“There’s
never any logical reason behind what we do”
says John Simons |
 At FSW we have
watched the progress of Marsh Models for twenty years with both
fascination and not a little quasi-parental interest. Quasi-parental
because before creating his company John Simons was one of GPMs
most valued model builders and whilst occupying that position
obviously had talent far beyond that called for in just model
assembly. Our fascination arose through respect for the fact
that Simons in creating his now respected enterprise followed
a completely new path. He has copied no-one but instead followed
his own unique and highly individual route.
FSW recently
visited Simons in his Marsh Models studio for a ‘question
and answer’ session during which we sought to discover
how Marsh grew from a one-man-band to be one of the most creative
companies in our hobby. For the sake of continuity we have omitted
our questions and edited John’s answers to provide you
with a smooth – and we hope – seam free narrative
in John’s own words…….
“I have
always made models, since I was about six in fact, and generally
model aircraft. But up until I was made redundant from Dungeness
nuclear power station in 1980 I had never made a white metal
model. But I then couldn’t find a job that I really wanted
to do and Ian Pickering – a pattern (master) maker who
was best man at my wedding – put me in touch with Max Kernick
who was running Abingdon Classics. I began to build models for
them but I didn’t like just working for one person and
got in touch with GPM and some others and almost fell into being
a full-time professional model builder by accident.
I think that
it was a tremendous help that when I met Max Kernick I had never
before built a 1:43rd white metal model of any sort. It was
a help that I was a beginner because a lot of people who do
it as a hobby think “great – I can made a living at
this” and then they suddenly have to go from making one
model every month to say twenty models every week and that’s
difficult. If you approach it on the basis that you’ve
got to make a living at this you then look at it totally differently.
When I first started building them I thought that the income
would boost my unemployment money and it didn’t take long
to think that maybe I could make this a profession. Family members
gave me support but would come out with comments like “Well
this is very good but when are you going to get a proper job?”
At that stage I was working in a spare room upstairs and I had
a tiny spray booth with an the extractor fan that was a hair
drier with the element removed and I could only spray when Pam
– my wife – wasn’t hoovering because I had the
extension tube and the end of the thing hanging out of a window.
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I suppose that
after a couple of years of doing it and seeing the standards
of some of the kits, which I think in those days was sometimes
pretty awful, I began to think that I could do a better job.
I had read of an enthusiast who had bought a metal Audi Quattro
kit and failed to make it, eventually throwing it in the bin,
and was sad because that was one person lost to the hobby. There
had to be a better way.
I wanted then to do something that would build easily, be accurate
and which the first time buyer could get a very good result
with. Then with Ian Pickering’s co-operation, because at
that time I couldn’t afford a pattern, we did the Chaparral
2F and the idea was that I could just pay him royalties. I had
become interested in motor sport in about 1966 and the first
International motor sport event I saw was the last Guard’s
Trophy race for Group 7 cars at Brands Hatch. It had John Surtees
in a Lola T70 and Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon in McLaren M1Bs.
And then I knew a race marshal who said I could watch from his
post at Brands for the 1967 BOAC 500 so I saw both day’s
practice and the race from the marshal’s post at Stirling’s
bend. Seeing the 2F barrelling down to Hawthorn’s, the
wing flopped up and you could see the pressure vortexes coming
off the top, it was absolutely marvelous. So when I started
Marsh Models and was looking for subjects, that particular era
was not well covered, so we made the 2F. It really took off
and I think that we did the Ford MkIV next.
Both these models
proved popular with American enthusiasts who like very good
value for their money, and in fact American enthusiasts have
become important to us. But I had not set out to make models
aimed at Americans – those first cars were just ones that
I liked. And then when we did the McLaren M6A, nobody had done
any Can-Am cars, I approached a prominent model retailer and
asked when anyone would buy Can-Am, whoever it was didn’t
seem to think so and he advised against it.
So with the
M6A; and that was at the time that I think we had brought out
about five models; we had built up quite a following and I thought
it was worth the risk to make the M6A. But I had also thought
then that there wasn’t much of a market for sports-racers
of that particular era that were not Ferraris. But because of
these factors - and because that first race I saw had Can-Am
cars and they were not well covered - I thought we’ll give
that a try. In those days it was a risk because with brass patterns
– and they were all brass then – were very expensive.
So you had to sell quite a few models to make it all worthwhile.
But the M6A was a big success.
At that stage
Ian was making the patterns, SMTS were making the castings and
I was doing all the building, all the research, packing the
models into boxes and by now I was probably working from our
garage which I had converted. |
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