1:43-scale Moss cars

Does anyone recognise this as a Moss car?



Corgis Cooper-Maserati, purportedly our man in Walker livery. I can find no reference to Moss driving a Cooper-Maserati.

This car was only driven by Jo Siffert.

But then I guess you really knew that, didn't you?

Edited by Barry Boor, 18 January 2013 - 14:51.

This car was only driven by Jo Siffert.

But then I guess you really knew that, didn't you?

Actually - no. It was a genuine question. The model is on eBay - but I won't bother.

Reasonably pleased with this:




Monaco Grand Prix 1957. Vanwall fitted a foreshortened nose cone to avoid damage from the inevitable close-quarters bumping. To create the model I simply took a Brumm 1957 British GP winner (there seem to be quite a few cheaply on eBay just now: this one cost me £10.05 inc P&P), took it to bits and removed the nose with a junior hacksaw and some modelling files. The ‘radiator’ is a tiny rectangle cut from a soft school pencil eraser covered with 80 grade wet-or-dry. The guard bar is a piece of green plastic-coated garden tie wire. I had hoped to do the job with minimal disturbance to the model but by the time I had finished and with all the handling I ended up with the model reduced to all its individual components – right town to the tiny plastic rear shock absorbers, which were the very devil to put back, especially wih my currently limited manual dexterity. You can see I had a similar difficulty with the windscreen. Having removed the nose there was nowhere for the front end of the base plate to locate, so that has been put back by Super |Gluing the front end. I also thought I could get away with minimal touching-in of the paintwork but in the end I had to repaint the whole nose section. I am fairly pleased with the match, achieved by mixing Humbrol gloss green #3 and Humbrol gloss brown # 10.

The model is not entirely accurate: looking at the photographs on pp224/ 5 of All My Races (aka The Anorak’s Handbook) the intake and grill are more square, and the upper line of the intake a more-or-less straight line. Interestingly the ’58 Monaco Vanwall had a larger radiator and, judging by the picture on p164 of My Cars, My Career it had alloy wheels on the front, as well as the rear. Was this only for Monaco? I wonder why.

I had the idea to do this from the Stuart Leake/ Haynes collection model – but looking again at the photo taken on my previous visit the radiator on that looks very odd. I wonder is the grill missing?

Just bought this:



Biante version of Moss’s 1959 Monaco Grand Prix car (pole position but retired with gear box failure) and was at first rather thrilled with it (discounted fro £73-odd to £53 – odd, so at the top end of my price range) with the removable engine cover, nicely detailed engine, 3-spoke wheel and dash. But then when I put it beside my Brumm Italian GP car, bought for about £10, became a little disappointed. In particular with the nose band which has not been shaped at all but is just a bit of white tape stuck round the nose and thus at entirely the wrong angle.



I am right, aren’t I? The Walker nose band should be square across the car and vertical down the sides of the nose – as on the Brumm (and virtually every picture I’ve seen). I ask because I am about to embark upon a series of re-paints to convert assorted Brumms and Quartzos in the works colour scheme to Walker blue-and-white.

I have also just bought the SMTS 250F kit of #2058, to do as Moss’s private car, thus in green. But the colour of the new made-up versions is surely both too bright and too glossy



and I should go for a darker green with less gloss. Yes?

Hello Mal, not sure about the green,is there a colour pic in all my races? Anyway here is another kit of the same car,it's by Rennaissance but the nose band is yellow not white?!
http://www.renaissan.../1-43/43_29.htm

The last few posts are the very reason why I've stopped forking out for models - the "Renaissance"" 250F is so wrong in colour it's almost as if they were intending to replicate the Owen Racing Organisation car. Stirling made a big point at the time that he didn't want the car to be green, as he was a bit uneasy about the "luck" associated with that colour, and he had it painted more of a grey-green (?).

And as for the Biante Cooper - how on earth did they manage to get the dimensions so wrong? It looks nothing like a Cooper. Do they not bother with obtaining drawings or measuring the actual type of car before they begin manufacture? I can't see how they can justify those prices when they've been so lazy.

The difficulty with the Moss Maserati is the number of times the colour changed and when each repaint was done. This has been covered in previous threads Maserati 250F colour schemes, Stirling's nose, Stirling's 250F - colours?, "illegal"or obscure colour schemes of the pre -sponsorship era Formula One cars,

According to All my races (P144) the order to Maserati said "... body varnished in English green with red stripes around the radiator ..." and it was supplied by Maserati in "... that peculiar, sickly shade of Adriatic sea green ...". Presumably at its debut at Bordeaux it was in that green (not sure about a red nose).
I read somewhere that at one time it was painted in BP's corporate green which suggests that at that stage it would have had a yellow nose, but I don't know when (or even if) it happened. I think you'll just have to trust SMTS on the right shade of green for the particular one you are making..

As to the degree of shininess, I agree with you. A 1:43 model at arm's length is about the equivalent of looking at a full-sized car about 30 yards away. At that distance a well polished car will look shiny but not glossy. having said that, my collection of diecasts and a few handbuilts have different levels of glossiness but they look fine together - unless you are looking for it. Maybe the answer is to make a few trials of mixes of gloss and matt varnish and then paint all the models with it. The varnishing will protect the decals - but some varnishes yellow with age.

To confuse you further, the width of the Walker nose band does seem to vary from car to car as does its squareness verticality. Some photos show it at the same angle as the Biante model but not as wide.

Edited by D-Type, 09 February 2013 - 20:39.

Well done, Duncan. That has muddied the waters where before they were merely a tad dirty.

The last few posts are the very reason why I've stopped forking out for models -

Indeed.

I've mentioned the Shelby Collection '59 Le Mans Astons before - just, quite simply, the wrong car. Now, I've just acquired this from Racing Models:



specially produced for them as Moss's 1959 Nurburgring car. It, too, is quite simply the wrong car. Unless someone here knows better (are you there, Duncan?) the low-nose, high-boot, rear wheel spat DBR1 body was used only at Le Mans.

Happily for me it is not a big problem: I suspected the car was wrong when I bought it - but knew that if I were correct it would be easy to change the numbers to #4, for Le Mans - which car I do not have. At least this model already has the blue nose band - or is that wrong too?

For Le Mans 1959 it should of course have the transparent 'tonneau cover' on the passenger-side windscreen.

Interesting how using metallic paint at this scale also looks entirely wrong, no doubt because one cannot scale down the little silver flecks.

Edited by Mal9444, 10 February 2013 - 08:13.

Malcolm, that's horrible! Who on earth made it? Looks like a case of "we've got a few unsold Le Mans cars sitting around, lets put a different number on and pretend it's something else". Don't know whether they expect their buyers not to know it's wrong or, like you, see it as a basis for something else. Or maybe they know no better themselves?

Perhaps it explains why I've never made a fortune, I expect the things I sell to look like the original.

Metallic paint can work perfectly well so long as the flecks are to scale!

Malcolm, that's horrible! Who on earth made it? Looks like a case of "we've got a few unsold Le Mans cars sitting around, lets put a different number on and pretend it's something else". Don't know whether they expect their buyers not to know it's wrong or, like you, see it as a basis for something else. Or maybe they know no better themselves?

Perhaps it explains why I've never made a fortune, I expect the things I sell to look like the original.

Metallic paint can work perfectly well so long as the flecks are to scale!

Rod: I agree it looks horrible although I have to say my photography skills do nothing to flatter it. I'm afraid that, for me, it has come into the category of 'it'll do until I find something better'. Perhaps Tony Smith might be persuaded...?

And to answer your question: it says Top Model on the the base.

Edited by Mal9444, 10 February 2013 - 16:57.

And to answer your question: it says Top Model on the the base.

Ah, that explains it. For some reason they are firmly under the impression that every '50's sports racer had a windscreen which was either upright or sloped the wrong way.... I think they're rarher better now than they used to be.

Ah, that explains it. For some reason they are firmly under the impression that every '50's sports racer had a windscreen which was either upright or sloped the wrong way.... I think they're rarher better now than they used to be.



Malcolm, I think you would be better off with an SMTS kit; I see you have one already! I'm sure that they make this version of Aston, one of their latest releases I think.

Have just been informed that you can currently buy a Brumm Mossie Vanwall on ebay for £43! I haven't seen it yet but it must VERY rare as we punters are so often told.

aka Tony L

a little to expensive? This is not the best Vanwall model , so 10 ponds is well pay for this one!

Have just been informed that you can currently buy a Brumm Mossie Vanwall on ebay for £43! I haven't seen it yet but it must VERY rare as we punters are so often told.

aka Tony L

Have just been informed that you can currently buy a Brumm Mossie Vanwall on ebay for £43! I haven't seen it yet but it must VERY rare as we punters are so often told.

aka Tony L

Hi Tony, so you've found a way back

I wonder about prices on ebay sometimes, well quite often actually! Sometimes they are high, so high that no one in their right mind would pay, othertimes apparently professional outfits are selling new stuff so cheap that no honest trader can compete. You have to wonder...

a little to expensive? This is not the best Vanwall model , so 10 ponds is well pay for this one!

So what - without getting into the realms of models with prices in three figues - is the best 1:43rd scale Vanwall model?

I've been able to buy several Brumms for £15 or under, inc P&P. It doesn't much help Rod - but it does help me.

BTW - there seem to be a lot of Brumm Vanwalls currently being advertised on eBay as 1957 which have alloy rear wheels. The error is on the labelling of the box, apparently.

Not, of course, that that would fool anyone here....)

Edited by Mal9444, 15 February 2013 - 14:22.

So what - without getting into the realms of models with prices in three figues - is the best 1:43rd scale Vanwall model?

I've been able to buy several Brumms for £15 or under, inc P&P. It doesn't much help Rod - but it does help me.

BTW - there seem to be a lot of Brumm Vanwalls currently being advertised on eBay as 1957 which have alloy rear wheels. The error is on the labelling of the box, apparently.

Not, of course, that that would fool anyone here...;).)

SMTS probably, although you'd have to search to find a built one under a ton these days. If Barry Lloyd is listening he's the man to ask.

Quite right, Rod. Barry had a SMTS Vanwall for sale at the last Shepton. I believe he still has it at very reasonable cost!

Busy day in the paint shop today...



... three works Coopers being converted to Rob Walker Racing for Mr Moss to drive, plus another Vanwall being modified for the 1957 Monaco Grand Prix (re-shaping the shortened nose cowling this time), plus a BRM V16 being made ready - if such a word could ever be said to have been applicable to the BRM V16 - for the 1952 Ulster Grand Prix at Dundrod.

Looks like you are really busy Malcolm. Am I right in thinking you are using a Crescent body for the BRM? Barry Lloyd is currently working on one of those for a Peter Collins collection so I'm thinking of turning mine into Fangio's Albi car. I shall look forward to seeing the results of all your hard work. Wish my work bench looked that tidy.

I was thinking that, too.

Looks like you are really busy Malcolm. Am I right in thinking you are using a Crescent body for the BRM? Barry Lloyd is currently working on one of those for a Peter Collins collection so I'm thinking of turning mine into Fangio's Albi car. I shall look forward to seeing the results of all your hard work. Wish my work bench looked that tidy.

Tony: the picture has been carefully cropped to hide just what a chaotic mess my workbench really is.

Yes, the BRM is the Crescent body, into which I hope to fit seat and steering wheel from a cannabalised Brumm Vanwall, plus use the wheels thereof which are quite a good fit. It will not, obviously, be anything as good as a built SMTS version - but then again it will not have cost me £114.50. Without wishing to harp on about it, I am still teaching my left hand to work again so this exercise (I tell 'er indoors) is really rehab therapy. As Barry will confirm, I always was a bit of a bodger anyway - now I qualify as a Superbodge.

Malcolm, You are doing it and having fun. That the main thing. Besides I know all about bodging!

As do we all, in spades!

Have just been informed that you can currently buy a Brumm Mossie Vanwall on ebay for £43! I haven't seen it yet but it must VERY rare as we punters are so often told.

aka Tony L

It did not sell.

Nor did the the one with a starting bid of £16.99.

Please do not bid on the one with a starting bid of £6.99 - I want that one!

An Oxford Diecasts Moss Monte Carlo Sunbeam Talbot went for £6.56 + £3.50 p&p.

There is also a Crescent Toys Vanwall, which Barry says are as rare as hen's teeth, currently at £16.00. Yesterday it was at £9.99 and there be still 5 days to go. It's not specifically Moss, of course, but Barry predicts it will finish up around the £100 mark

Edited by Mal9444, 19 February 2013 - 15:34.

Just bought the new Spark 1960 Lotus 18 from Racing Models (£50 + £4.50p&p - that's a lot for me!).

I don't normally like with-driver models. I prefer just the car on its own but good Lotus 18s at 1:43rd are hard to find. I was really quite disappointed when it arrived to see that the numbers on the nose had been put on so badly, so much so that I contacted Wim Wellinghoff to see if all the models are like that. They are. And they were on the actual car in the actual race, as the pictures on pp300 and 301 of All My Races (aka The Anorak's Handbook) clearly show.

So I suppose it's full marks to Spark - but it still looks odd.



My wife (in a rare flash of interest!) remarked that the driver even looks like Stirling.

On another topic. One often see (and I have) this Birdcage:



the Moss/ Gurney winner of the 1960 Nurburgring 1,000km, Moss's hat-trick in that race. There are at least two versions around, both having #5. The aforementioned Handbook records the car number as #5, has a b/w picture of same - and a superb colour shot of what looks like Moss in a Camoradi Birdcage #6. This is listed in the results as the Masten Gregory/Gino Munaron car, which came fifth. The picture looks to be taken on race day, to judge by the number of spectators camped in the background. Editorial licence - or something else?

I don't have the All My Races book so can't check for myself, but there are a couple of photos of Maserati #6 on this page (scroll down a bit):

http://www.pro-steil...rennen_1960.htm

captioned as Gregory and Munaron, plus a few of Moss and Gurney in #5. How do the Gregory/Munaron shots compare with the one in the book?

I think the colour one in All My Races (car 6) looks like somebody wearing glasses and a full face visor - hence probably Gregory.

The book's b&w shot of car 5 is undoubtedly Moss.

Malcolm, much impressed with your latest purchase. I hope to pick up mine at the next Westpoint toy fair. Much nicer than my humble Solido repaint!

As to the Birdcage Maser I don't own the Handbook yet but have just checked Paul Parker's Sports Car Racing in Camera 1960-69 and there is a nice shot of SCM pulling away at the start of the Nurburgring 1,000km in#5. 1950-59 meanwhile has a B/W picture of Sir Stirling trying out the prototype in practice again at the 'Ring (1959). I assume the colour is red and it carries the number T100. A possible addition to your collection?

I don't have the All My Races book so can't check for myself, but there are a couple of photos of Maserati #6 on this page (scroll down a bit):

http://www.pro-steil...rennen_1960.htm

captioned as Gregory and Munaron, plus a few of Moss and Gurney in #5. How do the Gregory/Munaron shots compare with the one in the book?

Not the same angle or place, so not b/w versions of the colour shot in the Moss book. I assume it is editorial licence (or a simple mistake - less likely) in the Moss/ Alan Henry book. The caption to the colour shot (of the Masten Gregory car) says 'Mist and rain helped the Maserati Tipo 61 Birdcage to be just what Dan Gurney and I needed to win the Nurburgring 1,000kms race (Klemanstaski Collection)' and the caption to the b/w shot of #5 says 'on the way to a memorable victory'.

As to the Birdcage Maser I don't own the Handbook yet but have just checked Paul Parker's Sports Car Racing in Camera 1960-69 and there is a nice shot of SCM pulling away at the start of the Nurburgring 1,000km in#5. 1950-59 meanwhile has a B/W picture of Sir Stirling trying out the prototype in practice again at the 'Ring (1959). I assume the colour is red and it carries the number T100. A possible addition to your collection?

Stirling (as he then was) did indeed try the then-new Birdcage at Nurburgring in '59 (he was, of course, driving a DBR1 for the race) but the engine seized before he could complete a lap. His first race in the car was a supporting race for the Formula 2 international race at Ruoen in July '59, in a red car with a rather florid numeral 2. I am, with Barry Boor's vinyl-cutting assistance, working on that very car even as we speak. Watch this space...

This Lotus 19 looks like chassis 953 which he drove to make his mind up about retiring all it would need is a coat of paint to match the UDT colours
http://www.racingmod...-143-5941-p.asp

Spark have already done it, Steve.



One of the models I sold at the end of 2011.

Edited by Barry Boor, 02 April 2013 - 14:57.

Mine is SMTS:





Would you reckon this is a different car, or just a different rollover bar?

One of the models I sold at the end of 2011.

...and it has a good home !

Vince H.

Would you reckon this is a different car, or just a different rollover bar?

According to the following, Moss drove the same Lotus 19 (s/n 950) at Riverside in 1960 and 1961...

http://www.racingspo...oto/19-950.html

So apparently just a different rollover bar.

Vince H.

I see the SMTS model has white wobbly web wheels. The mass produced model doesn't.

The Riverside photo shows that Spark are definitely correct, but did SCM ever drive it with white wheels? I guess he must have done at some point.

[quote name='Barry Boor' date='Apr 2 2013, 14:53' post='6210623']
Spark have already done it, Steve.



One of the models I sold at the end of 2011.
[/quote
Yes but when SM drove it at goodwood that day chassis 953 looed like this apart from having wobblies fitted at the front http://www.racingmod...-143-5941-p.asp

Bump bumpity bump!

 

Merry Christmas everybody.

 

Been off the board for a long while but as Christmas approaches, time to get interested again, I suppose. And as I surfed I came across this link:

http://www.bonhams.c.../20931/lot/167/

 

90 Moss 1:43rds sold for OVER £6,000(!) at this year's Goodwodd Revival.

 

Was anyone there? I did not get to The Revival this year but by golly I would have liked to have seen this. I have 59 in my modest collection, including some rarities not in this collection (all the Dundrod Jags, the Dundrod 300slr - complete with race damage, several Maser sports and Cooper re-paints etc).

 

I have sent the link to 'Er Indoors so's she knows what to go for when I'm gone.

I must have supplied some of those! Going to Shepton on Sunday Malcolm?

I must have supplied some of those! Going to Shepton on Sunday Malcolm?

 Naw, Rod - he'll have bought them all on eBay at a fiver a go

 

Not planning to be at Shepton - I think I'm pre-booked that day for putting up Christmas trees

 

Have a good one - I look forward to a post on the Toy Fair thread.

 

Cheers.

Just been outbid on eBay for this Moss Vanwall:



... but in fact not too dismayed - because it is wrong, is it not?

Surely the '57 car had spoked wheels front and rear and the alloy rear wheels were not introduced until 1958.
 

 

Not only that - are we sure that the nosecone of the #26 Vanwall was yellow at the 1958 Italian GP? On the photos which I have (and which I'm not allowed to upload here), the nose of #26 was white, the #28 was yellow and the #30 had no coloured nose (the last two can be seen here: http://en.espnf1.com...tory/16059.html ). Did the #26 car ever run with a yellow nosecone over that weekend? 

Edited by Gabrci, 25 July 2014 - 19:07.

Not only that - are we sure that the nosecone of the #26 Vanwall was yellow at the 1958 Italian GP? On the photos which I have (and which I'm not allowed to upload here), the nose of #26 was white, the #28 was yellow and the #30 had no coloured nose (the last two can be seen here: http://en.espnf1.com...tory/16059.html ). Did the #26 car ever run with a yellow nosecone over that weekend? 

I, for one, am quite sure that the nose cone of #26 was not yellow on race day, since the colour photo at which I am currently looking, on page 164 of Tony Brooks' autobiography Poetry In Motion shows #28 on the starting grid of the 1958 Italian Grand Prix with a yellow nose cone and Tony B at the wheel. Alongside him, on his left is 'Stirling who had taken pole position' and although the number of Stirling's car is not visible it's white nose cone clearly is. On TB's right is Mike Hawthorn in Ferrari #14 and alongside him is Stuart Lewis-Evans in #30. It is, of course, the same photo as that in Gabrci's link, which also tells the story of the race. But that does not, perhaps, fully answer th question. Why would either the numbers or the nose bands be changed? Looking at the colour photos in All My Races, Moss's regular nose cone colour was white. Moss was notorious for often driving all the cars in the team and picking the one he thought fastest (or bits of the one he thought fastest!) but in Brooks' lenghty account of the lead-up to this race it is clear that each kept to the same car throughout.  There is a picture in My Cars My Career of SCM winning the 1958 Dutch Grand Prix in Vanwall #1 with a yellow nose cone. In Brooks' book TB states that between Monacco and Zandvort the team swapped Stirling's and his cars at SCM's request, SCM driving chassis number VW7, which was normally Brooks' car. Interestingly, TB claims not to have known about this until after the race - despite Moss having the yellow-nose car. (The cars, of course, had nose cones re-fitted between Monaco and Zandvort, the noses having been removed for Monaco.) Perhaps it was Vanwall practice to colour the nose cones for the chassis, rather than the driver?

That model is a complete nonsense. If it is supposed to be a 1957 car the tyres are wrong (Vanwall ran Pirellis in 1957) and, as Malcolm pointed out, they didn't race with the wobbly-web rear wheels until the 1958 Dutch GP. If it's supposed to be a 1958 car the exhaust is wrong. And as for 'VW57' ...

ETA: As far as I can tell, that bulge on the nose housing an additional oil cooler was only used at the 1958 Portuguese GP.

Edited by Tim Murray, 26 July 2014 - 07:03.

ETA: As far as I can tell, that bulge on the nose housing an additional oil cooler was only used at the 1958 Portuguese GP.

And Monza '58, of course.

Oops - yes indeed, sorry. I should have checked Gabrci's link before posting.

Many thanks for the replies guys! So apparently the model is simply wrong and the nose should be white. - well, at least I now know

Has anyone got one of these?

 

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item4621881e52

 

Is it accurate?

 

Worth adding to the collection?

 

(haven't added anything new for a long time.)