15 replies to this topic

[Jager]

In one of the threads on the main TNF threads, Jesper asked :

I have thought off starting a collection of Le Mans cars at that size (1:43), so what can you (and others) advise, Jager?

From my records, diecast models of approx 1,900 Le Mans cars have been released to date. The question therefore is what to collect and how deep are your pockets.

I think most Le Mans collectors usually start by collecting the Le Mans winners. All 77 winners from 1923 to 2009 have been released by a variety of companies, so that's an interesting place to start and results in a diverse collection. Unfortunately the winners are not always the most eyecatching or technically interesting cars, so you'll probably find yourself drawn to over models.

I know other Le Mans collectors who focus on particular years. I have one friend who only collects cars from 1982 onwards because it corresponds to the first time he attended the race.

An alternative is just to collect a particular marque, such as Porsche (only ~ 400 models), Ferrari (only ~300 models) or Aston Martin (~ 100 models). However one of the things I like about Le Mans cars is the diversity.

In my case, I started collecting winners, this grew to collecting "top 3 finishers" and "anything else I liked". Its the last catagory that's the most difficult to be restrained.

Remember that when you start, there will often be 3 or even 4 companies producing models of the same car in different levels of detail and price. As a rule, the general hierachy is as follows :

Hot Wheels (cheapest / least detailed)
Quartzo / Vitesse
IXO
Minichamps
Spark / Bizarre / Redline
HPI (most expensive / most detailed)

Like everything, it often pays to do your research first.

[D-Type]

As well as the outright winners, over the years there have been various other awards at Le Mans in addition to the outright winner. Collecting them would provide a varied collection:

How about winners of the Index of Performance? Do they still have that? Back in the 50's and 60's the winners ranged from the tiny DB Panhards to the outright winners.
And the Rudge Whitworth Bienniel cups. A car or entrant had to complete one race to qualify for the cup the next year and then it was run to some other complex handicap formula. It wasn't the same as the Index as the finishing order differed.
Then there's the Index of Thermal Efficiency, which was another of the highly complicated formulae that the French, being a nation of mathematicians, like.
Or simply go for class winners.

You could simplify the theme further to "Winners of something at Le Mans other than an outright win". As the outright winner always won its class it allows you to include favourite winners.

[raceannouncer2003]

I have collected about 48 Le Mans cars. I try to concentrate on the overall winners, but I do have others that ran there. Most of these are 1/43, but a few are other scales, plus six slot cars. The breakdown of companies that I have Le Mans models from:

Hot Wheels 1
Quartzo / Vitesse 1
IXO 20
Brumm 6
Max 1
Top 2
Progetto K 2
Bburago 1
Revell 2
Scalextric 1
? (1959 and 1961 winners) 2
LMC004 or LM1967 (?) 1
Solido 1
Slot.it 2
Heller 3
Fly 2

Rather than try to display all my models (Le Mans or others) at once, I have started a rotating display with the theme "50 years ago". So here is what I have had out the past while:

]

Next, I plan to put out Jack Brabham's 1960 British GP winning Cooper.

Vince H.

[Jager]

Another collecting angle for Le Mans (or any series) is to collect the cars of a particular nationality or driver.

As an Australian, one of my collecting sub-themes is to obtain models of cars driven at Le Mans by Australian drivers. I have collected approx 50 models of Australian drivers to date, the latest being this BMW from 1976 driven by Peter Brock which was released this week.



In some cases, particular models are only released in certain countries. The model above is one of three Le Mans models that have been produced by the Australian distributor and only sold in the AUstralian market. Similarly, there are a number of models which have been released exclusively in Japan, Hong Kong and Germany and tracking down these models can be both frustrating and satisfying.

[RCH]

No one has mentioned the Starter range of Le Mans winners. Sadly Starter were taken over by Provence Moulage who went out of business some years ago. the Starter range included, eventually, every winner along with some interesting other Le Mans cars as well. The great thing about them though, to me as a retailer, was that they were always available. Spark, Minichamps, IXO etc produce some great models but within a very short time of their release you just cannot get them!

If somebody walks though the shop door tomorrow and asks for models of, say, the 1935 Lagonda, 1938 Delahaye and the 1980 Rondeau a fax to France would have obtained them within a few days ten years ago, now? Well don't hold your breath...

Starter and PM between them produced kits of just about every significant Le Mans car however unsuccessful, now I have a back order list as long as your arm for Spark, IXO and Bizarre, I doubt I will ever see most of them...

[Jesper O. Hansen]

In one of the threads on the main TNF threads, Jesper asked :



From my records, diecast models of approx 1,900 Le Mans cars have been released to date. The question therefore is what to collect and how deep are your pockets.

I think most Le Mans collectors usually start by collecting the Le Mans winners. All 77 winners from 1923 to 2009 have been released by a variety of companies, so that's an interesting place to start and results in a diverse collection. Unfortunately the winners are not always the most eyecatching or technically interesting cars, so you'll probably find yourself drawn to over models.

I know other Le Mans collectors who focus on particular years. I have one friend who only collects cars from 1982 onwards because it corresponds to the first time he attended the race.

An alternative is just to collect a particular marque, such as Porsche (only ~ 400 models), Ferrari (only ~300 models) or Aston Martin (~ 100 models). However one of the things I like about Le Mans cars is the diversity.

In my case, I started collecting winners, this grew to collecting "top 3 finishers" and "anything else I liked". Its the last catagory that's the most difficult to be restrained.

Remember that when you start, there will often be 3 or even 4 companies producing models of the same car in different levels of detail and price. As a rule, the general hierachy is as follows :

Hot Wheels (cheapest / least detailed)
Quartzo / Vitesse
IXO
Minichamps
Spark / Bizarre / Redline
HPI (most expensive / most detailed)

Like everything, it often pays to do your research first.

Thank you for the attention, Jager. As my taste tends to be toward the akward, weird, bizarre, I'll probably end up with the MAP diesel as my first acquisition. The 1960s uniform colour schemes by Alfa Romeo, Porsche and Ford attracts too - same scheme/different colours. The interesting body shapes of the DB-Panhards/Peugeots of the 1960s would also be interesting.

Jesper

[Jesper O. Hansen]

Another collecting angle for Le Mans (or any series) is to collect the cars of a particular nationality or driver.

As an Australian, one of my collecting sub-themes is to obtain models of cars driven at Le Mans by Australian drivers. I have collected approx 50 models of Australian drivers to date, the latest being this BMW from 1976 driven by Peter Brock which was released this week.



In some cases, particular models are only released in certain countries. The model above is one of three Le Mans models that have been produced by the Australian distributor and only sold in the AUstralian market. Similarly, there are a number of models which have been released exclusively in Japan, Hong Kong and Germany and tracking down these models can be both frustrating and satisfying.

Bridgestone sponsorship, but running on Dunlop rubber?

Jesper

[Jager]

No one has mentioned the Starter range of Le Mans winners. Sadly Starter were taken over by Provence Moulage who went out of business some years ago. the Starter range included, eventually, every winner along with some interesting other Le Mans cars as well. The great thing about them though, to me as a retailer, was that they were always available. Spark, Minichamps, IXO etc produce some great models but within a very short time of their release you just cannot get them!

If somebody walks though the shop door tomorrow and asks for models of, say, the 1935 Lagonda, 1938 Delahaye and the 1980 Rondeau a fax to France would have obtained them within a few days ten years ago, now? Well don't hold your breath...

Starter and PM between them produced kits of just about every significant Le Mans car however unsuccessful, now I have a back order list as long as your arm for Spark, IXO and Bizarre, I doubt I will ever see most of them...

While I appreciate your viewpoint as a retailer, as a collector I like the fact that the models of Spark and Bizarre for example are only produced in limited numbers. If I could just walk in any time and buy them, it diminishes their "collectability". Minichamp made that mistake and re-released some of their rarer models, causing significant damage to their brand image in the process.

[Jager]

As my taste tends to be toward the akward, weird, bizarre, I'll probably end up with the MAP diesel as my first acquisition. The 1960s uniform colour schemes by Alfa Romeo, Porsche and Ford attracts too - same scheme/different colours. The interesting body shapes of the DB-Panhards/Peugeots of the 1960s would also be interesting.

Jesper

Jesper, if you like unusual models have a look at the models by “Bizarre”.

http://www.bizarremo...mans_index.html

They specialise in models of the more unusual Le Mans cars. The MAP Diesel hasn't been released yet, but Bizarre have announced it as a future release for later this year. Here’s an example of some of the other unusual models they've produced :

1950 Cunningham Le Monstre :



1953 Panhard :



1955 Nardi :



1968 Howmet :

[RCH]

While I appreciate your viewpoint as a retailer, as a collector I like the fact that the models of Spark and Bizarre for example are only produced in limited numbers. If I could just walk in any time and buy them, it diminishes their "collectability". Minichamp made that mistake and re-released some of their rarer models, causing significant damage to their brand image in the process.

The irony is that there were probably far fewer Starter models or PM kits made than any Spark or Bizarre. There were maybe only 4 or 5 outlets for them in the UK. Dealing direct with the factory made life so much easier rather than buying through wholesalers. My model car retailing is much reduced these days, I could probably chase various different wholesalers and obtain better supplies than I manage at the moment. Trouble is I would then have to find customers to buy them!

[Jesper O. Hansen]

Jesper, if you like unusual models have a look at the models by “Bizarre”.

http://www.bizarremo...mans_index.html

They specialise in models of the more unusual Le Mans cars. The MAP Diesel hasn't been released yet, but Bizarre have announced it as a future release for later this year. Here’s an example of some of the other unusual models they've produced :

1950 Cunningham Le Monstre :



1953 Panhard :



1955 Nardi :



1968 Howmet :

That's some weird designs, although the Howmet almost looks normal! Thank for wetting my appetite

Jesper

[dmj]

Another IMHO interesting proposition would be to collect only period models of the cars that raced there. Of course that means „bye bye accuracy“ but generally models from 60s and 70s have so much more charm than superdetailed ones of today. It is true that my Politoys Howmett, for example, is metalic green but I really wouldn't axchange it for (very nice, it has to be said) Bizzare model shown above.

[Jager]

Another popular theme seems to be collecting all the different variants of the Porsche 956/962. A fellow collector in the UK now has more than 130 models just of these cars.

Here's a group shot of some of the Porsche962's in my collection. All are Le Mans cars with the exception of the Jagermeister car.

[Arjan de Roos]

The irony is that there were probably far fewer Starter models or PM kits made than any Spark or Bizarre. There were maybe only 4 or 5 outlets for them in the UK. Dealing direct with the factory made life so much easier rather than buying through wholesalers. My model car retailing is much reduced these days, I could probably chase various different wholesalers and obtain better supplies than I manage at the moment. Trouble is I would then have to find customers to buy them!

As another retailer may I remark the great unknown brands who did their best to issue various also rans. CCC from France for instance did some interesting DB's. He claimed some even had a run of only 10 as he knew only himself and some fellow collectors wanted them.
Spark and Bizarre have been lucky to find (buy) old moulds of some kit makers or have incorporated the people behind some illustrous brands.

[RCH]

I was told by a very small kit manufacturer that one Bizarre model contained exactly the same dimensional mistake (depth of cockpit) as his kit. He had sold neither a kit nor his master to them and could only conclude that they had used one of his kits, obtained elsewhere, to produce their master.

Whatever became of the bulk of the PM and Starter masters? I suspect that Spark have aquired them but I was told that they were bought up by Norev. A customer of mine travelled to Aubagne after PM folded to try to buy their Jaguar masters and tooling but with no success.

[raceannouncer2003]

This one arrived today:

http://cgi.ebay.co.u...:EOIBSA:GB:1123

I have another one like it, but minus the rear wing. If anyone is interested in that one, let me know.

Vince H.