Collecting Model Cars.

[René]

I added a new car to my static Ferrari model collection: the 1969 312 as driven by Chris Amon in the French Grand Prix of that year. Chris qualified in 6th and retired in the later stages of the race. Not a very successful car but I do love the looks of it!

The model is by GP Replicas at scale 1/18.

[chrisb]

to a lay person such as I the details are just brilliant and that cabinet Rene,

[mikael]

A beautiful model indeed.

Apropos of Ferrari in 1969, while entertaining myself at breakfast the other day with a little classic GP racing on YouTube, I came across a short documentary of the 1969 Mexican Grand Prix - the last GP of that season. The interviews before the race are interesting. Jacky Ickx, on his way to Ferrari for the '70 season, expressed great confidence in that team, whereas Stewart and Rindt expressed that, "in order to be competitive, you need to have a Ford Cosworth engine ...".

[René]

Jun 6, 2022 10:44:46 GMT mikael said:

Jacky Ickx, on his way to Ferrari for the '70 season, expressed great confidence in that team, whereas Stewart and Rindt expressed that, "in order to be competitive, you need to have a Ford Cosworth engine ...".

And how evenly matched they turned out to be!

[mikael]

Yes indeed!

Top three in 1970:

#1. Jochen Rindt, Lotus Ford, 45 pt.

#2. Jacky Ickx, Ferrari, 40 pt.

#3. C. Regazzoni, Ferrari, 33 pt.

So Ickx was right, and Stewart and Rindt (partly) wrong ...

[Carl]

There was a human interest story yesterday on the Evening News about a remarkable young man and it was astonishing!

The Boy Who Loves Cars

anthonyryanschmidt.com/

[René]

What a wonderful story and what a wonderful young man indeed. Thanks for sharing Carl!

I really love his work to which I can relate quite a lot. He has a really good eye for detail and scale proportions to make it look real. Great stuff. 

Also nice to see how supportive his mother is, heart warming. 

[chrisb]

wow

[robmarsh]

Heartwarming indeed, thanks Carl for sharing. Not only does he have an encyclopedic knowledge but his artistic eye is brilliant.

[René]

Ferrari 512S 5.0L V12 'Coda Lunga' - Nino Vaccarella, Ignazio Giunti - Le Mans 1970

A new addition to my collection of diecast models. A 1:18 scale model from CMR. Not super high end, but nice proportions and perfect finish and very affordable. 

The extended 512S was not very successful and the factory cars all retired during the 24h of Le Mans. The #6 even dropped out after 7 laps! The private teams fared considerably better with a 4th place for the NART team and a 5th place for the Ecurie Francorchamps. But none of them were a match for the Porsches.



But the Coda Lunga is a beautiful car and the model a pleasure to look at. 

[mikael]

Wauw! A gorgeous model of a most beautiful racing car!

The sports cars (prototypes) of that era can never be surpassed in beauty, really.

Cars like that Ferrari (512S), and the Porsche 917 Langheck, are "optimal" - further improvements (in beauty) are simply not possible!

[René]

Thanks Mikael. Yep, the prototypes from the late 60s early 70s were simply beautiful. Aerodynamic knowledge related to cars was relatively basic at the time so there was still a lot of 'feel' involved form the designers to make the cars as streamlined as possible. As knowledge increased, so did efficiency, but often at the expense of appearance.

But not always. The Group C cars looked fantastic and I do like the looks of the current prototypes which shows that efficiency and good looks can go hand in hand.

[René]

A small addition, literally, to my model car collection. 

A 1:87 scale model by Brekina of the Fiat 691T/Scuderia Ferrari race transporter of the 1970s with two early 1977 312 T2 cars of Lauda and Reutemann. Very detailed and I think it's super charming. 

[robmarsh]

Very nice indeed

[mikael]

Very interesting, René :-)

An acquaintance of mine, an author of several books on Danish motor sport, maintains a very interesting motor racing blog. In it are a couple of articles on racing transporters, one concerned with international racing (mostly Formula One), and one concerned with national (Danish) racing. Both articles are in Danish (as is the whole blog), but there are some very interesting photos. (The Danish page is particularly amusing, as many transporters (or rather just "means of transportation") are quite primitive.)

Here are the links:

International racing:

bilsportshistorie.dk/transport-af-racerbiler-1-udlandet/

National (Danish) racing:

bilsportshistorie.dk/transport-af-racerbiler-2-danmark/

For both links: there are large photo collections at the very bottom of the pages. (Click on these photos, and they are enlarged.)