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 Dear FSW, I
have been reading your wish list with interest and am able to confirm
that, among other subjects, SMTS is giving serious consideration
to a series of F5000 cars as well as Surtees and Shadow F1 models.
Unfortunately some collector's
requests will never see the light of day without being "sponsored",
as demand would be so small as to make them totally unviable. With
Chinese industrial manufacturers "creaming off" the most
popular and therefore profitable subjects we, and the other specialist
producers, are left with limited appeal models for which there may
only be a market for 150 - 250 pieces. With tooling prices of between
£2000 and £3500 plus the production costs of the kits
themselves, subject choice is crucial to business survival.
At SMTS we are fortunate
to have developed an extensive and successful back-catalogue with
sales of some subjects now in excess of 3000 pieces. This has allowed
us to occasionally indulge ourselves in unusual subjects such as
our, soon to be released, Smokey Yunnick "Sidewinder"
Hurst Floor Shift Special.
Continued new releases
are reliant upon the success of previous models and for this the
specialist manufacturers, such as ourselves, require the support
of our dealers as well as the collector. In discussions with other
1/43rd model producers we have often heard that they, as well as
ourselves, have lost sales through unwarranted, petty and sometimes
downright incorrect criticism, and in this FSW is as guilty as any.
Price is obviously also a major factor in sales success, it is all
well and good producing the most detailed kit known to mankind but
if it is £200 and so complicated that only the very talented
few can build it then how often will the customer come back to GPM
for another model, or indeed will he/she be so disillusioned that
he/she gives up kit building all together. We know of two professional
kit -builders who have recently found "real" jobs because
they can no longer make a living building the latest "super
kits".
SMTS has, over the years,
diversified into other areas of model-making but many of the very
small, often one-man, 1/43rd car producers are having a tough time,
often making less than the national minimum wage . So please dealers
and collectors, if you want to see your wish lists realized then
be realistic and ask yourself the simple question; would you risk
upwards of £3500 of hard earned income on that Nanni Galli
Iso 1R and would upwards of 100 people even know what it is never
mind part with £30 - £40 for it ?
Keith Williams,
SMTS
Our wish lists are purely suggestions and
it's up to the individual manufacturers to decide what they feel
is viable based on their own production costs etc. With the more
obvious subjects being mass-produced it will be the more marginal
subjects which are left, but then isn't that where the industry
came from in the first place, with individuals such as John Day
and Paddy Stanley producing models of subjects not covered by the
mainstream companies?
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Dear
FSW, I am a mad collector of 1/24 scale stuff; in particular, Le
Mans and F1 cars. I have been collecting for over 10 years now,
and have a pretty decent collection. Like most, I have tried to
put together a collection of LM winners. There are some early omissions,
such as the '50 Talbot Lago (although I have an old 1/20 scale kit
from RAE that will do), and have been forced to modify the CMC 300SL
diecast into the '52 winner. The real surprise omission to me, though,
is the Jaguar XJR 12 from '90. This is particularly strange given
the number of high volume plastic kits of the '88 car that were
done. Is there any particular reason why this car has never been
done in any medium that I am aware of ? One for LMM perhaps?
While I am at it, the
real glaring omissions in my (now largely 1/20) F1 collection is
cars driven by JYS. No Tyrrell 003; no Matra. The other surprise
is the absence of the 246 Dino F1, given that it was driven by a
Brit to the championship (although Revival are about to release
one, I believe). To me, if I was a manufacturer, these would be
amongst my first choices for subjects. Add Brabham's BT19 and Cooper
T53, and you have some of the most interesting subjects in motor
racing history, driven by some of the most charismatic champions,
in my humble opinion.
Am I nuts, or are the
manufacturers missing a great opportunity? Surely,it would be easier
selling these than trying to sell additional copies of stuff just
released on the other side of an ever-shrinking world (note Profil
24 announcing a Greenwood Chevrolet LM just after Scale Designs
announced theirs!!)?
Peter Rice,
New South Wales
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Dear FSW,
The review of the Midlantic
King Cobra in 04/03 got me looking
and raises quite a few questions. Feel free to use these comments
in
FSW if you like. I'd already told Steve Overy at Illustra about
the Shell decal, but in looking for the Mobil "Flying Red Horse"
I turned up a mystery. The best single source for photos is Dave
Friedman's "Shelby Cobra; the Shelby American Original Archives
1962-1965." On pages 70-71 there's a 2-page photo that clearly
shows the Shell decal on the rear fender at Riverside, but the front
bodywork is off the car. A photo on page 72 does show the Mobil
decal dimly but the rear fender can't be seen. The car has what
I took to be the "race day" dent in the right front fender—
err, wing! The Shell decal can be dimly seen in the famous shot
seen on page 74, where Shelby is holding a pit board showing "+1M
25 SEC" and the rear hatch is off the car. I'm certain that
one is race day but the front fender can't be seen. On the following
page (75) the colour shot clearly shows the Mobil Flying Red Horse
but not the Shell decal; the dent is already there.
Finally, the 2-page color photo on pages 76-77 clearly shows the
Shell decal on the rear fender and the Mobil decal is just as clearly
NOT on the front fender!
Photos from the Laguna Seca race the following weekend show the
same thing; Shell decal on the rear fender and NO Mobil decal.
I have not seen any
photo showing both on the car at the same time and since they were
both
Gasoline companies I doubt VERY much that both would have been applied
at the same time. I believe that the king Cobra appeared at Riverside
with the Mobil decal but sometime before the race it was replaced
with Shell sponsorship. I know the Mobil decal was on the car at
some time,
I'm positive the car
finished the race with a Shell decal, and I can't believe both would
have been on the King Cobra at the same time. Hope this helps!
Wayne E Moyer,
Ohio, USA
Confused? You will be! These were the same photos that we were looking
at and we have reproduced some of them here. We had taken the p75
shot (above) to be a pre-race shot, so did the car get dinged in
practice? If this was the case then the Mobil/practice, Shell/race
theory would definitely make sense. Also, to add to the fun, the
paddock shot that Wayne mentions with the front bodywork off the
car shows a very neatly applied Shell decal, whereas in the action
shot above the decal appears to have been thrown at the car as it
passed!
The book is availabale to order from GPM (ISBN0760313687)
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I always enjoy reading
David Blumlein's column but there are are a couple of corrections
and additions to his latest BRM episode.
In 1992 the P351 did
actually get to Silverstone and took part in practice but a variety
of problems kept it out of the race. As for Le Mans, the ACO decided
that only Wayne Taylor could drive the car in the race but that
he would only be allowed to run the maximum allowable hours for
one driver. It then became an extended test session for us. Nevertheless,
the car ran quite quickly during the evening rain before retiring.
Finally, Harri Toivonen
did, in fact, get to race the car briefly at Le Mans but it was
in 1997. Pacific Racing had picked up the project with the approval,
but no backing, from the Owen Organisation. The only chassis had
its roof cut off to satisfy the new regs and a Janspeed prepared
Nissan turbo replaced the original V12. Unfortunately an oil line
worked loose in the first hour and the car retired on the Mulsanne.
And that was the last
time for a BRM at Le Mans...
Rob Branch,
Huntingdon, Cambs.
Dear GPM,
In FSW 4/98 you printed
a photograph of my Goodwood BRM V16 diorama made using the SMTS
kits.
I have now finished a
workshop diorama again featuring SMTS' kit of the BRM V16 Mk2 (RL056)
but this time I have cut the bonnet off the model and installed
the engine, supplied as a separate unit in the kit, into the vehicle.
I had to modify the bulkhead, make extra parts and add wiring etc
to the engine and the bonnet still fits!
I enclose photographs
of the finished model and diorama and I think you will agree it
was well worth the effort. A second bodyshell shows another car
having panel work done.
Alan Cottle,
Epsom, Surrey
We hope this inspires others out there. We'll
try and fit a larger, colour, photo in for the next issue so that
the excellent level of detail can be better seen.
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