

Each Hot Wheels Legends Tour stop will crown a regional winner and a Mobil 1 Fan Favorite, which will advance to the semifinal rounds. The field will then be narrowed to 10 finalists before a winner is crowned at the grand finale in November.

In addition to being turned into a 1:64 die-cast toy, previous Legends Tour winners (including the 2018 2JetZ and 2019 Nash classic coupe) will soon be available for purchase and play through the Forza Horizon 4 video game via the Hot Wheels Legends Car Pack on Xbox, Windows 10, iOS, and Android devices.

Hot Wheels 1:64 scale die-cast cars, first released in 1968, were designed to look and perform like no other toy. Five decades later, Hot Wheels is the number-one selling toy in the world (according to the NPD Group/Retail Tracking Service), with more than 16.5 cars sold every second.

Does yours have what it takes to become the newest member of the team?

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Hot Wheels’ most exclusive die-cast cars are about to become more attainable. Starting March 9 at noon Eastern Time, the Hot Wheels Collectors Club will lift all membership restrictions and offer digital memberships that give members the opportunity to purchase vehicles from the Hot Wheels Red Line Club.

For an annual fee of $9.99, new and renewing Hot Wheels Collectors Club members can purchase a limited edition 2021 Red Line Club 1970 Boss 302 Mustang (while supplies last). The exclusive RLC Mustang kit includes the car, a commemorative patch, and a button. Hot Wheels fans can register for membership at HotWheelsCollectors.com.

Red Line Club cars are the rarest, highest-quality, and most sought-after Hot Wheels vehicles produced, and they often sell out within minutes. In the past, these top-tier builds—with opening panels, detailed engine bays, finished interiors, and collector cases—have only been available to a limited number of Hot Wheels Collectors members.

Sets like the 2018 Hot Wheels Club Original 16 Display Set—limited to a production run of 1500—sold out in only nine minutes. Originally offered through Mattel/Hot Wheels for $500, complete sets are now going for $2000–$5000 on eBay and other third-party websites.

“Hot Wheels’ collector audience has grown massively over the past few years, initially fueled by the excitement surrounding Hot Wheels’ 50th anniversary in 2018 and continuing through our incredible product lines, strong heritage, and multiple ways of connecting with fans,” says Roberto Stanichi, SVP of Hot Wheels and Global Head of Vehicles at Mattel. “With this expansion in membership of Hot Wheels Collectors, automotive enthusiasts will finally have a shot at owning the most premium Hot Wheels Red Line Club vehicles and more.”

In addition to receiving access to the best Hot Wheels cars available, club members can engage with other passionate fans via community forums. Count us among those who’ll be joining the fun!

The post Hot Wheels’ exclusive Red Line Club cars just got more accessible appeared first on Hagerty Media.

For many enthusiasts, it all started with toy cars. Some of us moved on to bigger machines, while others chose to dig in deeper into the scale world of die cast. Just how deep can it go? Check out this fascinating video of a Hot Wheels car doing what can only be described as precision driving.

Well, that is a bit of a stretch since there is no driver—these are 1/64-scale cars after all. There is still car control at play here though; instead of using a steering wheel to flick and spin the car, this enthusiast has mastered the art of using magnets to push and pull the car in the directions they desire.

It’s all clearly Ken Block inspired, which makes sense given Ken’s propensity for sideways shenanigans. The trick to pulling the stunts is a simple magnet that can be spotted off to the side each time the car initiates a slide or move. These magnets push or pull on the ferrous body of the Hot Wheels car and the power can be adjusted by the location of the magnets relative to the body. Additionally, the artist behind this channel mentions in a Reddit thread sharing the video that he has added a small neodymium magnet to the rear hatch which dials up control that much more.

Is it the most impressive version of car control? No, but it certainly is a fun way to look at the basics of vehicle dynamics and learn some physics that lay the groundwork for understanding what makes the full-scale stunts so impressive. We all have to have a hobby, why not break a few of those model cars off your shelf (we know they are there, don’t lie to us) and play for a bit. It won’t hurt anyone.

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Phil Hill was a giant in the world of motorsports, winning races ranging from the 24 Hours of Le Mans (three times), the 12 Hours of Sebring (four times), and most important of all, in 1961 he became the first—and so far, only—American-born driver to win a Formula One championship. He also retained a huge amount of items that were part of his racing exploits, whether it be a program, poster, entry ticket, armband, pin, or, on occasion, a trophy.  Now you can own a piece of that history.

Gooding & Company is auctioning off the Phil Hill Automobilia Collection, a series of online sales featuring noteworthy items from the legend’s archives. Let’s take a look at some of the cool stuff going under the hammer in the next auction on Friday, February 19:

1959 German Grand Prix at AVUS Trophy, Driver Armband, and Regulation Book

Estimate: $2000–$4000

At the 1959 German Grand Prix at AVUS, Hill drove his Ferrari 246 Dino to third place, resulting in a 1-2-3 finish for Scuderia Ferrari. Included in this lot is Hill’s Ehrenpreis trophy, as well as his driver armband and race regulation book.

1962 24 Hours of Le Mans Distance Cup

Estimate: $20,000–$40,000

A distinguishing trait of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is that the race is won by the car that travels the farthest distance in 24 hours. This beautiful Coupe Annuelle a la Distance was presented in 1962 to Hill for his third and final overall win at Le Mans, sharing a Ferrari TRI/61 with Olivier Gendebien. A highlight of The Phil Hill Automobilia Collection, this trophy represents an incredibly rare opportunity to acquire a winner’s trophy from the world’s most prestigious endurance race.

Chaparral Team Jacket, circa 1966

Estimate: $10,000–$15,000

This incredibly cool bit of kit was Hill’s personal Chaparral Team jacket. He wore it during 1966 and 1967, his final season in professional racing. It’s an extremely rare piece of American racing history and one of the few significant examples of Chaparral memorabilia in private hands.

Original Script for the 1966 MGM Film Grand Prix

Estimate: $2,000–$4,000

An exceptional piece of Hollywood history, this is Hill’s personal copy of the script for what many consider to be the best racing film ever made, Grand Prix. Directed by John Frankenheimer (who also directed that other cinematic masterpiece, Ronin), Grand Prix won Oscars for Best Sound Effects, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound; Frankenheimer was nominated for Outstanding Directing by the Directors Guild of America. This famous film included stars such as James Garner and Françoise Hardy, and also featured cameos from leading drivers of the day including Hill, Juan Manuel Fangio, Graham Hill, and Jim Clark. Hill was particularly involved in the film; he was hired to serve as the technical advisor and drove many of the specially built camera cars, which captured the film’s realistic racing footage.

There are many more items available; check out the catalog here, and remember to bid early and often!

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As the world speeds headlong into 2021, you may find yourself entrenched in the frenzy of a digital age, one in which news, ideas, and entertainment fly at fiber-optic speeds. Looking for an antidote to the madness? Building scale models may offer a measure of zen for those who enjoy working with their hands but don’t have the space, budget, or desire to tear down an engine or restore a full-scale classic.

Whether you’re out of work, working from home, or soon returning to the office, scale models, particularly of the military variety, are wallet-friendly conversation starters worth showing off to in-person or on-screen friends. To help narrow your search, we’ve curated this list of 10 planes, boats, and automobiles with show-stopper looks and legendary service histories. Given the wide range of complexity and cost, however, we’ll leave the final choice of kit up to you.

Fokker Dr.1 PL

Barely a decade after the Wright Brothers made their first flights at Kitty Hawk in 1903, men were learning how to spy on, bomb, and fight one another from the air during World War I. By the end of the war, an infamous German pilot known as the “Red Baron” was terrorizing the skies in a red Fokker Triplane.

Its stacked, three-winged design is certainly polarizing, but the Fokker actually wasn’t the first to use the configuration. That distinction belongs to the British Sopwith Triplane, which the Germans scrambled to replicate after the design drew the admiration of the Red Baron himself. To avoid side glances or awkward talks with HR, consider building the Fokker and the Sopwith to complete the full picture.

Spitfire

Aviation technology in the second World War improved exponentially beyond that in the first. Luckily for the Brits, in that 21-year inter-war period, aircraft talent R.J. Mitchell and the renowned designers at Supermarine were hard at work creating a Merlin V-12-powered monoplane for the RAF that was eventually called the Spitfire. These sturdy fighters bravely fended off the Luftwaffe time and again during the Battle of Britain, thus setting the stage for the Allied forces to assemble for D-Day.

Legendary as they were, Spitfires weren’t without their flaws; for instance, the carburetors tended to starve the Merlin of fuel during aggressive dives. Thanks to one unsung hero, and the addition of anti-g modifications to newer carbs, the issue was rectified by 1941. The landscape of Britain (and the world) would look much different today if it weren’t for the Spitfire, and something about the Spit—even in scale model form—is enough to get Hans Zimmer’s “Supermarine” pumping through our skulls.

P-51 Mustang

At the very core of the USAAF’s fighting stock was the long-ranged P-51 Mustang, rolled out in A, B, C and D iterations beginning in 1940. They’re famous for their unpainted skins, but not all P-51s flaunted the bare-metal look. Early P-51 Mustangs were painted in camouflage to help parked planes escape notice from the air. However, once momentum shifted in the skies and the Allies began to establish superiority, the additional weight and production time involved in painting each plane became impractical.

Whether camo’d or not, these long-range fighters were ideal cover for U.S. bombing raids. Early versions of the P-51 used the Merlin V-12, though eventually the P-51D switched to a Packard-made V-12. If you’ve never had the thrill of being airborne in one, or heard one fire up in the flesh, your imagination and this glistening desk trophy will have to do for now.

UH-1 Iroquois (Huey)

In 1956, the Huey was a welcome development in the world of rotorcraft due to its agility under load and powerful Lycoming turboshaft engine. UH-1Ds were armed and brought the fight, while UH-1Vs were stringently spec’d for medivac duty. For many, the sight of a descending Huey meant salvation; today, it’s a revered piece of machinery in the memory of many veterans.

Because they’ve been in operation all over the world, Hueys elicit strong emotion across an unusually wide range of countries. Some hear the chop of their blades and think of angels; for others, the sound recalls “Fortunate Son” and their favorite military movies. The best part about a scale model with two rotors? It’s a low-key fidget spinner for adults, embarrassment not included.

Patrol torpedo boat PT-109

Any craft that earned titles such as “the mosquito fleet” and “devil boats” from the fearless Japanese must be formidable indeed. Though armed to the hilt with four Bliss-Leavitt Mark 8 torpedoes and weighing 3150 pounds apiece, these boats could fly thanks to not one but three Packard V-12s. Their top speed was roughly 41 knots, or approximately 47 mph.

PT-109, shown here, was piloted by a young John F. Kennedy, who eventually found his way into combat action in the Southern Pacific against his father’s desires. In the wee hours of 2 a.m. on August 2, 1943, PT-109 was struck by the much larger Japanese destroyer Amagiri. The little U.S. vessel erupted in a fiery explosion. Lieutenant Kennedy and other survivors clung to the hull of the sinking ship as long as they could before swimming for miles together in search of landfall. They found solid ground but were marooned for three days until a few Solomon Island scouts discovered them.

BMW R75 and Sidecar

Chariot of choice for the Afrika Korps, the R75 and Sidecar were the result of a special request put into BMW by the German Army starting in 1938. Equipped with an all-new OHV 745-cc engine and a robust cooling system, the R75 had several other tricks that helped it thrive in North Africa. A locking rear differential sat between the bike’s rear wheel and the sidecar’s axle, and its two different gear modes for better performance on- or off-road were semi-revolutionary for this style of machine. The R75 gave the Nazis a nimble fighting unit in the sand, even if its 900-pound weight demanded hydraulic brakes. Production at Eisenach eventually ceased when an Allied bombing raid put the plant out of commission in 1944, but not before these BMWs influenced other military designs like the Harley-Davidson XA and Indian 841.

M4 Sherman

Owning a tank is hard. Owning a scale model of a tank? Less so. The Sherman has been an American military staple since it entered service in 1942, but not necessarily because it possessed a pound-for-pound battlefield advantage. In most scenarios the Shermans weren’t better, faster, or stronger than their enemy equivalents, but the sheer volume that the American industrial machine could put onto the field could simply overwhelm the opposition into submission. Shermans were the most-produced tank in American history, surpassed on the global level only by the Soviet Union’s T-34. Appropriately, there is a vast selection of Sherman scale models available online at varying levels of difficulty.

Willys MB

It’s an oldie but a goodie. The MB’s performance drew glowing praise from military leaders like Generals Eisenhower and Marshall in-period . Today, the reputation of the Willys MB precedes it, earning the jeep a place in the hearts and minds of children all over America decades after it left active duty. After the war, Jeep put its 4×4 runabout into civilian production in one of the most direct and successful translations of military transportation tech to private life.

VW Kübelwagen Type 82

Fans familiar with Volkswagen and the lineage behind the VW Thing will be acquainted with the “bucket-seat car” designed by Ferdinand Porsche. Like their opponents across the Atlantic, the Germans recognized the advantage of a competent light-duty vehicle that was capable off-road. Essentially, Kübelwagens were Beetles with a little extra beef. Although they were exclusively rear-wheel-drive, the Type 82s had limited-slip differentials and weighed nearly a half-ton less than the Willys MB, making the VWs spry little buggies with better power-to-weight ratios.

In a similar fashion to the Willys MB, the Type 82 found success in the civilian sector after the war. Today its international descendents include the Thing in America, the Safari in Mexico, and the Trekker in the U.K.

Humvee

Back when AM General’s HMMWV (Humvee) officially entered service in 1983, it would have been incredibly hard to believe that this military-born and -bred icon would become so civilized (need we mention the nameplate’s all electric-future as the swanky Hummer EV?).

The Humvee’s fighting career largely took place in the Gulf, where it established a love-it-or-hate-it reputation. Humvees weren’t the most reliable, and their vulnerability to explosives placed underneath them represented serious cause for concern. After a run of nearly 30 years, the U.S. government accepted that the Humvee’s best days were over. Retirement was imminent and phase-out commenced. While the civilian model’s success pales in comparison to the Jeep’s, the Hummer name still carries weight in the minds of modern-day consumers and initial demand for a resurrected model appears strong.

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Brendon Vetuskey has a dream job. He gets to play with Hot Wheels all day. OK, so that’s not really his job, but it’s close—he’s a Hot Wheels designer who is responsible for many of the iconic 1/64-scale diecast cars that have reached store shelves and fueled the dreams of automotive enthusiasts young and old.

Vetuskey was a guest on a recent Hagerty Drivers Club Livestream on Facebook, and he and host Brad Phillips talked about how the legendary toy cars came to be. Some are licensed replicas of cars that we know, and some are total custom jobs taken directly from a designer’s imagination.

Vetuskey has created plenty of both. He owns a silver 1967 Pontiac Firebird that he modified himself, adding (among many other things) an LS1 engine that’s mated to a T56 Magnum wide-ratio transmission. “It gets a lot of attention because it’s really different,” Vetuskey says .

The Firebird was featured on the cover of Car Craft magazine in October 2018 … a year after becoming a Hot Wheels car—designed by Vetuskey, of course.

Speaking of different, one of Vetuskey’s wildest designs is a 2018 truck that he called “The Gotta Go.” It looks like a large toilet. “If you roll the rear wheels,” he says, “the toilet seat goes up and down.”

Once upon a time, Hot Wheels were created by building a model and scaling it down for casting. These days designs are drawn on a computer, and a 3-D printer allows the designer to check for accuracy and also access the need for changes—technology that Vetuskey says allows for more detailed vehicles.

In addition to partnering with major automakers and celebrities like Magnus Walker, one of Vetuskey’s favorite collaborations was with Gas Monkey Garage in Dallas. He worked with the GMG crew for three days to build an actual life-size “HiPo Hauler,” then he returned to his office and replicated it as a Hot Wheels vehicle.

Vetuskey not only designs Hot Wheels vehicles, he collects them. He owns some of the original 1968 versions—“the ones I can afford,” he jokes—and also collects a casting of every car that he has personally worked on.

His advice to other collectors? “If there’s a car that you like, focus on that,” he says, pointing out that Hot Wheels often produces several variations and colors of the same vehicle. “You can always expand on that. We’ll make more. There’s always another car you can get.”

The Livestream contains a lot more fun and valuable information, including the reveal of a future Hot Wheels release, so watch it in its entirety below:

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They were colorful, funny, and informative … a cross between Wacky Packages, Mad magazine, and an automotive history class. And they cost a lot of bread. Literally.

In 1976, Wonder Bread hoped to boost sales by giving kids a reason to ask Mom for more sliced bread. The company used an idea that other brands like Jell-O and Mothers Cookies had employed in the past: giving away an automotive collector card with each packaged loaf of bread.

The subject was cars, but these vehicles weren’t presented in the typical format used by others in previous card sets. Instead, Wonder Bread played off the popularity of Topps’ Wacky Packages—who could forget Quacker Oats and Crust toothpaste?—and issued a 20-card set called Krazy Cars.

The unnumbered cards are funny, odd, and informative all at the same time. Each features a colorful caricature on the front, with the name changed slightly to create a lampooned version of the real thing, like Blunderbird (a feather-covered version of the Ford Thunderbird), Booick (a Halloween-themed Buick), and Stinkin’ Continental (a skunk-like Lincoln). You get the picture.

The backs contain three brief pieces of copy—Safety Fax, a fill-in-the-blank sentence; Funny Fax, a short joke; and Car Fax, an automotive piece of trivia. Nothing on the back corresponds to the car on the front. On the Toybota (a Toyota boat), for example, the Safety Fax shows a drawing of a traffic signal, with a question mark inside the top circle, and a stop sign. The copy next to it reads: “Each of these things is called a _ _ _ _ light and a _ _ _ _ sign.” (Answer: Stop.) The Toybota’s Funny Fax asks, “How is a car like a coal miner?” (They both wear headlights.) The answers are found in the lower right corner of the card, but they are printed upside down and backwards, so you need a mirror—or a sharp mind—to decode them. Finally, the Car Fax explains: “The world’s first practical motorcar was the Benz Comfortable. It was made in 1895 and had three wheels.”

Back in the day, it was difficult to collect an entire Krazy Cars set. You had to purchase 20 loaves of bread and then go 20-for-20 to get every card or, maybe have Wonder Bread-buying neighbors who could help you out. Since the cards were packaged inside sliced bread, which was (hopefully) soft, they often came with corner dings or creases.

Today, single cards are plentiful on eBay for a few bucks or less apiece, depending on condition. You can also find complete sets, in case you don’t want to collect them one by one.

A complete list of Krazy Cars is below. If Wonder Bread were to release a similar set today, what humorous variations of modern cars can you come up with? Share your ideas with the Hagerty Community in the comment section below.

***

1976 Wonder Bread Krazy Cars

Set of 20 cards; unnumbered / listed alphabetically

Blunderbird

Boltswagen

Booick

Coldsmobile

Dirt

Furrari

Grumplin

Hounda

Ickonoline

Monkey Carlo

Monsta

Moosetang

Muck Trucks

Pincho

Purrsche

Shoverolet

Sobb

Stinkin’ Continental

Toybota

Voltvo

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Nineties kid Florian Weber idolized the Ferrari F40 when he was growing up. The sound, the smell, the form—everything about the F40 left a lasting impression, and eventually, it became the inspiration for his DIY paper car sculpture concept, Paperlegend.

“The F40 is very edgy and so lends itself well to paper crafting,” says Stuttgart-based Florian, who launched Paperlegend in 2019 as an antidote to the dissatisfaction he feels towards the “complex” nature of contemporary car design. “I really admire the simplicity of ’90s cars, and working with their proportions I reduce that simplicity further in my sculptures to make something really beautiful and yet easy to build,” he explains.

Made from lightweight FSC-certified metallic paper, there are currently six paper car models in Florian’s build-it-yourself Paperlegend fleet. This includes the “Geländewagen Verteidiger” which is inspired by the Land Rover Defender 90, the “Whale Tail”, inspired by the Porsche 935, and of course, the “Wild Horse” which is based on the Ferrari F40.

To customize the experience, most models are available in a choice of ten colors, with glossy black windows as standard to give the sculptures a sense of depth and realism.

“People desire these cars, they are childhood heroes, but they cannot be afforded because some people with money just park them in garages for investment, pushing up the price and taking the opportunity of owning them away from true petrolheads,” says Florian.

“With the sculpture kits I wanted to give everyone the possibility to have at least a resemblance of such legendary cars in their living environment. People love that they can create it themselves and using paper meant it was affordable, and therefore accessible.”

For those who haven’t used lockdown to hone their crafting skills, Florian’s paper car models, which cost from €29.95 (less than £22, or $36) are devised to make the build as straightforward as possible. Pieces are pre-cut and pre-creased to ensure a neat and tidy finish, and the step-by-step assembly instructions can be accomplished with a little patience and a bit of glue (the former isn’t part of the package, but thankfully, the sticky stuff is).

In order to assign each build a difficulty level between one and five, five being the hardest, as well as an estimated completion time, which ranges from two to nine hours, Florian gets friends and volunteer test-builders to try out each model before it goes into production. This process also allows him to identify any particularly tricky bits and rectify  mistakes. “I think a lot of people think, ‘Oh that looks cool, but can I do it?’ Well, yes you can,” he says.

Mindful that a one-off piece can be considered art, but when something goes into production it becomes a product, Florian wanted to make his business as sustainable as possible: “I’m trying to improve, not destroy the planet, with cars.” That’s why, for each kit sold, he offsets its carbon footprint by planting a tree. Any waste that’s created, which he calculates at 500 g of paper per 1:8 scale DIY sculpture, is recycled.

“I wanted the sculptures to have a small as possible impact on the environment, so I did some research before I started the project,” he says. “If you plant a tree for each sculpture, within one year of growth it will have collected more CO2 than was used to produce the model. It will keep growing and absorbing CO2 for decades, so my conscience is clear.”

His desire to protect the environment was further enforced when he made the move from Berlin’s “concrete jungle” to Stuttgart, where he has worked for Porsche. Whilst studying Transportation Design at Pforzheim University, which lies north west of the city, he previously completed internships at McLaren and Volkswagen.

“I think a lot of people admire a nice drive on curvy roads, whether it’s in the mountains, through the hills or in the woods, so we should protect that environment. There’s a deep and strong connection between cars and the freedom they give you, and the nature you escape to. Stuttgart has the best surroundings for driving your car, in the Black Forest for example. For me, paper also has that link to nature.”

Despite their characteristic polygonal styling, ’80s and ’90s cars carry curves—but doing them justice using a material that responds best to being folded rather than manipulated into an arc, is a difficult, but not impossible task. The first prototype Florian tackled that presented this challenge was the Porsche 935.

“I started bending and twisting the paper to see how it would behave. The limitation with paper is that you cannot bend it in two ways, like you can with something like metal, but thankfully it worked.”

In the same way that he will design a vehicle in real life, Florian begins each sculpture project with a sketch to study a car’s lines and shapes. This helps him to understand how each element will come together, and what composition—for example top, side or drifting view—will do it the most justice.

He then uses a piece of software called Autodesk Alias—a computer aided design (CAD) program favored by those who work in automotive design—to create a variety of 3D visualizations.

“That’s the program I work with as a car designer and that’s why I chose it for this project as well. It has great control of lines,” he says. “It’s important to define the car accurately; most importantly the proportions of the car, the stance (how the car sits on its wheels), how much tension each curve has and finally what details to highlight and which to consider to leave out.”

He then shares these visualizations on social media and asks followers to vote for their favorite. Once the model is chosen, and the CAD model is complete, Florian “unwraps” it in another piece of software—effectively separating the car into pieces and creating a template. This data is then entered into a knife plotter which cuts and creases the paper accordingly. Over the course of several test builds he will work out the best and easiest way to assemble the sculpture, a laborious but essential part of the process.

In time, Florian would like Paperlegend to become his full-time job, but for now, as well as increasing his line of DIY car sculpture kits—a model inspired by the BMW E30 M3 is up next—he’s juggling freelance car design with bespoke projects and a few exciting collaborations.

As a child, Florian imagined his toy cars were fantasy drives. As an adult, he’s now building them out paper. His biggest hope for the future? One day he’d like the opportunity to drive one of them.

Via Hagerty UK

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Here’s something we don’t get to say often: Get two Porsches for the price of one! Two Porsches made out of plastic bricks, that is.

Lego’s newest kit—which goes on sale February 16 online—lets you build either a Porsche 911 Turbo or a 911 Targa, depending on your fancy. It’s a pretty ingenious move, and we applaud the decision to pack more fun into one box. Both models hail from the G-series of 911s, produced between 1973–89, a generation that, for 1975, introduced the very first 911 Turbo.

Though the Turbo and Targa hail from the same general era, any Porsche aficionado will be quick to enumerate the many and substantial differences between the two cars. Lego does not disappoint in the details: The Turbo build adds a wider rear axle, more generous fender flares, a whale-tail rear wing, and (of course) a turbocharger and intercooler—all in addition to the mandatory “turbo” badging.

The Targa configuration is no less delightful. Though it sacrifices the blistered fenders, spoiler, and forced induction of the Turbo, it sports a black Targa bar and a wraparound rear window. The removable roof even fits in the frunk.

The interior, shared between the two cars, features a shift knob, a hand brake, and functional steering. (Don’t be surprised if your freshly-built 911 decides to pull some sick drifts.) True to form, the front seats are cushy and the back seats look … well, hard as bricks.

Both the Targa and the Turbo configurations are “upholstered” in two shades of orange. We dug up a period Porsche brochure—shown in the slideshow below—and Lego’s color choices look spot-on.

The front seats even tilt forward for (very petite) rear passengers.

The kit will cost $150 and will become available online as of February 16. Expect it to hit Lego stores on March 1. If you’re a member of Lego’s VIP loyalty program, you’ll even get some Porsche swag to accompany your purchase: a collector’s Lego Porsche wallet filled with four unique art prints based on period Porsche 911 ads. Sounds like a sweet deal.

The post Lego’s two-in-one 911 Turbo/Targa is a set so nice you’ll build it twice appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The entire classic and collector car hobby is built on the concept of preservation and restoration. It’s the reason many readers come to the Historic Vehicle Association website each day. It’s written right into the HVA’s mission:

“Through the collective efforts of enthusiasts, specialists, and professionals, the HVA aims to help ensure that our automotive heritage is more broadly appreciated and carefully preserved for future generations.”

Mike McGee of Windsor, Ontario, has been part of that effort for 25 years, rebuilding and painting the broken and bent bodies of customers’ treasured cars. At the same time, he was intrigued by the idea that many cars never get preserved or saved. What happens to the damaged or inoperable vehicles stashed away in dark, forgotten garages before they emerge as “barn finds” decades later? Who remembers the cars cast aside after a crash, catastrophic failure or that just are not worth the cost of fixing?

McGee, who had been an avid model builder since childhood, has been telling and selling those stories for two decades in the form of custom-built, one-of-a-kind 1/25-scale plastic models. They’ve certainly struck a nerve; he’s sold about 400 over the past 20 years, many to collectors who have bought multiple models from him.

“They trigger peoples’ emotions and memories,” McGee says.

Full circle

McGee’s professional work spawned a new twist on his model-building: if a kit for a customer’s car was available, he’d buy it and custom-build it the way the car looked when it entered his shop. For some, it took a lot of work to recreate damage or years of wear and tear. He’d give the “before” models to customers when they picked up finished cars.

“They’d get the biggest kick out of it,” he says.

McGee also built models of his own cars, including a ’57 Ford. He mainly starts with AMT 1/25-scale plastic model kits. The only way to get some cars, though—especially sedans and wagons—was to buy more expensive, finished resin models. In either case, the 58-year-old McGee draws on his own experience and memories to detail his models and create their background scenes.

“As a teen, I worked in scrapyards,” he says. “As a restorer, I combed those yards for parts, so I was very familiar with how these cars ended up, and what they looked like with parts pulled. I knew how particular cars rusted or got damaged in collisions.”

McGee also built models to keep for himself. As his collection grew, he created a 4×8-foot junkyard, adding cars, scrap motors, tires, and scratch-built parts and backgrounds. Customers who saw the display in his shop encouraged him to sell his work.

“It was just a hobby,” he says. “I didn’t see it as a business.”

But then he decided to try. McGee bought his first computer in 2000 and began putting some of his wrecked, weathered, and “barn find” models on eBay.

“It (took off) like wildfire,” he recalls, sounding somewhat surprised even 20 years later. “The models would have multiple bidders. Most sold for $300–$500.”

McGee’s models drew customers from around the world, and many commissioned special requests. He preferred those, he says, because it meant a guaranteed price versus luck of the auctions.

“It was never all about the money. I have a real passion for doing this.”

Bidding battles

His passion for cast-off cars resonated with many. On eBay, the models sometimes ignited bidding battles among repeat customers. One was the head of a large dental product manufacturer who was building his own large display as a father-son project. Another, the owner of a Cincinnati architecture firm, won everything for weeks while he built his collection.

“It was exciting to watch,” McGee admits.

Renowned bronze sculptor Albert Guibara has been another multiple buyer. He once called McGee to offer some suggestions. One was to charge more for is work, and another was to include some high-end cars, like Ferraris and Porsches.

“He wanted me to know how special what I did was, but I didn’t change my ways over it,” says McGee, who preferred to stick with the cars he knew and grew up with. In appreciation of Guibara, however, he added a classic Ferrari 250 GT SWB to his current junkyard.

“If you have an old Ferrari, even in rough shape, it’s not likely to be in a scrapyard,” he says with a laugh.

The owner of a large dismantler in Hamilton, Ontario, who had been buying many of McGee’s cars, surprised him with an offer to purchase his entire junkyard, which had about 60 models in it. “How much would you want?” he asked. McGee had to think quickly.

“He was a good customer, so I didn’t want to say no, but I also really didn’t want to sell it,” McGee recalls. “I gave him my I-don’t-want-to-sell-it-price: $4000. He just asked how we could arrange delivery.”

McGee decided to deliver the junkyard himself. Conveniently, the setup fit inside his father-in-law’s 1998 Chevy pickup. Coincidentally, McGee and his wife, Brenda, began their four-hour journey on the day of the 2003 Northeast blackout, not realizing that what they thought was a local power outage extended far beyond. They encountered other setbacks but made it to the buyer’s scrapyard, where all the employees were there to greet them.

Back home, McGee began assembling another junkyard with about 40 cars, which he would keep for himself.

TV cars and burned-out Pintos

After selling his models on eBay for about six years, McGee felt a bit burned out with the auctions. He took a break but found sales were not as brisk when he returned. He began selling the models at car shows, where he says they always drew a crowd.

“I was amazed at how many people would hover around my table. They’d take pictures and tell me stories of their similar cars.”

McGee learned WordPress and built a website (125scale.com) to showcase his work. By 2019, the site was getting 5000 visitors a month and earning additional money through Google AdSense. Since COVID-19, the monthly count has gone up to about 7500.

Visitors to the site will find several distinct themes among McGee’s models, including total wrecks, old tow trucks, barn finds, and retired drag-race gassers that look hopeful for another shot down the quarter-mile. Among his most popular models is the “General Lee” 1969 Dodge Charger from the Dukes of Hazzard 1980s TV show, which McGee builds as the stunt cars sacrificed for the action scenes. He’s sold about 12, all slightly different from each other.

“Dukes of Hazzard fans had everything but that,” he says. “I was punching the engine and tranny through the cowl, bending the front end way up, and putting a barn board through the windshield.”

McGee has sometimes applied a touch of the macabre to his models. His Ford Pintos, burned after rear-end collisions, recall a dark chapter in manufacturer negligence. Some of his model scenes, he concedes, might have gone too far for some people, including wrecks with bodies sprawled across the windshield and the Bonnie & Clyde death car with bullet-riddled bodies in the front seat.

Bringing life to “dead” cars

In addition to his scratch-built junkyard dioramas, McGee has made garages, alleys, derelict buildings, and other settings for his models. In his garages, he adds details such as musty, old cardboard boxes.

“It’s an added  challenge to build a scene around the look of the car, so I generally finish the car first, then decide its final resting place. Does it look like a barn find? Or is it something that was left outside?”

Although McGee starts with kits, achieving his vision for each vehicle always requires scratch-building some parts. For picked-apart scrapyard cars, he creates the inner details of the car that are exposed when parts such as lights, grilles, and bumpers are removed. To make a headlight bucket, for example, he reverses a baby moon hubcap and weathers it. Where multiple parts of a real car might be molded as one piece on a model, he’ll cut the area apart and reassemble it to show the gaps.

McGee recently added a 3D printer to his toolset, allowing him to print objects he previously had to scratch-build. To make a tow truck out of a 1950 Chevy 3100 truck kit, for example, he 3D-printed the wheels and made the boom from the frame of an old big-rig model he had laying around in a parts box. He made the cradle from electrical tape and cut a hollow model tire to make the front push bumper.

Building gassers also takes some improvisation. “There’s a lot of butchery involved,” he says. “Gassers were built to be push-started to keep them light, so they had push bars on the back. I make a push bar and bang it up, because that’s what happened in racing. Then, I add rust.”

McGee devised his own methods and materials for adding weathering effects to models. Rust is the real thing, scraped from junked cars. He dabs on a latex base coat to an area and sprinkles rust dust on top of that. When it’s dry, he brushes it off and covers it with a paint-flattening agent, which seals the rust and dulls the chrome on bumpers and trim. He also mixes the flattener with the color to “kill the paint down.”

In addition to knowledge of how cars crush and break in collisions, making wrecks from plastic models takes a deft touch. To crumple body panels, McGee uses a hot-air welder that’s commonly used by body shops to repair plastic bumper covers. The tool concentrates superheated compressed air onto a small area, allowing him to soften and manipulate the plastic.

Getting down to details

To make torn upholstery and vinyl tops, McGee rubs two-inch wide masking tape into the model’s molded seats and then paints over everything. When the paint dries, he tears into the tape and adds bits of stuffing coming “out” of the seats.

He also uses the 3D printer to make objects that one might find in junked cars. “There’s randomness with the things people have stuffed into them,” he says. “Now I can just print what I want.”

The lure of making a quick buck on eBay has attracted imitators selling their own “junked” models and dioramas. McGee says most were easy to spot for their lack of realistic details.

“Model cars are stiff, so if you put one on top of the other, you have to pull down the top car’s suspension and wheels, because that’s what gravity does. The people that copy me would miss those details.”

McGee admits he has made some mistakes, like adding rust to the bed of a 1957 Chevy Cameo pickup. “I didn’t realize it was supposed to be fiberglass,” he says. “People corrected me pretty quickly on that.”

Lights, camera, inaction

McGee, who does not have a background in photography, says he’s been surprised by the compliments he’s received for his photos of the models. His equipment is modest; he started with a $150 Olympus camera and now uses a $300 Canon.

“I don’t do anything special with lighting or photography,” he says. “I just display the models the best way I can. I try to take pictures as if I’m the size of the cars. I get down really low. I know where my eyes would see over the top of the car. I might take 50 shots of one side of a car and not use any and then start over again. I know the right shot when I get it.”

It is a necessity of the $25 billion auto recycling industry that millions of old and not-so-old cars get scrapped, shredded, and melted down every year for the material to be reused. Through his models, McGee helps us to remember how some of those cars lived … and died.

The post Model Citizen: Paint and body man gives “dead” cars their due in 1/25 scale appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Years before automakers brought back once-popular-but-discontinued models to boost their lineup—the Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Charger immediately leap to mind—the tug of nostalgia had been used the same way on a much smaller scale.

In the 1930s, the Bowman Gum Company of Philadelphia began competing for the heart, soul, and pennies of gum-chewing Americans—mostly youth—by distributing cardboard collector cards with its bubble gum, hoping that those who wanted to accumulate an entire set of images would be encouraged to buy more gum. It’s an idea had been effectively used with a different product and audience in the late 1800s and into the 20th century, when picture cards depicting various subjects were included in small packs of cigarettes. Baseball players were the most popular.

In the early 1950s, Bowman had effectively eliminated its chief bubble-gum card competitor, Leaf, but soon a new company—Topps, Inc., of New York—had joined the collector card war and was threatening Bowman’s market share. While professional baseball and football were the most popular subject matters and served as the obvious head-to-head battlegrounds, both companies looked for additional themes that might make inroads among young and old.

By 1953, Bowman’s “non-sport” offerings included a 64-card “Firefighters” set, a 128-card “Frontier Days” set, and a 96-card “Television and Radio Stars of the National Broadcasting Company” set. The company’s smallest offering—in number of cards, not size, since all of Bowman’s cards measured 2 1/2 inches by 3 3/4 inches—was a 48-card set called “Antique Autos.”

Although plenty of popular and attractive cars from the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s could have been included in a 1953 set devoted to classic automobiles, Bowman’s colorful images depicted only cars from the “Golden Age” of automobiles. The images are detailed works of art, colorful drawings that show each car in a “natural” setting, with drivers, passengers, and appealing backgrounds. They have white borders and black trim around the artist’s rendering.

If the cards looked vaguely familiar to a certain age group, it was for good reason: The same drawings were used in an “Automobile Series” tobacco card set in 1910. Those cards, offered in packs of Turkey Red Turkish Cigarettes, measured 2 inches by 2 5/8 inches (noticeably smaller than the Bowman versions) and included 50 cards in total, two more than in the Bowman set. (The Hotchkiss and Premier cars got the boot.)

Another obvious difference between the two versions is found on the backs of the cards. While the 1910 tobacco cards (referenced as T37 in The American Card Catalog) have identical backs—with large “Turkey Red” lettering and a full list of the automobiles—the 1953 Bowmans (catalogued R701-1) have different backs that give context to the era in which they were produced.

In the early 1950s, new 3-D technology was being used (tried?) in movies, so Bowman decided to give this reissued card set a “modern” twist by using the same 3-D gimmick. The backs of each card (numbered 1–48) have an image that’s nearly identical to the front, but in a 3-D format that will give you a headache if you stare too long. Since 3-D images require 3-D glasses, retailers handed out free glasses with every four packs purchased—although you can’t really call them glasses. You hold them up to your eyes, kind of like a magnifying glass, and unfortunately, they don’t work.

The biggest advantage that the 1953 Bowman set has over its 1910 Turkey Red cousin is that Bowman’s production staff provided a brief history of each car in a short copy block on the back. The descriptions are printed in red ink, however, which makes them difficult to read, especially if the card is in rough condition.

Here’s the copy about the #4 Fiat Racer, for example: “The Italian Fiat has been one of the world’s best racing cars for many years, and also one of the most expensive passenger cars. This racer was equipped with one of the very first engines cast in one piece. The cylinders had a very long stroke, and the car cost $5500.”

Most of the images are horizontal—they’re the most aesthetically pleasing—but 12 are vertical, an awkward way to portray a car that leaves little space at the top and bottom of the image.

Today the cards are neither rare nor particularly expensive, with most ranging from $5 to $30 apiece, depending on condition. You can also find the older Turkey Red cards at similar prices, although they aren’t as numerous and a full set will likely take a little more effort to assemble.

For automotive enthusiasts on a budget, both antique sets are collectible and attainable. Plus, they don’t require the garage space of their real-life counterparts. You can even find the Bowman-issued 3-D glasses for sale—not that they’re of much use. The 3-D gimmick didn’t help Bowman in-period, either, as the company soon lost its bubble gum battle with Topps and in 1956 sold its assets to its rival for $200,000 (the equivalent of $1.9 million today).

Sixty-five years later, Topps is still producing collector cards, although it’s been years since it issued an automotive set. Ironically, it’s also been decades since Topps or any other manufacturer included bubble gum in each pack of collector cards. For those of us who know that bland taste all too well, maybe it’s a good thing—regardless of nostalgia.

1953 Bowman Antique Autos (R701-1)

1. Pierce-Arrow
2. Corbin
3. Pullman Racer
4. Fiat Racer
5. Cadillac
6. Pope-Hartford
7. White Steamer
8. Chalmers-Detroit
9. Gaeth
10. Alco
11. Chadwick Racer
12. Matheson
13. Locomobile Racer
14. Franklin
15. REO
16. Mitchell
17. De Dietrich
18. Lancia
19. Benz Racer
20. Acme Racer
21. Palmer-Singler
22. Panhard
23. Ranier
24. Buick
25. Moline
26. Knox
27. Apperson
28. Baker Electric
29. Hudson
30. Oldsmobile
31. Ford
32. Maxwell
33. Winton
34. Isotta Racer
35. Lozier Racer
36. Studebaker
37. Rambler
38. National
39. Stearns Racer
40. Renault
41. Mercedes Racer
42. Packard Tourist
43. Simplex
44. Thomas
45. Stoddard-Dayton Racer
46. Peerless
47. Haynes
48. Stevens Duryea

1910 T37 Turkey Red Automobile Series (T37)

1. Acme Racer
2. Alco
3. Apperson
4. Baker Electric
5. Benz-Racer
6. Buick
7. Cadillac
8. Chadwick-Racer
9. Chalmers Detroit
10. Corbin
11. De Dietrich
12. Fiat-Racer
13. Ford
14. Franklin
15. Gaeth
16. Haynes
17. Hotchkiss Racer
18. Hudson
19. Isotta-Racer
20. Knox
21. Lancia
22. Locomobile-Racer
23. Lozier Racer
24. Matheson
25. Maxwell
26. Mercedes Racer
27. Mitchell
28. Moline
29. National
30. Oldsmobile
31. Packard-Tourist
32. Palmer-Singer
33. Panhard
34. Peerless
35. Pierce
36. Pope-Hartford
37. Premier
38. Pullman Racer
39. Rainier
40. Rambler
41. Renault
42. REO
43. Simplex
44. Stearns Racer
45. Stevens Duryea
46. Stoddard-Dayton Racer
47. Studebaker
48. Thomas
49. White Steamer
50. Winton

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If you’ve felt alienated by the rash of Lego-designed supercar and endurance racer kits, today’s news will be a treat for you: The JL Jeep Rubicon Technic set will launch on New Year’s Day, both online and at Lego stores.

The 665-piece Technic kit brings all the off-roading tricks too. The miniature version boasts the Wrangler’s flexible live-axles and all the other accoutrements you’d expect: removable doors and roof, a working winch, folding seats, and more. Really, given how modular and buildable Wranglers are with full-size bolt-on components, this seems like a long-overdue partnership.

“With an 80-year legacy that reaches around the world, our owners, fans and followers have quite literally grown up with us,” said Christian Meunier, Jeep’s global president. “Our partnership with the Lego Group gives our enthusiasts another inclusive opportunity to share the passion they have for the Jeep Wrangler, a global automotive icon that represents fun, freedom and unbridled adventure.”

Since the kit belongs to Lego’s more involved Technic line, the live suspension carries over from the real-world version. A simple feature for playing, sure, but one that also gives kids a chance to learn hands-on how a suspension works.

“The Jeep Wrangler is an icon in the off-road world,” said Lars Thygesen, a designer for Lego Technic. “The Rubicon has a lot of the iconic details loved by 4×4 fans the world over, so it was important to me to pack as many of the authentic, powerful features of the real vehicle into the Lego Technic replica. I hope Lego fans and vehicle lovers enjoy all aspects, including the suspension, winch, and open-air design that we developed alongside the talented Jeep design team.”

The kit will retail for $49.99 when it hits stores New Year’s Day. We might expect that, given the number of Lego stores inside shopping malls, we’ll see plenty of Jeeps crawling to malls first thing in the morning—maybe even camped out in the back lots with a roof-top tent. They’re a dedicated bunch, y’know?

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When Mattel launched the Hot Wheels brand in 1968 it probably had no idea the toys would make such a huge impact on automotive fans across the globe. The initial models, known collectively as the “Sweet 16,” are among the most coveted by collectors, but it’s the rare prototypes, those never meant to leave Mattel’s HQ, that demand the highest prices.

Born in 1961, Bruce Pascal has been a Hot Wheels fan since the beginning, but his collecting began in earnest when he stumbled upon his childhood collection about 20 years ago. Since then he’s amassed some of the most desirable die-casts the company has ever made.

His pink Beach Bomb VW bus is one of two known to exist. After much sleuthing, he tracked both models down and snapped them up. “I won’t say how much I purchased it for,” says Pascal of the pink bus, “but it is worth an estimated $150,000 today.” Pascal sold one to a friend and fellow collector and kept the most well-preserved version for himself, as the jewel of his 4000-strong Hot Wheels collection.

The pink Beach Bomb is rare not only due to its color—Hot Wheels were marketed to boys, and pink wasn’t thought to be a big seller—but also because of its rear-loaded surfboards, indicative of its status as an early prototype. The boards’ position seemed to throw off the balance of the Beach Bomb. A Hot Wheels has to roll smoothly after all, and this prototype didn’t pass the test. The production Beach Bomb featured widened quarter panels with a surfboard stashed in each side. Those heavier sides apparently helped lower the center of gravity and give the Beach Bomb better performance when scurrying around those trademark orange tracks.

The priciest versions of the VW bus, the 23-window variants, are worth nearly $190,000 in #1 (Concours) condition. That means that the rarest of the 1:64-scale models bests all but the most pristine, sought-after versions of the real thing. Maybe it’s worth peeking around your attic for some of your old Hot Wheels. Pascal is still in the market for rarities.

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Hankering to buy a McLaren, but hamstrung by the global pandemic and—let’s be real—a less-than-McLaren-worthy bank balance? Lego’s got a solution for you: the $50 Technic McLaren Senna GTR, available as of January 1.

First, a bit of slicing and dicing. McLaren has already made a 467,854-part Lego version of the Senna, but that was a full-size plastic replica that required 42 master builders and 2700 hours of work. Lego, for its part, has already made a Senna—a 219-unit mass-market affair that’s only five inches long. The model before you today is a more complex (and rewarding, according to our experience with Lego’s Technic sets) rendition of the wildest iteration of McLaren’s supercar: the track-only Senna GTR.

Though Lego has previously offered kits for the P1, the 720S, and the aforementioned Senna, the Senna GTR is the first McLaren model to appear as a Technic kit.

Lego aficionados will be familiar with the brand’s Technic line, differentiated from Lego’s plastic-brick-centric Creator offerings by its use of gears, electric motors, and even pneumatic pieces. These Technic kits incorporate a different building style and that produce results that are more mobile and realistic than you might expect: its “Super Car” set boasted a working steering rack, motorized butterfly doors, an extendable rear spoiler that tucked under the rear bodywork, and a V-8 engine connected via a plastic crankshaft to the rear wheels whose pistons bobbed when the car was moving.

The 12-inch Senna GTR is far more handsome than its anonymous 2011 predecessor, though it shares the plastic, moving-piston V-8. It also includes fancy dihedral doors to match its real-life counterpart, plus a blue racing livery—check out those patterned front fender panels!

At 830 pieces, the Senna GTR won’t intimidate Technic builders who’ve whetted their skills on the 1281-piece Super Car or the 1580-piece Porsche 911 RSR. Still, the Senna GTR is pretty awesome, and it has the attractive quality of being cheaper than either of the previously mentioned sets.

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About a year ago we introduced you to Slot Mods Raceway, a Detroit-area company that meticulously recreates racetracks for 1:32-scale slot cars. One of Slot Mods’ creations—enjoyed by Formula 1 Paddock Club patrons during the 2018 Formula 1 season—was about to cross the block at RM Sotheby’s 2019 Abu Dhabi auction.

At the time, Slot Mods owner/creator David Beattie said the track “would cost me $125K to build today,” but RM valued it at $20,000–$30,000, and it ultimately sold for $48,000.

If you missed out on that two-lane bargain, do not despair. Bring a Trailer is offering a three-lane 2012 Slot Mods Raceway with three controllers and 25 slot cars at no reserve. When this story was published, bidding sat at $4100 with six days to go.

Inspired by Virginia International Raceway but named Gussack International Speedway—for its original owner, Dave Gussack—the custom built-track is 6 feet wide and 20 feet long. It can be disassembled, moved, and rebuilt.

The slot car track is constructed of routed wood and is equipped with banked cornering, elevation changes, aluminum Armco-style railing, an overpass, and a tribute to Virginia International Raceway’s “Oak Tree Turn.” The track also features hand-painted surfaces, structures, signs, and landscaping. Three users can play at once using a PC-based tablet control system that plugs into a 110V wall socket.

Miniature figurines are included and add to the track’s authentic appearance, ranging from track workers, spectators, and period-style grandstands to flag towers, a small house, and advertising signs.

The 25 slot cars include a wide variety of models from Ferrari, Porsche, Audi, McLaren, and Ford. There are even single-seater Le Mans prototypes with identifiable livery.

Slot Mods dates to 2008, when David Beattie turned to one of his childhood hobbies after being laid off from his job as a printing company manager. He says that, though he tried selling do-it-yourself slot car kits at a hobby store on weekends, that venture was unsuccessful. However, a Ford executive saw his work and contracted him to build a track. Word got around, and the ensuing publicity jump-started Slot Mods. The tracks range in price from $50,000 to $300,000.

(Editor’s note: This slot car track sold for $65,500.)

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Most car enthusiasts older than about eight years old have likely assembled a plastic scale model car kit at one time or another, though the hobby is long past its golden years of the 1960s. It shouldn’t surprise you that like their full-scale siblings, much of the history of plastic scale-model cars took place in and around Detroit. While California’s Revell and Chicago’s Monogram were major players in the model kit industry, they didn’t concentrate on model cars. It was companies in the Detroit area, Jo-Han, AMT, and later MPC, that provided the foundation for the model car kit industry.

While some histories put AMT as the originators of the plastic model car, that acronym actually stands for Aluminum Model Toys, which Detroit attorney West Gallogly Jr. started in 1948 to make cast aluminum scale-model Fords. Gallogly had family connections to Ford, and the models were marketed as promotional items through Ford dealers.

While plastics like celluloid and Bakelite were in use in the first half of the 20th century, the development of acrylic and other more advanced polymers during World War II gave postwar entrepreneurs new materials to use making consumer goods.

Product Miniature Company, known as PMC, was started by brothers Ed and Paul Ford in Milwaukee in 1946. At the time, car dealers gave away promotional metal cars used as coin banks made by companies like Banthrico. PMC made car shaped coin banks, only molded from cellulose acetate. The company had at least some success as the line stayed in production until 1965. Cellulose acetate, however, has a tendency to warp, and the company was slow to embrace styrene-based plastics, which were both more dimensionally stable and also could be molded in finer detail. Perhaps that was why PMC abandoned making model cars in 1965, at a time when that industry was booming.

In between the founding of PMC and AMT, in 1947 a Detroit-based tool and die maker named John Hanley started a company to make promotional advertising specialties and model aircraft. He also made industrial models. Hanley got into making model cars after producing a model of Chrysler’s then-new fluid drive automatic transmission used for training mechanics. That led to a contract to produce promotional models of vehicles for the automaker. In the 1950s, automakers came to the conclusion that “the little ones sell the big ones,” and just about every brand of cars had promotional scale models, typically in 1:25 scale, that they would ostensibly give away to the children of prospective customers—though the only times my older brother and I got any was after our father or grandfather actually bought new cars.

As Ideal Models took off, a potential trademark conflict with the much larger Ideal Toy company was resolved by renaming the company Jo-Han, after Hanley’s names. While Jo-Han produced models for Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Studebaker, and American Motors, the company was closely associated with Chrysler. It continued to make plastic promotional models until 1979, its last promo model being the 1979 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. AMT made promos for Ford, and later MPC would work primarily with General Motors.

Getting back to West Gallogly, in 1948 he set up AMT in a shop on Detroit’s Eight Mile Road. As mentioned, Gallogly was an attorney with a practice to run, so in the early 1950s he hired George Toteff Jr. to run AMT for him. Toteff was a skilled pattern maker with an understanding of manufacturing. He would often say that a model car company was very much like an actual automaker, with many of the same engineering and production departments, they just made smaller cars. During the industry’s heyday, it made models of virtually every production car built in America. To get a leg up on competitors, model car kit makers even used industrial spies and possibly even bribes to get early details on new car models yet to be introduced.

The design process was the reverse of how the big car companies did it. A typical automotive design studio starts with a sketch, creates a detailed rendering, and then sculpts a scale model, usually in 1:10 scale, before scaling it up to a full-size clay model. At AMT, artists would reproduce the full-scale cars in 1:10 scale, which were then reduced to 1:25 using pantographs.

By 1949, modern injection molding presses started proliferating. Plastic bodies could be molded in a spectrum of colors, eliminating the need for painting. In time, Toteff would also implement a method for vacuum deposition of a chrome-looking finish on plastic that is used to this day in the making of brightwork for actual automobiles.

Gallogly switched to plastic bodies and renamed the company to its acronym, AMT. In the early days of plastic model kits, car bodies were made similarly to how real cars were assembled, glued up from different panels. That made alignment and assembly of the bodies fairly difficult for a child. Toteff developed “side sliding” injection molds that allowed the molding of complete, detailed bodies in one piece, greatly simplifying assembly.

In 1958, someone at AMT, likely George Toteff, came up with what in retrospect was an obvious, though brilliant idea. The promotional car models were sold to the dealers in ready-to-play form, already assembled. At that time, the West Coast hot rod scene was exploding, and custom car makers like Dean Jeffries, George Barris, and Detroit’s Alexander Brothers were putting wild customs on the covers of magazines. Also, at the time, there were the well established model airplane and boat building hobbies.

AMT decided to take unassembled promotional models, add some extra parts, including popular automotive accessories like fender skirts and continental kits, and sell them in kit form for the hobby market. They were marketed as “3-In-1” kits that could be assembled three different ways: as a stock production car, some kind of performance or race car, or in customized form. Toteff also figured out that splitting some parts to be molded separately allowed AMT to sell model convertibles and hardtops in the same kits.

One of AMT’s early model kits, for a Buick, sold more than a half-million units. By 1959, AMT offered 10 model car kits, including a Corvette, a Lincoln, and an Edsel model that itself may have sold better than the real thing.

While they were not exactly inexpensive—for example, the 1959 3-in-1 Ford retailed for $1.39, or about $12.50 in 2020 (a lot of money for a kid)—the new kits were a huge success, essentially creating a new segment in the hobby industry. It should be noted that the hobby market is distinct from that of toys in general. That would create problems decades later when large toy companies bought some model kit makers and tried to market model kits through their traditional toy supply chains.

Another innovation of Toteff’s was switching from acetate, which warped, to styrene, which was more stable, could mold finer details, and also could be easily assembled with solvent based glues. In 1959 Jo-Han followed AMT’s lead, moving to the more durable and stable plastic, and also started making 3-in-1 kits.

As mentioned above, the custom scene was burgeoning, so AMT made licensing deals with many of the leading customizers of the day, including Barris, Jeffries, Bill Cushenberry, and Gene Winfield. Jo-Han countered with accurate, detailed reproductions of NASCAR racers, starting with Richard Petty’s 1964 Daytona 500 winning Plymouth.

Around that same time, George Toteff decided to leave AMT to set up his own company, Model Products Corporation, better known as MPC, in Mt. Clemens, Michigan, just north of Detroit. The parting was on amicable terms, and there were deals to license molds and models in both directions. Toteff was also able to keep the license with Dean Jeffries, the result of which was one of the most successful model car kits ever, Jeffries’ Monkeemobile for the fabricated-four’s 1960s television series.

While the model car kit industry thrived in the ’60s, a decade later tastes in hobbies had changed. Many of the boys who were active model builders were now teens working on real cars and dating girls, not playing with model kits. Automakers and dealers soured on giving away the relatively expensive, finely detailed promotional models, and after the 1973 oil embargo plastics started getting more costly.

MPC was eventually bought by General Mills, for the food processor’s toy division. Wisely, it retained Toteff, who ended up running Lionel trains after General Mills bought that company too. Ever the innovator, Toteff introduced low-friction wheels and needle bearings that allowed Lionel’s existing engines to pull longer trains. He also introduced the “sound of steam” sound effects to model trains.

In 1977, AMT was bought out by Lesney, the British maker of Matchbox diecast models, and its facilities were moved out of the Detroit area to Baltimore. In the early 1980s, AMT was saved from brand death when it was sold to modelmaker Ertl, just prior to Lesney’s bankruptcy.

When General Mills decided to divest from its core businesses, Ertl also bought MPC. Both MPC and AMT brands then operated under Ertl, which has since sold them to Round 2, in South Bend, Indiana, a company which also owns the Lindberg and Hawk model brands.

Jo-Han stayed in business until 1991 by reissuing models based on their old molds. That year the company was bought by Seville, a Detroit area vendor of plastic parts to the automotive industry, although things didn’t work out and Jo-Han models disappeared from shelves for a few years.

In 2000, model enthusiast Okey Spaulding bought the Jo-Han brand and molds from Seville, putting some classic models back into limited production, but that enterprise seems to be now restricted to selling parts, not complete model kits.

George Toteff had some success reviving the Lindberg brand of model kits in the early 1990s, using old molds. He died in 2011 at the age of 85. He once said that the only job he ever had was making models.

Toteff had few equals. Though it has produced many, many millions of model kits, the model car kit industry was actually the product of a small number of men: Gallogly and Toteff at AMT and MPC, Hanley at Jo-Han, Revell’s Lew Glaser, and the men who founded Monogram, Jack Besser and Bob Reder.

That small circle created a hobby that has provided countless hours of entertainment for millions of people, young and old.

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YouTube has established a devastatingly effective strategy to suck viewers in, making them watch far more videos than they’d bargained for. That’s pretty much the only way to explain how I went from watching car tech tips and restorations like our own Redline Rebuild series to seeing a 1970s Tonka race car get fully restored to better-than-new glory. I’m not mad about it.

The channel, Cool Again Restoration, has tackled all sorts of projects, but somehow this toy car resto is the first one to come across my feed. The video hits a lot of my interests: ’70s race cars, paint and bodywork, and observable restoration progress, even if it isn’t my car—or a real car, for that matter. It’s also cool to see STP used to restore a toy that wears STP contingency decals. I can’t say I saw that coming.

David, the one both on and behind the camera, obviously has lots of experience in this sort of work and makes the entire process seem so simple and easy. Of course, the experience belies all of the chances for even a project of this scale to go wrong. It doesn’t help that I watched this video in my living room, from where I can see my project car … right where it’s been parked for the last three months since the last time I drove it. If it only had 50-odd pieces in total and could be bead-blasted, masked, and painted in one day, I’d have one less excuse as to why it still looks so crummy.

Hopefully, you find this restoration as entertaining as I did. If you stay until the end, you’ll get an extra payoff that definitely makes it worthwhile.

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Whenever LEGO announces a new car model—and the company has been revealing some real gems lately—the opinions start flowing. Why this car? Why is it so big—or so small? Did the designers overlook any details that we can nitpick? What’s up with that price? Is LEGO really the world’s largest manufacturer of tires? (Yes.)

Not all LEGO car models are created the same; in fact, they’re sorted into several distinct product lines, each with a different approach, building experience, and target audience. For the purposes of this buyer’s guide to LEGO cars, we’re focusing on sets featuring replicas of real production vehicles. How cars are chosen for the LEGO treatment, how they’re designed, and how to choose a model that meets your (or your kid’s) expectations.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I’ve worked several jobs at LEGO myself, and that my family also has ties to the firm which go even deeper than the average two-by-two brick underfoot on Christmas morning.)

The good news is that LEGO is in its best era of car models yet, and if you find car culture inaccessible in our time of social distancing, a few hours of play might be just what you need.

LEGO product lines

First, we’ll take a look at LEGO’s current product lines that feature car and bike replicas, ascending in price and complexity. LEGO put us in touch with Louise Bontoft, the Senior Creative Director for the Adults, Preschool and Create products at LEGO. Bontoft is based at LEGO’s global headquarters in Billund, Denmark.

The company’s product lines have become much more cohesive in later years, and the level of detail has improved tremendously. Whenever a new LEGO car is teased, without fail, you’ll find Internet denizens who will complain that a Speed Champion set “isn’t detailed enough”… but they will then turn around and complain that a Technic set with an intricate working drivetrain costs upwards of $300. In truth, each set is a considered compromise between cost and detail—and it’s all in the part count. Smaller sets are designed to be accessible for kids, in terms of size and pricing. The level of detail is moderate, due to the relative lack of complexity. Mid-range and large sets feature much more detail, but as the part count increases (necessary for finely detailed models), the price does, as well.

“A large part of our portfolio consists of products designed to inspire adult builders whilst catering to differing levels of building experience,” said Bontoft. “A difference between the franchises also relates to the level of challenge we provide, both on size and scale of the models, but also in the way the models are built. Some may enjoy collecting several smaller cars from e.g. Speed Champions, others may cherish the many hours and focus you need to put into building an advanced gearbox in one of the 1:8 scale Technic supercars.”

What we really wanted to know is how specific vehicles are chosen for specific types of models — for example, why the MINI Cooper is a Creator model, but a Porsche is a Technic model, and how the Audi R8 became a Speed Champions model. According to Bontoft, LEGO chooses models to appeal to a wide range of car enthusiasts, and it’s an ongoing challenge to understand and anticipate what consumers want.

“Some vehicles in Creator Expert tap into nostalgic classic vehicles, whilst other lines including Technic appeal to modern petrol heads who appreciate race and luxury cars, trucks and machines that both look and function like the real vehicles,” said Bontoft. “By that we aim to cater for different needs and passions across our assortment, serving as many different options as possible to the car enthusiasts.”

Speed Champions

Age 7+, MSRP $14.99+

The Speed Champions line is the current point of entry for LEGO cars. The lowest-priced sets in the line, as of this writing, include Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Race Car, McLaren Senna, and Ferrari F40 Competizione. These sets generally include about 200 pieces and are roughly scaled in proportion with LEGO’s minifigures; to that end, some Speed Champions sets feature a LEGO minifigure dressed in race gear. On the higher end, at about $50, enthusiasts can grab a pair of MINI Coopers, 1967 Mini Cooper S Rally and 2018 MINI John Cooper Works Buggy, or a pair of Lambos, Lamborghini Urus ST-X & Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO.

Creator/Creator Expert

Age 16+, MSRP $89.99+

Though miniature versions of some iconic LEGO models, such as the MINI Cooper and Volkswagen Camper Van, have appeared under the basic Creator line, classic LEGO vehicles are most often found labeled as Creator Expert. Creator Expert is marketed toward experienced builders and adults, and is a great choice for project for parents to share with their kids. Recent additions to the Creator Expert vehicle lineup include the Harley-Davidson Fat Boy (1023 pieces, $99.99) and the James Bond Aston Martin DB5 (1295 pieces, $149.99).

Technic

Age 9+, MSRP $49.99+

Some LEGO designers have worked on the Technic line for more than 20 years, and according to Bontoft, it takes a LEGO designer “many years to train to the expert level needed.” The Bugatti Chiron (3599 pieces, $349.99), with its working gearbox, is one example of a Technic model that required the most experienced designers on the team. The level of detail in a Technic set means it’ll hit the three-figure mark more often than not, but recent introductions like the Ducati Panigale V4 R (646 pieces, $69.99) and Dom’s Dodge Charger from “Fast & Furious” (1077 pieces, $99.99) help broaden the line’s appeal. At the high end, there’s the Lamborghini Sián FKP 37 (3696 pieces, $379.99) which boasts a V12 engine with moving pistons and is recommended for ages 18 and up.

Older product lines

Cars feature prominently in older LEGO lines such as Ideas, Hobby Set, Racers (sort of a precursor to the current Speed Champions line), System, and a variety of sets categorized as “promotional” (McDonald’s Happy Meal toys and the like). 

System may be the most interesting of the group, since it’s the least like LEGO as we know it. According to Brickset, a crowdsourced database of LEGO sets, System cars span a decade, about 60 sets produced in the 1950s and ‘60s. They’re notable because they’re intended to be complements of a city or town scene, like a diecast, rather than a car that is built by the user. The System cars are 1:87 scale and focus on European models. There are a number of Volkswagens, including numerous Beetles, Vans, and Pickups. Mercedes and Opel are also well-represented, as is the Ford Taunus, which reappears in several different years of the System line. There were a handful of multi-car value kits, and a few in which the car accompanied a garage for the user to build. These LEGO cars exist today in such small numbers that they don’t even have estimated values on the collector’s market; Brickset database users self-report ownership of these cars in the low dozens. 

Racers, which was popular during the 2000s, consisted mostly of generic performance car designs but also incorporated a bunch of Ferrari F1s and a couple of random Lamborghini models. This line included everything from 1:9 scale Technic models to small polybags, the kind of impulse buy set you’d see on a store endcap or in a checkout line for a few bucks. Though Racers was kind of a catch-all product line for cars, with less differentiation among different types of models than current product lines, it’s fair to speculate that its popularity helped justify the wide variety of product types available today. 

(Editor’s note: Mrs. Threewitt is too young to remember this, but I cut my LEGO-motoring teeth on the LEGO Expert Builder Auto Chassis 853, which acquainted me, and many others, with the workings of a two-speed transmission and a rudimentary piston engine — Jack Baruth)

Collaboration and design process

LEGO collectors have probably noticed that some cars have popped up frequently over the decades. Volkswagens are a favorite, with multiple appearances of the Beetle and T1 Camper. Numerous Ferrari models have been rendered in LEGO across different product lines. There are also multiple LEGO models of the Bugatti Chiron, Ford Mustang, and MINI Cooper, among others. These cars have iconic designs and have earned the hearts of car fans around the world, making them ideal for the LEGO treatment. Furthermore, these automakers are experienced in successful collaborations. Here’s how the LEGO process works.

According to Bontoft, the LEGO team starts by reviewing partnership opportunities — that is, automakers willing to collaborate with LEGO and the vehicles that would make good candidates. Then, the team analyzes data that helps LEGO figure out which models might resonate best with buyers. 

“Our adult vehicle design teams then embark on a highly creative phase exploring each partner opportunity to see if it holds the potential to make an engaging and fun build that adults will take pride in showcasing,” said Bontoft. “We really want to give our consumers the best possible experience, so we always aim to base our decisions on insights and data directly from the consumers. So once we have narrowed down the ideas, we also set up tests with our core consumers to get some direct feedback on our ideas.”

In short, cars for LEGO sets are chosen based on the automaker’s willingness to collaborate, how the car’s recognizability will translate into brick form, if buyers will feel inspired by the building process and enjoy owning the finished product, and how well the model is likely to sell around the world. 

Authenticity is also a priority for the automakers and for LEGO. That’s what sets these models apart from the more generic cars in the LEGO lineup—not that there’s anything wrong with those—and from other brands of toy cars. Though LEGO’s talented designers are experts in the art of sculpting every imaginable shape from plastic bricks, they aren’t vehicle designers or engineers—and sometimes a LEGO model in progress needs a little guidance from the car’s makers to get it just right.

“To be able to get our vehicles as authentic as possible we need to have very strong collaboration with our partners. So we communicate a lot along the development process, both to understand the design ethos of our partners, but also to get a tangible impression of the real life vehicle we are trying to re-create in LEGO bricks,” explained Bontoft. “Sometimes we also co-create certain models, shapes, functions or other parts of the experience together with our partners to really get as close to the real thing as possible. They are the experts of their creation and we need to get that under our skin to be able to translate it in to the right LEGO experience for our consumers.”

Trailer queens

No guide to LEGO cars would be complete without mentioning the life-size models you may have seen at auto shows or shopping malls. If you’ve seen one of these behemoths in the United States, there’s a good chance it came from LEGO’s model shop at the company’s North American headquarters in Enfield, Connecticut. Master Builder Chris Steininger (whose father, Dan, was my boss when I worked in that very shop) provided insight into the process via email.

He explained that most retail LEGO sets are designed in Denmark, while the United States-based Master Builders specialize in large-scale models. All life-size models, including car replicas, follow the same process, which, according to Steininger, looks something like this: A kickoff meeting yields a napkin sketch, which is then replicated into 3D mesh via computer by a LEGO designer or Master Builder. Another computer program called LEGO Brick Builder converts the 3D design to LEGO bricks, which is fine-tuned to achieve the desired look.

Large-scale models are usually built around a steel frame for strength and durability, but are otherwise hollow—a solid model would consume far too much brick, take too much time to build, and would be extremely heavy. The models are built by hand, one LEGO element at a time, and are glued in place with a special glue that fuses the bricks together. Some even move, like a lowrider recently completed in Enfield, which incorporated the chassis of a golf cart to enable drivability.

“When doing models like this, a lot of engineering needs to be done to get the LEGO model and golf cart to become one, including a lot of steel fabrication to the golf cart so the LEGO bricks can be attached,” said Steininger. “My favorite part of building the lowrider was integrating the working lights sound system and airbag suspension into the build.”

After a life-size LEGO car stars in its commercial or completes the auto show circuit, it’ll usually be put on display where it can continue to impress car fans and LEGO fans alike.

“Typically, these models live a long life after their initial engagement, sometimes in LEGO stores or at other LEGO events around the world,” said Steininger.

You probably don’t have space in your garage for a full-size LEGO model—a true trailer queen—nor will you be able to get your hands on one, no matter how dedicated or resourceful a collector you are. You can almost certainly spare some shelf or desk space, though, whether your budget and taste are best suited to a $15 Porsche or $350 Bugatti. Collecting LEGO cars is easy to get into and hard to quit, and yields a sense of satisfaction that comes close to the real thing.

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If you can’t wait for the on-sale date of the 2021 Ford Bronco to buy the real thing, a Lego-obsessed Ford engineer has you covered with the next best option. Peter Blackert, a 15-year Ford veteran, has posted dozens of his digital Lego creations on his Instagram account, including both two- and four-door versions of the 2021 Ford Bronco. Just like the real things, they’ve got removable hard-tops and removable doors.

OK, technically all Lego cars have removable tops and doors—but you get the idea. It’s a tiny Lego Bronco and it looks amazing.

Lego has offered a wide variety of sets that allow car lovers to build pixelated, palm-sized versions of their favorite rides. Of course, the beauty of Lego is that builders aren’t constrained by sets; the bricks allow scores of enthusiasts to make their own detailed creations, even if they don’t have any physical bricks at their disposal. Lego Digital Designer software gives builders access to the whole Lego brick catalog so that they can build 3D models on a computer and share their creations, and it looks like Blackert has done just that.

Blackert’s creations aren’t limited to Ford models or even to four-wheeled vehicles. His catalog includes European classics, modern exotics, and blocky versions of those vehicles’ powerplants—not to mention an impressively rendered SR-71. Take a look at the GMC 4×4 truck from The Fall Guy TV show that he posted to Rebrickable.com. If you like it, you can find a full parts list and can even buy and print PDF assembly instructions.

Some fans and companies have created full-size brick versions of cars, but Lego creations typically appear on a much smaller scale, and most of Blackert’s builds are in the 400- to 900-piece range. Many fit into the same scale as other Lego series, such as the Speed Champions line, based on cars that are eight studs wide.

While he hasn’t yet uploaded the parts list or assembly directions for the Bronco, we’d bet that the demand for this kit will spur Blackert to make it happen. If you give it a try, be sure to post a picture on the Hagerty Community!

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Continually variable transmissions, or CVTs, are one of those black-box technologies in the automotive world—we don’t assume much knowledge about how they work, we just hope that they work. These transmissions are designed to adjust their gear ratios on the fly, rather than stepping through different, predetermined gear sets like a conventional automatic or manual gearbox.

If we tried to explain the inside of a CVT, you probably wouldn’t believe how simple it really is. Thankfully, there are brick layin’ mad geniuses with YouTube channels.

Sariel’s Lego Workshop is run by a guy named Paul, who builds incredibly complex machines with Lego’s Technic’s kits. His creations run the gamut from entire supercars to translations of everyday mechanisms into plastic masterpieces—like this CVT.

Paul’s build elegantly demonstrates of the core components of every CVT: the belt and its conical pulleys that the transmission uses to select its gear ratios. A shifting “fork” guides the drive belt along different positions between the two pulleys. This fork changes the relative diameters of the input and output pulleys, a process similar to swapping gear sets with different tooth counts in order to change the gear ratio.

Paul’s pure-Lego design also demonstrates one of the CVT’s greatest weaknesses: belt slip. Besides lukewarm consumer reception, the greatest roadblock to the CVT’s popularity is the belt drive’s relatively narrow contact patch across the pulleys, which limits the amount of torque that the transmission can support before overrunning the belt. Since a CVT is best suited to lower-torque outputs and also improves fuel economy, you’ll typically find this transmission design on compact commuter cars.

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Earlier this year, we teased you with the news that Automobili Lamborghini and the Lego Group had joined forces and were planning to release a first-ever Lamborghini super sports car by Lego Technic. The catch: you had to wait until June 1 to get one.

At the time it sure seemed like an excruciatingly long time to wait, didn’t it? Check your calendar.

Say hello to the Lamborghini Sián FKP 37: a 3696-piece, 1:8-scale model that is surely easier than the real thing to build at home.

The lime-green Lego Technic Lamborghini Sián model, originally revealed at the 2019 Frankfurt Auto Show, is a detailed recreation of the futuristic car, from its exterior design—including moveable rear spoiler—to its V-12 engine and front and rear suspension. It even includes operational scissor doors, plus supposedly functional eight-speed sequential gearbox with shift paddles. The model measures over 5 inches high, 23 inches long, and 9 inches wide.

Once the model is constructed, the front hood opens to reveal a miniature Lamborghini overnight bag, together with a unique serial number that unlocks special content.

Lego Technic is a challenging, advanced building system that offers kids and adults the opportunity to construct transmissions, differentials, and gearing systems. And, according to Stefano Domenicali, chairman and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini, “Each Lamborghini super sports car can be unique, thanks to our Ad Personam personalization program and the specific driving style of each owner.”

Retailing for $379.99, the Lego Technic Lamborghini Sián FKP 37 will be available at Lego stores and on Lego’s website beginning Monday, June 1.

Other popular Lego cars include the Ferrari F40, Ford Mustang, and Dodge Demon. Recent releases include Dom Toretto’s Dodge Charger and, for motorcycle enthusiasts, a Ducati Panigale. Since many Lego cars are either on back order or have been discontinued, you probably shouldn’t wait if you want a 1:8-scale Lambo of your very own. They’ll likely be gone as fast as the real thing.

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I find myself daydreaming often at work (this is where I apologize to my editors), and it is often prompted by whatever trinket is on my desk at the time. With so many projects taking place in my garage, parts find their way into my workspace for research or detailed cleaning, but they eventually just become distractions and things to fiddle with when I hit the mental rev limiter of writer’s block. The new Ducati Panigale V4 R from Lego would shift those daydreams from carburetor circuits to high-speed corners and wheelie control while trying to wrangle 234 horsepower with my right wrist.

First, however, I would have to practice wrist control while assembling 646 pieces, which is a big number for a Lego kit. This is also a Technic assembly which often lends the designers to include more detail than the traditional dimpled brick sets. Items like the single-sided swingarm and telescopic forks would simply not be possible with old-school Lego.

The kit even nails the details of the R version, like the silver of the raw aluminum on the rear section of the gas tank. The plastic bricks are even lighter than the real thing, which is just 364 pounds in total.

While the full-scale Panigale V4 R provides mind-melting performance for a relative bargain price-tag of $40,000, the Lego version allows me to own a piece (rather, 646 pieces) of the action for a mere $70. Seems like a good deal to me, a reasonable price to pay to dream.

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Although the next installment in the Fast and Furious franchise, F9, has been delayed until next year, that doesn’t mean the excitement around the Fast saga needs to stop. Those looking for a maintenance dose of automotive adrenaline can now turn to a faithful ally of the automotive space, Lego.

Today, Lego Technic unveiled Dom’s Dodge Charger, the quarter-mile monster made famous at the end of the very first film thanks to chassis-twisting launches and an unfortunate run-in with a semi truck. The Lego version of the 900-hp 1970 Dodge Charger R/T driven by main character Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) comes complete with eight moving pistons, double-wishbone front suspension, and front wheels that actually steer.

The car is the first of many to come from a partnership between Lego Technic and the Fast and Furious franchise, which was announced in January of this year.

Looking at the pictures offered on the Lego site, the level of detail on this 1077-piece model is incredible. A few highlights: the details on the blower intake, a spinning supercharger pulley, and—perhaps our favorite detail—two blue nitrous oxide bottles in the trunk. There’s even a deployable stand on the underside of the vehicle that can prop up the front end, as if sending the two tires skyward in a violent launch. (The car was, after all, known for its nine-second quarter-mile time, according to Toretto.)

Lego’s existing lineup of adapted cars is nothing short of brilliant, from American icons like the Ford Mustang to Italian sweethearts like the Fiat 500 or the Ferrari F40. We’ve enjoyed them so much that we’ve created a whole series of time-lapse videos, which you can watch in quick succession right here.

For $99.99, you can pre-order Dom’s Dodge Charger right now and expect to be assembling it by April 27, according to Lego’s site. (No word on whether the recent extension of the federal shelter-in-place mandate will affect that delivery date.)

What other cars from the Fast and Furious franchise would you like to see as Lego Technic models? Let us know in the comments below.

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As more and more of us hunker down in our homes and wait for the wave of COVID-19 to pass us by, parents of school-age children are likely scrambling for ways to keep their kids entertained. Last week we suggested some automotive movies to watch, but those were mostly aimed at an adult audience. So, let’s turn to an old friend—Lego—for some youthful entertainment.

Parental warning: Lego says these car kits are designed for ages 16 and older, so if you decide to order one, younger kids will need your help putting it together. Face it, you were going to anyway.

1967 Ford Mustang GT

If you weren’t already aware, our video team loves Lego. So asking one of our talented video team members to create a super cool time lapse of a Lego car is like asking Mario Andretti to drive fast. Let’s just say the answer is never “no thanks.” The team’s latest creation stars an iconic, 1471-piece 1967 Ford Mustang GT.

James Bond Aston Martin DB5

The 1295-piece kit comes appointed in full 007 spec, complete with the pop-out machine guns up front, bullet-proof screen in back, and an ejector seat.

Volkswagen T1 Camper Van

Camping—and seclusion—sounds like a great idea right about now, doesn’t it? Check out our build of this 1334-piece Volkswagen T1 camper van. It won’t take long. Only two minutes. Sadly, according to Lego’s website, this one is on backorder.

1973 Volkswagen Beetle

It would seem that our video guys don’t simply enjoy Lego cars in general, but specifically Volkswagen Lego cars. And doesn’t a VW Beetle seem appropriate anyway? Finally, a good Bug to talk about. The bad news is, like the camper van above, this 1167-piece VW is also on backorder.

1987 Ferrari F40

This time-lapse Lego build is that one that started it all. From zero to complete in less than a minute. Not quite as quick as the Ferrari F40’s actual 0–60 time of 4.2 seconds, but definitely entertaining. This Lego set is retired, but you can find them (for a lot of money) on other sites.

BONUS VIDEOS

Land Rover Defender

Not our video, and not a time-lapse, but it gives you an idea of just how intricate and off-the-charts cool Lego cars have become. This Land Rover Defender can practically do it all (from a kid’s perspective, anyway).

Honda Civic Type R

This crazy, full size Honda Civic Type R Lego car was created by Honda Australia. Judging from the video, we’re not sure if it moves, but we’re guessing probably not. Still an amazing creative effort. Warning: Do not try this at home… Not without thousands of Legos and lots of help. If you’re self-quarantining, it may have to wait.

Bugatti Chiron

The Big Daddy of all Lego car builds, this Bugatti Chiron is not only full size, it actually runs and moves. And it took one million Lego pieces to make it happen. You may want to stick to the actual Lego kit, but it’ll cost you $350 for the 3599-piece model, which is hardly child’s play.

Assembly line

It’s one thing to put a Lego car together by hand and a completely different thing to build an assembly line that’ll do it for you. Thank you, Daniele Benedettelli. We’re still blown away by your creation.

Do you own any of these Lego sets yourself? Have a cherished automotive Lego creation? Share your experience below.

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Whether it’s the wild creations of exotic hotrodders, artists’ takes on iconic shapes, or something on a much smaller scale geared towards a younger audience, there seems to be an automotive avenue for everyone, if you look hard enough.

One such purveyor of this creative ideal is Lego, everyone’s favorite build-it brick company. Lego offers an incredible series of scale model cars, including a Ferrari F40, a classic Mini, a Volkswagen Van, a Ford Mustang, and more, including the newly released adorable yellow Fiat 500 pictured below.

The little plastic Italian is part of Lego’s Creator Expert series, and comes replete with everything one would need for a delightful jaunt in the Tuscan countryside. Pack your tiny toy pants into your brown tiny toy suitcase and pop it onto the exterior of your tiny toy Italian runabout, setting course for the shoreline of Lego Lake Cuomo. Once you get there, slide the canvas sunroof back and let Lego Mother Nature come spilling into your surprisingly detailed cockpit.

Should a sudden bout of artistic inspiration hit you as you arrive at the picturesque lakeshore, (It’s one of the most picturesque spots in all of Legoland, you know), pop your Lego Easel and paintbrush out, get your palette and a few colors blended, and capture the Lego moment on your Lego Canvas—or the Colosseum, as the included masterpiece depicts.

To accompany the release, Lego released a handful of vintage poster ads depicting the brick version of the Fiat 500 in place of a real one, and we have to say, they’re fantastic. We’re suckers for good car advertisements of all shapes and sizes, but the aesthetics of a vintage poster will always hold a special place in our hearts.

The end product is just 9.5 inches long, 4.5 inches high, and four inches wide, so it’s perfect to take up that one remaining corner of your workspace or display shelf. One stroll around Hagerty’s office would provide ample inspiration for where to put your Lego car—many of us have one on our desks here. This box of La Dolce Vita could be yours for just $89.99. From where we’re sitting, that’s more than worth it.

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It may be a couple of years before Tesla’s faceted pickup is ready for full-scale production, but you can still have an all-electric Cybertruck in time for Christmas this year for just $400. The catch is that it’s from Hot Wheels, although it is a much larger 1:10-scale than you may be used to from the storied toy collectible brand.

Like the real-deal Cybertruck, the Hot Wheels version will be all-electric, all-wheel-drive, and feature a telescoping tailgate that doubles as a loading ramp. There are even working headlights and taillights on the radio-controlled off-road miniature. It’s capable of 250 mph scale speed, which works out to (let us double-check the math) 25 mph. That’s not too bad.

The 9.9-volt, 3300mAh battery promises a 1:1 charge/run time, which full-size Teslas blow out of the water, of course. However, this version will make it much easier to remove the entire battery and swap a fully charged replacement in seconds. Is this a not-so-subtle indication from Elon Musk that Tesla is having another go at its battery swap plan? No. Relax, it’s a toy.

Hot Wheels promises that “every functioning detail will blow your mind” and we’ve gotta say that the company seems to have delivered on everything fans could have asked for, including a “reusable cracked window vinyl sticker” so that you can celebrate one of the greatest/most-awkward moments in recent auto show history.

The price tag for this off-road R/C is $400, and Hot Wheels only mentioned that production is limited. Exactly how limited isn’t yet clear. You can place your order now for an expected mid-December 2020 ship time, which means this could be one of the hottest toys of the holiday season this year.

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Hot Wheels cars have always been collectible; that’s exactly the point. Ever since the Custom Camaro, the brand’s first model, hit toy store shelves in May 1968, fans of the 1:64-scale cars have been snapping them up. In the ensuing 50+ years since their introduction, Hot Wheels has introduced thousands of unique models in almost endless variations, but it’s the early ones, the Custom Camaro and the 15 that soon followed—known as the “Sweet Sixteen”—that serious collectors are drawn towards. As reported by Motor1, a recently discovered variant of the original Custom Camaro just turned up, and it may be worth more than $100,000.

As with many actual 1:1 scale cars, the value of this tiny 1:64 toy derives from its rarity. While even the “run-of-the-mill” Sweet Sixteen Hot Wheels are valuable to collectors, it’s the odd color combos or the early production versions with the prototype name cast into the base that bring crazy prices.

In the case of this potentially prize-worthy Camaro, it wasn’t supposed to be sold at all. The cars painted in white enamel were supposedly the first off the assembly line and were meant as quality checks, prototypes only. It’s not known how many made it onto shelves, but Joel Magee, aka “The Toy Scout,” says it’s the only one with this color variant he’s ever seen. In doing some digging for this story, we found an all-white Custom Camaro cited as being highly valuable, so this find, with its black-painted top, could be truly unique. We’ll defer to the tiny car expert.

You’re probably thinking that it’s absurd that a tiny car that sold for less than buck may be worth $100,000. As car fanatics, we put more value in our old cars than the average commuter can imagine, so we don’t have much room to talk about spending too much on toys. In fact, I see this as a win. If a Hot Wheels Camaro can bring $100,000, that just means that all the running, driving, donut-spinning, road-tripping Camaros that can be had for much less are a bargain by comparison. Like any of us needs an excuse to add another project to the stable.

It also means that I desperately wish my hand-me-down Hot Wheels hadn’t met their end in a “demolition derby” when I was six years old. I believe a hammer may also have been involved. My brother still reminds me of that when I ask to borrow his car.

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We saw a 1:64-scale camouflaged F-Type enjoy some screen time in a commercial this past December when Jaguar unveiled the 2021 refresh of the F-Type, which consisted of squintier headlights, newly texturized grille mesh, and a light massage for the top-tier supercharged V-8. That car just made its real-life North American debut at the 2020 Chicago Auto Show, surrounded by an intricate Hot Wheels track.

Though we were hoping for a make-it-or-break-it throwdown before our eyes, Jaguar anticlimactically announced that it had broken the Guiness World Record for the most loop-the-loops with a Hot Wheels car under the sole force of gravity the night before. We didn’t see it, but the Guiness people did. We did get to see Jaguar’s representative receive the official Guinness World Record certificate for the seven loop-the-loops that a blue F-Type Hot Wheels model completed.

To follow up on this record, Jaguar has thrown down the “Ultimate Track Challenge,” in partnership with Hot Wheels. In this challenge, universities in the US or Canada are encouraged to design the most complex and interesting track possible. The winning track, as chosen by Jaguar, Hot Wheels, and Guinness World Records, will receive a $50,000 grant from Jaguar to that school’s engineering program.

“We are committed to developing the next generation of automotive engineers and enthusiasts,” says Stuart Schorr, vice president of communications for Jaguar Land Rover North America. We applaud the move to invest in the next generation—but what about letting the middle schoolers in on this one? They’d probably have the Hot Wheels tracks in their basement already. You can never be too young to play with Hot Wheels (or too old, for that matter. Yes, we still dig through the bins at Walmart.)

Though there were 13 or so loops on the Hot Wheels circuit displayed at the Chicago show, Guinness World Records judge Philip Robertson clarified that only seven loops counted: the number the little car ran through in succession under only the force of gravity. Robertson was in charge of evaluating the model car and the tracks as authentic, non-modified Hot Wheels products, and also in charge of ensuring the procedure stuck to script.

Which it did. Everyone played by the book, North America has officially seen the newly squintified F-Type, and dozens of colleges and universities have some Hot Wheels homework. Cheers, fellows.

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We’ve seen Ferrari F40 LEGO sets, Ford Mustang LEGO sets, and Dodge Demon LEGO sets. We’ve even seen an actual-size LEGO Bugatti Chiron. Since the LEGO Group seems to be cranking out build-it-yourself toy car sets faster than ever before, it was only a matter of time before Lamborghini joined the miniature power playground.

Automobili Lamborghini and The LEGO Group have announced a new partnership while unveiling the first-ever Lamborghini super sports car by LEGO Technic, a challenging, advanced building system that offers kids and adults the opportunity to construct transmissions, differentials, and gearing systems.

According to a press release from Lamborghini, the new 1:8 scale set will launch June 1, 2020, in LEGO Brand retail stores and on LEGO’s online store, with wider distribution beginning August 1.

“In the digital age, where entertainment is often via a screen, our collaboration with The LEGO Group allows enthusiasts to live a real experience, reproducing a Lamborghini super sports car in every detail to create an outstanding model, just like the real car,” says Katia Bassi, Automobili Lamborghini chief marketing and communication officer.

Though we don’t yet know the model represented in this set, both companies say further details about the LEGO Technic Lamborghini will be revealed in the coming months.

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Looking for ways to keep their tool and die shop afloat after World War II, brothers Al and Earl Herdklotz toyed with the idea of getting into the car business. The Illinois businessmen knew they could pursue a contract with General Motors and supply parts for a GM plant in nearby Wisconsin. But what if they actually thought smaller?

The brothers, realizing they could keep their employees working and also bring smiles to the faces of thousands of kids, decided in 1946 that in addition to the typical work done at A&E Tool and Gage, the company would also begin making metal toy cars. The vehicles would be the miniature variety, easy for little hands to manage and considerably less expensive than other automotive toys of the day. And just like that, Midgetoy—The name to remember for safe, durable, diecast metal toys!—was born.

First, let’s get this out of the way: Yes, use of the now-politically incorrect term “Midget” was intentional, chosen to distinguish the Rockford company’s small toys from the larger, heavier versions built by Structo Toys in nearby Freeport. Packaging and advertising embraced the diminutive theme by featuring an elfin mascot named Midgie. It was the ’40s, after all.

The toy vehicles maintained a simple design throughout Midgetoy’s 35-year existence; essentially, each one is a diecast metal body shell with two axles, small rubber wheels, and a bright paint job. The vehicles generally measure 2–4 inches in length and have very little detail, but their low cost made them popular at “five-and-dime” stores like Woolworth, Kresge, W.T. Grant, and Wal-Mart.

According to a story published in the April 1997 issue of Collecting Toys magazine, Midgetoy’s first vehicle was a Chevrolet truck that could be had in three forms: tank, strake, and dump. Each truck cost 10 cents, a few pennies less than similar vehicles made by Midgetoy’s top competitor, Tootsietoy. Prices rose gradually through the years, but the high-end retail price for most individual Midgetoys was 49 cents, even into the 1980s.

Al Herdklotz told Collecting Toys that Midgetoy often worked from blueprints supplied by the actual automakers, but some were designed from scratch by the Herdklotz brothers themselves. For instance, Midgetoy released its own Buck Rogers-style spaceship in 1948, and there was definitely no blueprint for that (Elon Musk wasn’t even born until 1971).

Although A&E Tool and Gage continued to provide industrial services alongside the family toy business, Midgetoy was eventually responsible for the bulk of the revenue. Strong nationwide sales ultimately required the need for regional sales offices in New York, Atlanta, Dallas, and Los Angeles, and the toy side employed three times as many workers as the tool and die side. Many Midgetoy employees were women, enticed by the use of what we now refer to as flextime. The policy allowed mothers (again, this was decades ago) to assemble and paint toy vehicles while their children were in school and then leave for the day after classes were dismissed. In the summertime, the women’s teenage children would take their place at the factory, so the moms could stay home with their younger offspring.

Clearly, Midgetoy embraced new ideas, as long as they worked well and ultimately saved money. One of the company’s early and fortuitous discoveries was the ability to sell their toys in blister packs. At a time when most toy vehicles were sold in boxed sets or unpackaged on store shelves, the Herdklotz brothers took advantage of the new “skin packaging” process they’d seen at a show in Chicago. In addition to selling their cars in blister packs, Midgetoy eventually followed Matchbox’s lead and included individual boxes with each vehicle. Unlike Matchbox, however, Midgetoy boxes were generic and could be used with all similar-size vehicles, another obvious way to keep costs down.

By 1967, Midgetoy’s product catalog had grown to include an extensive lineup of cars, trucks, trains, planes, buses, vans, and military vehicles. Approximately 200 different diecast toys were produced through the years; at one point Midgetoy was placing annual orders for 20 million tiny rubber wheels.

The sales network was handled by Al and Earl Herdklotz’s brother Dick, who frequented the New York’s annual Toy Fair and once demonstrated the quality of Midgetoy’s little cars by asking a 300-pound security guard near the main elevator to step on one. At first the guard refused, thinking he would break it, but he finally relented. When the car escaped unscathed, the man was so impressed that he told every person who stepped off the elevator that they should walk directly to the Midgetoy booth and place an order. “He was our best salesman that year,” Al Herdklotz told Collecting Toys.

As the nature of the toy market changed—beginning with Mattel’s 1968 introduction of highly detailed Hot Wheels cars and the later rise of complicated gadgets and electronic games—Midgetoy struggled to keep up. The Herdklotz brothers rolled back their product offerings, then eventually sold the business in 1981. A year later, one of the new principal owners suffered a fatal heart attack and Midgetoy folded.

The brothers came out of retirement and bought the company back five years later, and they began selling off the Midgetoy inventory at flea markets and toy shows. About 20 years ago, the pair sold the remaining inventory to esnarf.com. You can still find plenty of unopened Midgetoys online, but shop carefully, since some of those “new” toys are losing their paint or stickers.

Of course, if you’re a collector, you probably already own a Midgetoy or two already. Invented by two brothers from the Greatest Generation—during a hopeful and historic period in American history—the diecast toys are reminders of simpler days when virtually indestructible miniature toy cars were driven by tiny hands and fueled only by imagination.

The post Decades before Hot Wheels, Midgetoy’s tiny metal cars sold for pennies and ran on imagination appeared first on Hagerty Media.

If you’re a car nut and love to see them come to life in unexpected ways, you’re gonna love this livestream of Hot Wheels stop-motion videos.

[UPDATE]: The Hot Wheels YouTube channel took down the original 24-hour-long livestream video, so we’ve included instead a similar video that gives you the same idea.

We can’t even begin to imagine how much time went into the tedious process of making the tiny toys race and burn rubber (with stop-animated smoke), but the final product was worth it. We joined the live stream late and enjoyed skipping backward through the various shorts. Yes, it’s an hours-long toy commercial, but it also shows that with a little ingenuity, a V-8 soundtrack, and a lot of time, even $1 toys can be enchanting.

If you can’t get enough stop-motion, we’ll also use this opportunity to shamelessly plug our Redline Rebuild series. Time-lapse and stop-motion make an engine rebuild fly by in minutes.

If any of those videos inspire you to do some stop-motion of your own, there are plenty of mobile apps to help make it happen, like Stop Motion Studio. We could think of worse things to do while putting off our winter car projects.

The post Hot Wheels stop-motion is top-tier time wasting appeared first on Hagerty Media.

There’s some big news for folks who like to build little cars. For the first time, LEGO is teaming up with Nissan. The first LEGO Speed Champions Nissan will be a scaled-down GT-R NISMO. That’s not all of the “big” news, as brick builders will likely be pleased that the 2020 Speed Champions aren’t going to be quite so scaled-down. This year’s releases will be 25 percent larger than previous Speed Champions cars, allowing for more authentic detailing of the vehicles’ intricacies.

The new 298-part kit was big enough news that it was introduced at Nissan’s global headquarters in Yokohama, accompanied by LEGO design chief Christopher Stamp and Hiroshi Tamura, current chief product specialist for the GT-R at Nissan, who discussed some of those intricacies.

“In LEGO Speed Champions, we always aim to include new types of racing vehicles. And when we focused on drifting and racing, the record-breaking Nissan GT-R, and especially the new GT-R NISMO, was at the top of our wish list,” said Stamp, in a statement. “Authenticity is always our main concern, and we spent a lot of time exploring different building techniques to correctly recreate the taillights, as they are one of the most recognizable details on the car. I am really happy with the end result!”

Tamura, known by NISMO fans as “Mr. GT-R,” was pleased with the results. “The GT-R has been part of my life since I was 10 years old. Working with the LEGO Group was like awakening my inner 10-year-old self to rediscover what makes the GT-R so special to me. It’s amazing how much the LEGO Group’s attention to detail reminds me of our own craftsmen.”

The introduction also brought out some big guns in addition to the creative talents behind the GT-R and its little replica.

On introducing the new model car kit, LEGO Group CEO Niels B. Christiansen said, “In addition to offering a wonderful and fun building and play experience, we hope the model will also inspire children to learn more about engineering and how to create things in real life. Just as engineers across decades have improved the design and performance of this car, children build, unbuild and rebuild during play – stimulating and developing crucial skills, such as creativity, resilience, problem-solving and critical thinking. Inspiring them to become the builders of tomorrow is our mission.”

For comparison (and promotional) purposes, Nissan had an actual 2020 GT-R NISMO on hand. For 2020, the GT-R NISMO now comes with a number of carbon-fiber body panels, including the front and rear bumpers, roof, trunk lid, rear spoiler, and front fenders with new, scalloped vents. The CFRP body parts are joined by new lightweight alloy wheels. Mechanical upgrades on the NISMO GT-R variant include Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes, new lightweight alloy wheels, different turbochargers on the twin-turbo V-6, and revised suspension and transmission calibrations.

No pricing information has been released yet, but the LEGO Speed Champions 2020 Nissan GT-R NISMO will go on sale in the first half of next year.

LEGO and Nissan even provided a handy comparison chart for the two GT-Rs.

The post Build this Nissan GT-R NISMO yourself (at LEGO scale) appeared first on Hagerty Media.

A for-sale post in a Hot Wheels Collector group on Facebook had many of our staff gossiping this week, as an enormous collection of more than 25,000 Hot Wheels cars was posted by Dawn Rose. Before you ask, no, you can’t go digging through to find that rare Bone Shaker variant that’s missing from your own collection, this one’s up for sale as a single lot.

According to a post in the Facebook thread listing the sale, the ballpark estimate for the price of the whole collection is $125,000. At first glance that seems like an “I know what I have” price. There are many actual, drivable cars that one could purchase with that kind of coin. However, once you consider the price of the displays, the time it took to assemble the collection, and the fact that many of the cars are not the one-dollar run-of-the-mill variety, it becomes apparent you’d spend a lot more trying to replicate a collection like this.

But isn’t the thrill of the hunt part of the appeal of Hot Wheels collecting?

With Hot Wheels’ HQ located in El Segundo, not far from the Petersen Automotive Museum, perhaps a museum display is in order. The museum did celebrate Hot Wheels with a lovely exhibit in the past, and it seems to us like a museum is one of the best places for a collection of this size. After all, who has space to properly display more than 25,000 Hot Wheels cars?

The post Massive 25,000-car Hot Wheels collection up for sale appeared first on Hagerty Media.

In an auction chock-full of amazing automobiles, is it possible that some 1:32-scale slot cars might just steal the show at RM Sotheby’s Abu Dhabi auction? Definitely. It isn’t just the cars that are getting attention, either—it’s the track that they call home.

Built for financially secure adults who never want to grow up, the large and ultra-detailed Formula 1 slot car track at RM was custom-built by Slot Mods Raceways near Detroit. Shipped from venue to venue during the 2018 Formula 1 season, it was used at each event by patrons of the Formula 1 Paddock Club.

RM says proceeds from the auction on November 30 will benefit the Reaching the Last Mile Fund, an organization “inspired by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed’s global health campaign to eradicate preventable diseases” and a joint initiative with the Bill Gates Foundation. Offered without reserve, the track carries a pre-auction estimate of $20,000-$30,000.

If it sells that low, Slot Mods’ David Beattie says the buyer will get a bargain. “This track would cost me $125K to build today,” he told Hagerty.

Beattie is clearly proud of the brand he has created, and rightfully so. Slot Mods dates to 2008, when Beattie turned to one of his childhood hobbies after being laid off from his job as a printing company manager. “Out of fear can come a lot of creativity,” Beattie told CNBC in 2017, “and you’ve got to be open to those vibes that are coming through.”

Beattie tried selling do-it-yourself slot car kits at a hobby store on weekends, and although he had just one buyer, Beattie’s hard work wasn’t for naught. A Ford executive looking for something fun to do with his son saw Beattie’s cars and reached out, and after seeing the raceway that Beattie built in his basement using 170 feet of track, he commissioned one of his own for $4000.

Encouraged, Beattie began contacting automotive magazines to drum up publicity. Several stories about his detailed creations led to more orders—Pebble Beach officials were among the first to call—and the more tracks that Beattie built, the larger and more expensive they became. Slot Mods’ staff and work space grew too, and these days Beattie and a team of four artisans build about six tracks per year.

Slot Mods’ base-model Standard Scenic Raceway, which measures 6 x 12 feet, costs $50,000. Each is made to order and takes 3–4 months to complete. Custom Scenic Megatracks—limited only by space and budget—start at $75,000. Beattie’s largest creation was commissioned for more than $300,000.

Among Slot Mods’ clients is racing legend Bobby Rahal, who ordered a 22-foot exact replica of his favorite track, Wisconsin’s Road America Raceway. Jay Leno also commissioned a track, as did McLaren CEO Zak Brown.

The F1 raceway on offer at RM’s Abu Dhabi auction measures 7 feet by 16 feet.

Beattie refers to his 1:32-scale wooden creations as “interactive works of art,” which is an apt description since all are built with meticulous attention to detail—from smaller items like people, trees, hay bales, tire barriers, fencing, and cars, to larger objects like signs, buildings, pit row, spectator seating, and the track itself.

“I could say that we just make slot car tracks, but when I say that, people think of the old-school plastic out of the box, and that’s really worlds away from what we do,” Beattie tells CNBC. “Each piece that we create has to be unique for that person who has commissioned us to build it.”

That person could be you.

The post This incredible 1:32-scale F1 slot car track could sell for $20K-$30K appeared first on Hagerty Media.

If we can agree that Tim Burton’s followup to Beetlejuice, 1989’s Batman, is the best live-action representation of a comic strip coming alive, perhaps you’ll also nod when I say that Burton’s Batmobile is the most iconic superhero ride ever made. And so before taking a closer look at all the details of Lego’s latest highly desirable set, let’s talk 1989 Batmobile!

Inspired by 1930s Salt Flat racers and various war machines, the Batmobile was created by Julian Caldow, Tim Burton and Anton Furst. What the crew called the “Keaton-mobile” was built by Keith Short on a Chevrolet Impala chassis, with a heavily modified 1970 Corvette body. Previous attempts using a Mustang and a Jaguar chassis have failed, and the second running Batmobile was based on an Oldsmobile Cutlass.

A lot further behind that Chevy V-8, the Batmobile also had a fuel-hungry afterburner that could only run for about fifteen seconds between fill ups. All other gadgets were equally functional, including the hooks and the machine gun turrets. No wonder why the 1989 version became the most often replicated Batmobile of them all.

Because 2019 marks the movie’s 30th and the Batman character’s 80th anniversary, Lego came up with an advanced 1989 Batmobile kit just in time for everybody’s holiday shopping. Containing 3306 pieces, this set is recommended for all above the age of 16 by the Dannish company, which means smart 14-years-olds should also have a go.

Retailing for $250, Lego’s most advanced and largest Batmobile set to date is certainly not on the cheap side, yet once it hits the shelves on 29 November, Vicki Vales’s Nikon F3 better be loaded with film.

The post LEGO’s 1989 Batmobile set is for advanced detectives appeared first on Hagerty Media.

When it comes to automotive art, “art” often refers to the cars themselves, but more than five decades ago, every Canadian motorist who filled their tank at a British-American service station received a miniature masterpiece to take home. From American and European classics to muscle cars and race cars, the “B-A Gallery of Great Cars” collector card set lived up to its name, both in the automobiles that were featured and their glorious depiction.

Released in 1967 and measuring 3 1/8 inches square, the 24-card set is an exquisite collection of color drawings that belong on the walls of automotive enthusiasts in Canada and beyond—if only they were larger.

While most collector car sets in the 1950s and ’60s targeted youth (we’ve already written about Mother’s Cookies’ 1955 Sports Cars set and Jello-O’s 1961 Famous Cars plastic coins), B-A aimed at both adult drivers and their children, since many of those cards likely ended up in the hands of those little passengers in the back seat. No doubt plenty remained right up front, too.

British-American Oil, which was in operation from 1906 until it became Gulf Oil Canada in 1969, was a petroleum powerhouse north of the U.S.-Canada border. At its height in the 1960s, B-A owned and operated some 9300 service stations—about one-quarter of all the service stations in Canada at the time. In other words, it distributed a lot of these cards, which means there should be a lot of them out there. Oddly enough, you don’t see them as much as you’d think, certainly not in top condition, possibly because B-A also distributed black-and-white fold-out posters with a spot for each card and suggested that patrons paste them in. As you can imagine, the posters are even more difficult to find.

Individual cards are available on eBay (and occasionally on Amazon) at prices that are both reasonable ($5–$10 each) and ridiculous ($50–$90).

Among the most attractive are sweet rear-end views of a Corvette Sting Ray, an MG TC, and a Shelby Mustang GT500; profiles of a Ferrari (GTO) Berlinetta, Ford GT Mk II, and Studebaker Avanti; and a front view of a 1966 Plymouth Hemi, poised to punch it on the track. Sadly, the artist—or perhaps more than one—is unknown.

A description of each car is on the reverse, and sprinkled among the technical information are some amusing lines like “A legendary great among American cars, the Stutz Bearcat is as much a part of the flapper era of the early ’20s as the raccoon coat.” Only five of the cards include a specific model year.

None of the 24 cars represented is specific to Canada—no Frontenac, no Parisienne, no Acadian. Of course, the set is called the “B-A Gallery of Great Cars.” In consideration of French-speaking Canadians, however, the set was released with two different backs. The most common cards are written completely in English, while rarer versions are in both English and French, with abbreviated descriptions and smaller print.

Considering B-A owned 25 percent of Canada’s service stations in the 1960s, it clearly didn’t need to incentivize drivers to purchase petrol. Collector cards likely wouldn’t have moved the needle much anyway. Instead, they were issued through a game called “Cash Carnival” and were attached to a contest entry, which explains why they’re perforated at the bottom. Good luck finding a complete, untorn card. They’re virtually non-existent.

Since the game ended a long time ago, maybe we should just look at the “Gallery of Great Cars” as a simple “thank you” from B-A to its patrons. Fifty-two years later, it’s our turn to say thanks to British-American for these miniature works of automotive art.

***

1967 B-A GALLERY OF GREAT CARS CHECKLIST

24 unnumbered cards; Released in English and French-English bilingual versions

• Auburn 852 Speedster
• Bugatti Type 35
• 1967 Cadillac Eldorado
• Chaparral
• Citroën “Traction Avant”
• Cord
• Corvette Sting Ray
• 1930 Duesenberg Phaeton
• Facel Vega
• Ferrari Berlinetta
• 1955 Ford Thunderbird
• Ford GT Mk II
• (Jaguar) SS 100
• Jaguar XK-E
• Lincoln Continental MK II
• Mercedes-Benz 540K
• MG TC
• 1966 Plymouth Hemi
• 1928 Red Label Bentley
• Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud
• Shelby Cobra
• Shelby Mustang GT 500
• Studebaker Avanti
• Stutz Bearcat

The post Collecting great cars, one Canadian trading card at a time appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Porsche fans are excited about the new 1974 Porsche 911 Turbo 3.0 kit from LEGO’s Speed Champions line of reasonably priced models of enthusiast cars. LEGO made the announcement via press release published at the Brothers Brick LEGO enthusiast website.

LEGO fans are even more excited than Porsche lovers because the kit includes a new minifigure character with a black racing helmet and a Porsche crest on its chest. If you aren’t hip to LEGO culture, “minifig” collectors are a subculture within the world of LEGO and there are thousands of variants of the little brick-compatible characters.

You, however, are likely more interested in the car. The $14.99 kit, #75895 in the LEGO catalog, has 180 pieces and it’s suitable for ages seven and up, though I suspect most of the buyers will be at least a little bit older than that. Just like video games and comic books, adult fans buy plenty of LEGO kits.

Last year, Porsche constructed a full-size LEGO version of a lime green air-cooled 911 Turbo from scaled up LEGO bricks and put it on display at the Porsche Museum. The toy company followed that up with a two-model kit that included a scaled down version of the green Turbo along with a modern 911 RSR. Now, LEGO is releasing a standalone kit of the 911 Turbo in white, complete with rubber racing tires, the Turbo’s iconic “whale tail” rear wing, and even three orange cones so you can set up your own desktop gymkhana.

Unlike the original 911 Turbo, you won’t have to take court mandated driver training, the result of wrongful death lawsuits stemming from accidents involving the explosively quick sports car with tricky rear-engine handling.

The finished model is about five inches long, two inches wide, and an inch tall. Once the 911 is assembled, the windshield can be removed for placement of the driver in the cockpit.

The release has been timed to coincide with the introduction of a LEGO Speed Champions expansion pack for Microsoft’s Forza 4 Horizon racing video game, allowing players to race brick-based cars.

The new 1974 Porsche 911 Turbo 3.0 will go on sale August 1, 2019.

The post Classic Porsche 911 LEGO set due this summer appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Land Rover is reinventing its brand-defining Defender 4×4, set to go on sale in North America next year, but until now we’ve only seen camouflaged and disguised prototypes undergoing hot weather testing in Africa, cold weather testing above the Arctic Circle, and racing around the Nürburgring. Finally, images of the new Defender, completely undisguised, have started to appear online. However, you’ll still have to wait for the official reveal to know exactly what the 2020 Defender will look like, as the images that we’ve seen are of an upcoming 2,573-piece LEGO Technic model.

As reported by The Brothers Brick website for LEGO maniacs, the olive drab model is based on the short-wheelbase, three-door Defender 90 and it will go on sale in October, right after the real Defender is introduced. When finished, the LEGO Defender will be 16.8 inches long and 8.8 inches tall. Technic models are dynamic, so the independent suspension, steering, four-speed sequential transmission, differentials, and winch are all functional.

LEGO hasn’t officially confirmed the kit, which is numbered 42110 in the photos, apparently leaked, that first appeared on the Smyths website devoted to toys. That information, however, appears to have been taken down. Brothers Brick anticipates a retail price of about $200 when it does appear in stores.

There is no word yet on the LEGO Technic Land Rover Defender’s time around the Nürburgring’s Nordschleife.

The post Next Land Rover Defender spied without camo, as a LEGO model appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Getting enthusiasts excited about cars sticks best when it starts early. Toy cars littering a kid’s play space get the hooks in young. Mercedes-Benz is looking to make sure that not just boys get that experience. The automaker partnered with toymaker Mattel to break from the norm and create a die-cast Matchbox replica highlighting a celebrated female driver.

That car is a simple-looking gray 220 SE model, modeled after the car driven by a woman, Ewy Rosquist, who defied the odds and not only raced in the Argentine Grand Prix race for 1962, but won all six stages and set a new speed record. She raced for the Mercedes-Benz factory rally team until the company discontinued factory support for rally efforts in 1965. She continued racing for two more years and stayed active with Mercedes through the years that followed, as a brand ambassador and regular guest at events.

“It’s beyond time that we break the stereotype that cars are for boys and that we do more to recognize the influence women have, and have always had, on car culture,” said Tabetha Hammer, senior manager of car culture at Hagerty. “Mercedes-Benz is doing just that with a simple, yet profound Matchbox car. We should never forget that girls like cars, too.”

These toy cars will be available in stores nationwide in early 2020, and Merecedes will be giving thousands of them to young girls through a non-profit partner. Proceeds from the purchased diecasts will go back to produce and give away more.

Mercedes-Benz isn’t alone in its efforts to create interest among the next generation. From programs to show young enthusiasts the ins-and-outs of car show judging, to driving experiences teaching the nuance of three-pedal driving, Hagerty is right there with them. Tell us what you do to get the next generation involved in the comments below.

The post Mercedes-Benz celebrates legendary female racer with Matchbox 220 SE appeared first on Hagerty Media.

I grew up as a Matchbox kid, before Hot Wheels came along. The first diecast car I remember owning was a Lesney Matchbox 1960s Ford GT, white with blue racing stripes and #6 on the hood—perfect for a kid who also loved baseball, since #6 belonged to Detroit Tigers star and future Hall of Famer Al Kaline.

Growing up in a large family, I received plenty of those little cars, since they were relatively cheap and we weren’t exactly flush with cash. But when Hot Wheels arrived in 1968, Matchbox cars were, well, no match. Hot Wheels looked cool, their wheels rolled more smoothly, and they were available with race tracks and loop-de-loops and superchargers, which were essentially battery-powered spinning wheels that would propel the cars along the track without needing a nudge from me. (Plus, Matchbox came out with a silver-blue Honda motorcycle and yellow trailer that I just couldn’t make sense of. The freaking bike was taller than the car towing it, no matter which one I chose, and that just didn’t sit right with my 6-year-old imagination. It has bothered me for decades, obviously. But I digress.)

Hot Wheels consumed my imagination and my piggy bank (when it wasn’t baseball season), and soon I owned dozens in all styles and colors. I never questioned how or why Mattel selected the cars that it did. I just played with them. A lot. However, when my boss recently came across a 1979–80 Stutz Blackhawk Hot Wheels car—silver with blue and yellow trim, just like the one he had as a kid—his time-traveling joy was rudely interrupted by a burning question: Why in the world would Mattel produce a diecast car that wasn’t absolutely certain to be a big seller?

After more than a decade in the diecast business, surely Mattel had determined a winning formula. So why roll the dice on a Stutz, based on Virgil Exner’s early-1970s design? I volunteered to find out. (The boss likes when I do that.)

Armed with precious few details and the name of the diecast car’s designer, Larry Wood, I reached out to Scott Shaffstall, Mattel Senior PR Manager, Vehicles and Licensing, and asked for help. Shaffstall connected me with Wood, the longtime Hot Wheels Chief Designer, and Wood’s reasoning for the Stutz was simple.

“As the solo designer from the ’70s through the ’90s, it was a fairly one-sided conversation,” Wood jokes. “I was always looking for something different, because at 1:64 scale, many cars begin to look similar. That’s why there are some very unique cars in the line. Of course, I like classic cars, and at that time, this was an attempt to get into that market with a reliable chassis. The diecast version seemed to hook a lot of kids.”

Brandon Vetuskey, Hot Wheels Designer at Mattel, was one of them.

“I had a silver Stutz as a kid, as did several kids in my neighborhood, and I liked it,” Vetuskey says. “It was a unique-looking Hot Wheels, and in my opinion, looks fantastic in 1:64 scale.”

Vetuskey reasons that Exner’s best work was the 1957–60 line of Chrysler cars (Imperial, Chrysler, Dodge, Desoto, and Plymouth) known as “forward look” cars. “They’re undeniably the best-looking cars to come out of Detroit in the 1950s,” Vetuskey says.

Wood’s small-scale Stutz proved to be a winner. According to Tomart’s Price Guide to Hot Wheels Collectibles, the Hot Wheels Blackhawk had 19 variants. It was produced in both Hong Kong and Malaysia, and it was last offered in the “Final Run” series 20 years ago, in 1999.

Exner’s actual, adult-size Stutz Bearcat coupe also had a long run; it was produced from 1970–87 by Stutz Motor Car of America. The company also produced a convertible from 1979–95. Elvis Presley bought the first Bearcat and eventually purchased three more. Celebrity owners included Lucille Ball, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Barry White, and Evel Knievel.

A 1979 Stutz Bearcat in #2 (Excellent) condition has an average value of $31,300, but you can score a 1979 Hot Wheels Bearcat on eBay for $5–$20, depending on condition. I bought one. For the boss, of course. One of these days, I might give it to him.

The post Why Stutz? Why not Stutz? Longtime Hot Wheels design chief explains appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Many car enthusiasts built a car out of LEGO bricks long before they picked up the tools to rebuild a real car. I know I did. Perhaps that’s why I’m enthralled every time the toymaker releases a set based on one of my favorite cars, or a video is released showing a full-size car built from the tiny interlocking pieces, like this one from Honda Australia.

The teaser doesn’t give any details about the full-scale Civic, but the recreation is shockingly accurate to the vehicle’s curves, given the medium’s low-res, pixelated nature. I won’t even venture a guess as to how many LEGO pieces were used in its construction, or whether or not it uses a LEGO engine that’s capable of moving the car under its own power, like the LEGO Bugatti did… sort of. What the video does show is that this LEGO version has functioning lights and plenty of detail, down to the holes in its ventilated brake rotors.

The build will be featured on Australia’s Channel 9 show LEGO Masters, so tune in your satellite dish to get the details on the bricked version of Honda’s hot hatch, or perhaps keep your eye on its YouTube channel.

The post Civic Type R is big on LEGO (and we mean BIG) appeared first on Hagerty Media.

According to a popular children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, you’ll unleash a chain of events that will eventually bring you right back to where you started.

If you gave a car-loving kid a Mother’s Cookie in 1955, however, you may have unleashed a chain of events that hasn’t yet reached its conclusion. That’s because Mother’s Cookies included a sports car collector card in every package, and kids likely bugged their own mothers for more of them—both the cookies and the cards. Imagine how many of those youngsters grew up to become car-collecting adults. Perhaps they now understand why their mothers warned them about too many sweets.

Much like General Foods did in 1961 by including car coins inside Jell-O packages distributed in Canada, Mother’s Cookies knew the power of the premium: Target the kids.

Mother’s Cookies has been a West Coast staple since 1914, when Noah Wheatley began selling 2000 cookies per day at his one-person bakery in Oakland, California, which took its name from President Woodrow Wilson’s 1914 decision to make Mother’s Day a national holiday.

Noting the success of companies (like Topps) that began including baseball cards with chewing gum in the early 1950s, Mother’s began offering baseball cards in packages of cookies. (The cards became extremely popular on the West Coast, and even after Mother’s stopped issuing them individually, the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics distributed team-sponsored Mother’s Cookies sets to fans in the 1980s, ’90s, and early 2000s.)

In 1955, Mother’s decided to cater to car-loving kids by producing a 42-card set featuring sports cars. Slightly larger than a credit card, with rounded corners and colorful images, the lithographs are beautifully done—miniature pieces of artwork for miniature car enthusiasts.

The cards include a wide variety of automobiles and automakers, from iconic brands like Ferrari, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Ford, Chevrolet, Maserati, and Bugatti, to little-known marques like Jowett, Singer, Simca, Doretti, Lea Francis, and J.B.S.

Specs for the cars pictured are printed on the back of each card, along with a mail-in offer to receive a premium of some sort, from an I.D. bracelet or personalized beanie for 25 cents, to a very non-PC “Indian Design Belt” or ceramic antique auto ashtray—you know, for Mom and Dad—for 50 cents. Each mail-in offer required the inclusion of two Mother’s Cookies labels.

The cards are readily available today (eBay is filled with them) for varying prices, depending on condition. You can find some for $5–$10, more for around $20, and high-quality slabbed/graded cards for $50–$100. A perfect 10 Corvette card can be had for, gulp, $350.

Some seem to be more difficult to find, perhaps short printed. Thunderbirds and Studebakers, for example, are not plentiful.

Notably, the Hood Ice Cream Company piggy-backed on the Mother’s Cookies set by producing its own 42-card series with identical fronts. The backs, however, do not include any premium offers.

Two years later, in 1957, a familiar-looking 42-card set was issued by Oak Premier, although the cards were unnumbered, rectangular, and had white borders.

Mother’s Cookies filed for bankruptcy in 2008, as did another legendary cookie maker, Archway, and both were quickly acquired by the Kellogg Company. Six months later, Mother’s Cookies returned to the shelves, much to the delight of West Coast cookie lovers. These days, the closest thing you can get to a Mother’s premium collectible is a reusable canvas bag, sold on Kellogg’s website for $2.95. If you love classic cars, you’d be better off shopping on eBay for a Mother’s Chevy Corvette, Panhard Dyna, or Gordini Grand Prix.

Now, please pass the milk.

***

The 1955 Mother’s Cookies Sports Car Card set:

1. Porsche 1500 America
2. Ferrari 250
3. Sunbeam Alpine
4. Panhard Dyna
5. Austin-Healey 100
6. MG
7. Siata 2008 CS
8. Frazer-Nash
9. Triumph TR2
10. Jowett Jupiter D-4
11. Singer 1500
12. Jaguar XK120
13. Chevrolet Corvette
14. Ford Thunderbird
15. Allard Cadillac
16. Volkswagen
17. Maserati Chrysler
18. Glasspar Spec
19. Studebaker
20. Simca
21. Kurtis Buick
22. Mercedes Benz
23. Doretti
24. Morgan Plus Four
25. Lancia Aurelia B-10
26. Alfa Romeo
27. Bugatti
28. Fiat 1100
29. A.C.
30. Borgward
31. Aston-Martin (sic)
32. Talbot-Lago
33. Allard Lincoln
34. Pegaso
35. Cisitalia
36. Chrysler
37. Moretti
38. Gordini Grand Prix
39. Abarth
40. Arnolt-Bristol
41. Lea Francis
42. J.B.S.

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Barbie, the leggy doll that Mattel brought to life in 1959, recently celebrated her 60th birthday, and although she can be a bit controversial (hey, she didn’t choose her measurements), she’s much more than just a pretty face. Nobody accumulates Barbie’s car collection without being smart, successful, and handy with a wrench (albeit a plastic one).

For comparison, you can count boyfriend Ken’s cars on one hand. Let’s face it, the guy is just along for the ride. More about that later.

According to a series of 1960s novels published by Random House, Barbara Millicent Roberts—yes, that’s Barbie’s full name—grew up in the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin. She likely didn’t venture far from home in her early years, maybe because she couldn’t. Forced for decades to walk on her tippy toes, Barbie was in desperate need of some wheels. She finally got her first car in 1962.

And what did the fashionable 11.5-inch-tall doll drive in ’62? A Corvette, you say? Nah, Babs didn’t own America’s Sports Car until America celebrated its 200th birthday in 1976. An iconic Volkswagen Beetle? Nope, that came later too. Mattel decided the perfect car for a teenage girl living in cold-weather Wisconsin was … wait for it … an Austin-Healey 3000 MKII. Maybe it had snow tires? One thing it didn’t have was a top.

Some 57 years later, Barbie has a seemingly endless array of transportation options: cars, dune buggies, campers, rescue vehicles, motorcycles, ATVs, bicycles, tractors, horses, boats, kayaks—even airplanes and helicopters. And new for 2019, Barbie can now transport fresh produce to the market with her very own Sweet Orchard Farm Vehicle. In case the name doesn’t make it obvious, it’s a pickup truck.

So what about Ken Carson? (Yes, he has a last name too.) The muscle-bound doll—sorry dude, we can’t really call you an action figure—is two years younger and a half-inch taller than Barbie, but he looks up to her in the automotive department. In fact, we could find only two just-for-Ken automobiles: the 1984 Ken Dream ’Vette and the 2012–13 Ken Mini Cooper. (Not to rub it in, but Barbie’s little sister, Skipper, owns two Mercedes-Benzes.)

But hey, this is Barbie’s party. So here’s our list of Barbie’s nine greatest vehicles, listed in the order they were produced. There are more comprehensive lists out there, but we’ve included only vehicles that were created by Mattel or were fashioned on Mattel’s behalf.

1962 Austin-Healey 3000 MkII

There’s nothing like being No. 1. Whether or not a little roadster is the most logical choice for a teenager who drives on snow-covered roads half the year, the Austin-Healey 3000 MKII led an automotive parade that hasn’t stopped. Toy catalogs of the era applauded the car’s “exquisite precision design … all-poly body with chrome-like accessories and fittings … clear plastic windshield … and free-rolling exact-replica wheels with steel axles.” The Healey could be had in six color combinations: yellow with blue interior, orange with blue, pink with white, pink with blue, green with cream, and red with white.

While an actual 1962 Austin-Healey 3000 Mk II in #3 (Good) condition has an average value of $42,800, the 18-inch 300 MkII in Barbie’s collection will set you back about $250 in excellent condition. Back in the day, you could score one in the Montgomery Ward catalog for less than five bucks, which is about $42 today. The catalog description included this trend-setting line: “With room for Ken.” Your call, Barbie, but if you invite him along he may insist on driving. That’s no fun.

1962 Mercedes-Benz 190SL

The colors aren’t as exquisite as the classic silver-and-tan combo in a real 190SL, but the second car in Barbie’s garage was a step up in terms of luxury (although it also lacked any kind of roof). The primary colors for the German roadster were turquoise and orange, but a few variations exist, including powder blue and orange, turquoise and white, and powder blue and white.

The average value of an actual 1962 Mercedes-Benz 190SL in #3 condition is $92,500, but a Barbie 190SL can be found for $25–$200. Skipper’s Mercedes-Benz models came along later.

1970 Country Camper

Barbie had a lot of these home-away-from-home vehicles through the years—including a monstrous 3-foot Traveler Camper in the mid-1970s—but the Country Camper was the boss. It even had its own theme song (set to country music, naturally):

Singer: “Take Malibu Barbie and her suntan friends with their glasses and their towels … Where the road never ends in Barbie’s new Country Camper.”

Announcer: “Look what you get: a picnic setup, a pop-out tent, sleeping bags, a camper kitchen …

Singer: “In Barbie’s new Country Camper. Barbie’s Country Camper home!”

You can find one in great condition for $25–$50.

1976 Star Vette

The first of many in Barbie’s Corvette fleet was this purple/pink convertible with white interior. The red European version is much cooler, but purple is what we got in the U.S. We can do without all the ugly stickers, but this Vette rolls on G70-14 Super Slicks, which makes it tolerable.

An actual 1976 Chevrolet Corvette has an average value of $7800 in #3 condition ($22,200 in #1 Concours condition), but there’s a huge difference of opinion about what a plastic Star Vette is worth. Prices for Barbie cars in similar condition range from $15 to an astounding $565 on eBay.

1987 Ferrari 328 GTS

During the 11 years after Barbie scored her first ’Vette, she also received a purple 1978 Donny & Marie Osmond van, a remote-control Corvette, a Volkswagen Golf, an unbranded off-road vehicle, a Jeep 4×4, and more ’Vettes in more colors than we care to count. Then came a bright spot: a 1987 Ferrari 328 GTS.

The “red-hot Barbie Ferrari”—yes, TV commercials used those exact words—was the best, although a white version arrived later. In a commercial that featured a red Prancing Horse, Barbie literally turns Ken’s head when she drives past. Oh sure, she ultimately stops and gives him a lift, but she isn’t about to turn over the keys. Ken rides fucile da caccia (shotgun).

A 1987 Ferrari 328 GTS in #3 condition has an average value of $51,900. The plastic version can be had for $25–$50.

1988–89 ’57 Chevy Bel Air

Barbie finally scored a classic car in 1988, when Mattel afforded her a ’57 Chevy—in convertible form, of course. Available in pink or turquoise, the Chevy features impressive wheel and chrome detail, as well as seat belts. Seat belts? Certainly not in a ’57 Chevy. It’s all about the kids, right?

One in excellent condition will cost you $80–$125, which is pretty stiff for a 30-year-old piece of plastic but much cheaper than what it’ll cost you for the real thing: $47,100 for a ’57 Chevy convertible in #3 condition. Of all the Barbie cars, this might be the best one to display on a shelf.

1991 Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet

Four years after getting her first Ferrari, Barbie welcomed her first Porsche. Available in white with hot pink interior or, well, white with hot pink interior, the German sports car has working headlights, so Barbie can see clearly on late-night runs to Taco Bell. (A Boxster came later.)

A real 1991 Porsche 911 Carrera 2—also with working headlights—will cost you about $31,000 in #3 condition. You can get the corresponding Barbie car for $25–$75.

2004 Cali Girl Chevrolet SSR

After 13 years of Mustangs, a Jaguar XJS (with sparkles! Just how you love your Jag, right?), Ferrari 355 GTS, VW Microbus, Ford Thunderbird (the later version), Ford Escape, and a “Happy Family” Volvo V70 wagon, Barbie jumped behind the wheel of a “Cali Girl” Chevrolet SSR pickup.

Available in yellow or blue, the SSR comes with its own CD player. Since the CD player is actual size, you might want to remove it to use it. Otherwise, it looks like Barbie is transporting a giant monster truck tire in back.

You can find Barbie’s SSR for $50–$100. A real 2004 Chevrolet SSR has an average #3 value of $22,100.

2004 Ferrari F1 car

This is a bit of a cheat, since it’s a limited-edition car available only at the 2004 International Barbie Doll Collections Convention in Chicago—and yes, we just broke our own rules since it wasn’t made by or for Mattel—but it’s the coolest and fastest car that ol’ Babs has ever laid her little plastic hands on. It’s custom built from a 1/6-scale remote control car, and the electronics have been removed. A true 1 of 1, the Ferrari F1 race car is about as ridiculous as giving Barbie an Austin-Healey to drive in the snow, but this is Barbie, folks. She can pretty much accomplish anything she sets her mind to. Ken, on the other hand…

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LEGO built a McLaren Senna, and it’s every bit as awesome as it sounds.

The Danish toymaker had 42 master builders—yes, that’s actually a job—work alongside McLaren’s wizards to build a 1:1 scale model of the 208-mph Senna hypercar. The job took 2700 hours, or about nine times as long as it takes to assemble a real Senna, and required almost half a million tiny bricks. The static model weighs 3348 pounds. That’s a lot of plastic.

LEGO’s been doing a lot of this lately. Last month, the company unveiled a full-size Chevrolet Silverado pickup that required more than 334,000 bricks. The truck was almost as cool as the LEGO Bugatti Chiron you could actually drive, although that model topped out at just 18 mph compared to the real Chiron’s 261. There was even a small LEGO McLaren Senna revealed earlier this year.

You can’t drive the full-size LEGO Senna, but it does feature some genuine Senna interior parts, including the seat, steering wheel, and pedal cluster. We’d love to climb in, hit the start button, and listen to the simulated vroom-vroom of the real car’s 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8. LEGO also incorporated fully functional infotainment and lighting systems.

The model sports real McLaren badges and sits on the same wheels and Pirelli tires as the real thing. Of course it also features McLaren’s signature dihedral doors, which can be removed for ingress, though it’s not clear if they swing open.

Master builders worked around-the-clock in shifts to build the static model. Planning and designing the project took more than 2200 hours. Impressive, given that it takes about 300 hours for McLaren to hand-build a real Senna.

LEGO built the Senna to promote its Speed Champions lineup of enthusiast kits. The five-inch-long McLaren Senna edition went on sale earlier this year for $14.99. It features just 219 parts, compared to the 467,854 bricks and specialty parts required to assemble the 1:1 model. Both models are Victory Grey with contrasting orange headlamps.

McLaren will display the LEGO McLaren Senna at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July and at other events this year.

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The toy department in your local big box store may be carefully crafted to appeal to actual children, but an important part of the toy industry today is selling relatively expensive toys to former children—AKA adults. Not many kids have the funds to buy a $600 1/6th-scale Jabba the Hutt.

The interlocking plastic building blocks known as LEGOs were invented by Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1932. That means there are at least two generations of adults who grew up with the toys, making a ready market for advanced LEGO sets for a more mature audience. No, LEGO isn’t making anything rated PG or R, they’re making detailed kits to build some of car enthusiasts’ most beloved vehicles.

The latest set is a 1470-part, $150, 13-inch-long 1967 Ford Mustang with accurate details including a hood scoop, five-spoke Cragar style wheels, a galloping Mustang emblem for the grilles, and real rubber tires. It wouldn’t be a model car kit if you couldn’t customize it, so you can change the stance of the car, and add a supercharger, side pipes, decklid and chin spoilers, or even a nitrous tank for the trunk. The ’67 ‘Stang is part of LEGO’s Creator Expert series. The new LEGO Mustang comes in reverse American racing colors, with two white racing stripes over a dark-blue body.

The steering works, and the trunk lid and hood both open up. The latter reveals a detailed Ford V-8 engine with ancillaries. The doors open to reveal a detailed interior with bucket seats, a radio, and a console-mounted gearshift, just like in the original. You can even choose from a selection of license plates.

The Creator Expert 1967 Ford Mustang will be available starting March 1, 2019.

Started in 2011, the Creator Expert series includes a James Bond Aston Martin DB5, a double-decker London Bus, an original Mini Cooper, the Ferrari F40, and two VWs, a Beetle and a ’62 split-window MicroBus. Less elaborate models of the McLaren Senna, the Ferrari F40 Competizione, a ’68 Ford Mustang fastback, and a Chevy Camaro ZL1 in racing trim are available from the LEGO Speed Champions series, along with three sets with two cars, a MOPAR kit with a 2018 Dodge Challenger Demon and 1970 Dodge Charger R/T, a Mini Cooper set with a ’67 Mini Cooper S Rally and a 2018 MINI John Cooper Works Buggy, and a Porsche set with a 911 RSR and 911 Turbo 3.0. Lego Technic offers a Corvette ZR1.

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Just when you thought your kids couldn’t get enough playtime, certified LEGO builder Rene Hoffmeister and colleague Pascal Lenhard spent six weeks doing exactly that—and pretty much only that. Hoffmeister and Lenhard (who are adults, by the way,) used 400,000 LEGO bricks to build a life-size Volkswagen T2 campervan that’s modeled after the 1967–71 VW camper.

Unlike the actual-size Bugatti Chiron that LEGO created last summer, the VW doesn’t actually work. I’d consider that a missed opportunity, particularly for robbing people of the chance to go camping in something a lot more difficult to assemble than a tent. Although, if the stove actually worked, it would surely disturb the fresh scent of nature with an odor of burnt plastic.

Despite its lack of function, the life-size T2 is an amazing work of art—even more so when you consider that Hoffmeister and Lenhard had only six weeks to complete the project in time for the start of Munich’s f.r.e.e. trade fair on February 20. The van was unveiled earlier today, but it took a lot of overtime to complete it. Additional time was required because Hoffmeister, one of only 12 officially certified LEGO model makers in the world, and Lenhard discovered they were missing 20,000 transparent bricks for the T2’s windows, despite their planning efforts. Oops.

To make up for the lost time, Hoffmeister says, “Essentially, we would have needed a nine-day week.” Since there’s no such thing, the only option was to work nights. Thanks, Mom, no bedtime!

The duo used 3-D images to produce a construction plan, which included calculating the number of bricks required. The rigidity of the side walls and windows was another important aspect to consider.

The determination paid off. The T2 is more than 16 feet long and weighs over 1543 pounds, and it includes Westfalia pop-up roof, sliding door, and interior fittings. More details can be found here.

Meanwhile, the new VW Grand California campervan will make its UK debut this week. For information visit www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk or www.ccmshow.co.uk.

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