Best #9074 - Alfa Romeo TZ1- Tour de France 1964

When I started this whole thing, I originally intended to collect models from the 1966 thru 1971 seasons. That idea obviously went out the window years ago. When I reorganized my collection last year, I found that I had an filled an entire container with pre-1966 models. (Including the completely unremarkable Alfa shown here...)

So out of a desire for a page with "perfect" photography, the 1962-1965 GT Page has been launched. But for now it only contains models from my personal collection.

Minichamps 430 145600 - Oldsmobile Aurora - (Launch Version) Daytona 1996

The Oldsmobile Aurora GTS is one of the strangest sports-racing cars of all time. This was part of the last ditch effort by GM to re-make the Oldsmobile image, and there was talk that the whole brand name would change to 'Aurora'. The last version of the Olds logo was an seen by many as an interim step toward this goal

The fact that Minichamps put out such a well-executed version of it makes the situation that much weirder. PMA was trying to expand the American market in 1996, and did versions of many IMSA cars. Most of these were variations of existing moulds that had been developed for Le Mans or other European race cars. But the Olds Aurora model was a the first to be custom-designed for an exclusively American subject.

The model shown here is the 'presentation' version, which implies that at some point there was a photo shoot or press conference to promote the car. I can't imagine that there were more than a handful of people there...

Brumm #271 - Porsche 917 - Watkins Glen 1970

Shown here is a Brumm 'hippie' 917, all painted up in its wrong-assed lavender. (The actual car being a dark purple) The marginally better Minichamps car has been shown on their website as coming soon, but I lost interest long ago...

Fujimi 15220-2 - Porsche 935 K3 - Le Mans 1980

While there have never been any Porsche models under the IXO label, this new series of "Fujimi" Kremer K3 models are the closest thing so far. The overall quality control and detail level is good. The only downside is that Fujimi has a completely fucking useless website...

Fabbri Ferrari Collection #23 - Ferrari 512S- Le Mans 1970

When the first Altaya models came out in 2004, it was generally assumed that most of these would be followed by full Ixo releases. The David Piper 250LM was an early example of this. The Ixo has some extra detailing, such as the black paint behind the headlights.

For collectors, this was an interesting development, as many of these items had never been done, and they filled long standing gaps. Even though these cars were intended as low-priced items for new and casual collectors, the overall quality was good.

One complication was that there were many far-east eBay sellers with unpackaged factory rejects. So it became unclear what the actual quality level really was. Many were illegally repackaged with Ixo boxes, which eventually led to the holograms that now identify their official items.

The Ferrari 512S shown is a prime example of this situation. This legendary car had only been done crudely by Brumm, and never in the longtail ('coda lunga') bodystyle. Even in the Fabbri-collection the paint and wheels are very good, and the decals are sharply-printed and well-applied. The only shortcoming is the headlights, which are underdetailed.

I purchased this in late 2008 when it became apparent that an Ixo would never be released. With Ferrari (and Porsche) licensing being what it is, these cars have become the best thing available in many cases, and resale prices are beginning to creep up.

Bizarre #BZ08 - Sigma MC75 Toyota - Le Mans 1975

Like Kinison said...CIGATETTES! MARLBORO! SMOKEY SMOKEY!...

Old poopy image	Nice clean image

These two images show what a little technique can do. The one on the left was one of the first cars I bought, and one of the first images that I ever posted.

A a result, the 1997/1998 FIA GT Page has been vastly improved...

Spark #S0183 - Lotus Elise GT1 - FIA GT 1997

This is more like it. I finally have a good light-grey background for white cars, and I have figured out a reliable technique for correcting colors. My camera tends to give too much blue, but I now can properly fix it by using the RGB histograms. This is major progress.

And how fantastic is the subject matter? This Lotus is an amazingly beautiful car, and the 'Thai' sponsorship livery is subtle and sophisticated.

The improved images continue to filter into the various pages, but there is much more to come. I'm doing my general page cleaning as I go along, and am fixing the inaccuracies as I go.

The Viper pictured here is a true challenge, as the day-glo yellow is a true PITA to capture. This is a one of the earliest Le Mans models issued by Minichamps, coming from the 1994 race. It is packaged in one of the silver boxes, which was changed to the black version the following year.

Raw Image	Properly Resized Image

With all of the improved image quality comes the need to properly resize. These two versions of the same base show how the quality dips on many browsers if the image is not pre-rendered to size by photo software. I am using the Paint.net package that comes with Windows 2000, and it seems to properly soften areas of high contast.

Dull and shitty image no more...but the review needs to be updated.

I still continue to improve my photography lighting with each session. At the rate I'm going the whole collection will be up by the end of the winter. I'm on an FIA GT kick, so here is the "Cat in the Hat" car...

For some reason, the Ferrari 333SP Directory Page had disappeared, but it has now returned. Too bad it features a dull and shitty main image...

Behold! Maisto's Tampo-print masterpiece... If you ever see one of these for $5 on eBay, just fucking buy it. It's that good.

I saw this car race at the FIA GT event at Laguna Seca in 1998. It was a much simpler time...

Something has been bugging me. Around this time, it seemed that sportscars were having more and more intersting race liveries. And for the past few years things have seemed quite dull, as if graphic design has actually regressed.

I'm making good use of the Italian 'Manfrotto' photography tripod that my dad bought in the 1980's. I borrowed it almost a year ago, and I finally went to the hardware store last week and found the bolt that I needed to attach my digital camera. It is amazing how much it helps to have a high-performance piece of equipment.

As a tribute to Italian design, I am doing an update to the Ferrari 250 GTO Directory Page.

Even with the numerous excellent releases by Spark this year, this Ixo is my favorite model from 2009. There have been many Ford GT's by several manufacturers throughout the years, but this Ixo has the best overall feel. Of the eight car colors from this race, I think the dark-blue looks the best. And while this particular car did not finish the race, it does have the attraction of being an Andretti car.

Here is the start of the Ferrari 250 GTO Directory Page.

The 1:43 Ferrari market still continues to be an odd place. It has been about twenty years since true diecast 250 GTO cars were produced by "Box Model". The model shown is item #8401, which is a generic "launch" version and is the first car issued by that brand. The "Box Model" comany would later split into "Bang" and "Best", with Bang re-issuing some of the 250 GTO cars under the "400" series. The Bang brand went out of business a few years ago, so no new GTO's have been issued in a long time.

More recently, there were some cars issued in IXO/Altaya/Fabbri budget series, and for a while it seemed that there would be a full IXO release. With IXO losing its Ferrari license, this never came to be. Lately there have been many grey-market Altaya-quality items with incomplete packaging on eBay from far-east sellers, but these are of mediocre and inconsistent quality.

For those of you out there still interested in craptastic old French diecast cars, I have done an upgrade to the Solido Directory Page.

There is still much confusion and mystery out there regarding late 1960's Japanese sports prototype racing. There was an annual "Japanese Grand Prix" that was generally for World Championship cars. This was a middle-distance race, and sometimes had multiple drivers per car.

In 1968 and 1969 there was also a dedicated Group 7 race that did feature several American Can-Am regulars.

The usual web sites have very incomplete results lists for these races. While Ebbro has made many of these cars, they often lack driver names or finishing order.

In 1970, the Japanese Auto Federation shifted focus toward single-seat Formula racing. While there were still some prototype races, the level of competition dropped sharply with little foreign interest.

I am still working on my retrospective of the Porsche 911 GT2. Like the guy in Star Wars says "...Almost there...Almost there...

I spent some time trying some new techniques with my digital camera, and I am finally getting decent homemade images. One problem is that using a flash creates glare, so I am using a 1000W worklight in my basement. I am getting very good color, but the brightness is still a little low.

Sebring was quite the race, wasn't it? The early buzz is essentially saying that Franck Montagny "drove like a pussy" at the end, losing time when he should have been pushing. I'm not exactly sure where I stand, but I can't help feeling that Sebastian Bourdais would have played it a bit more agressively...

I have updated the Porsche RS Spyders and other cars from recent seasons on the American Le Mans Series Page.

Out of a sense of completion, I have fixed up the 2001 season on the American Le Mans Series Page.

While I have no special affinity for American GTS-class cars from the 2001 season, I must admit they have been showing show up at my door recently. That said, these two recent eBay finds fill a large void in my collection.

The first is the 2001 Sebring GTS-class-winning Saleen S7R by IXO. Lately I have been shifting focus toward my beloved American Le Mans Series, as I was inspired by the 2008 season. I had had no Saleen in my collection, so when I saw this item I jumped on it quickly. I bought this diectly from Saleen Speedlab, who must be cleaning house as they have quite a few newly-listed items on eBay. The best part is that the packing tape they use has the Saleen logo printed on it.

IXO did a nice job on this, and the contrast of the blue stripes against the white body is the strongest feature. If I had to nitpick, I would say the brake discs and calipers are a bit sloppy.

The next car is the famous "Dale Earnhardt" Corvette C5R. While the Grand-Am series is persistently on my shitlist, this car is from the more reasonable era when they had common GT classes with the rest of the world. I like it because it has a distinctly "American" feel that balances the many European items in my collection. I can also now create a Corvette "generational" display along with my 1966 Grand Sport and 1971 Grieder Le Mans Stingray.

The highlight of this car is the complex hood vents that are shraply cast. On the down side, the door handles are fuzzy and seem too large. One minor problem with Minichamps Corvettes is that they all have a rear wing that was designed to represent the year 2000 car. They did not change it as the wing evolved over the years. It was still accurate for this particular car as far as I can tell from actual race photos.

As a follow-up to my adulation of the Minichamps 911 GT3-RSR discussed below I did an experiment. In my display case I have layed all of my beloved American-entered Minichamps 911-series cars. There is the Flying Lizard car, the 1973 Brumos Porsche Carerra RSR, and the Champion Racing 911 GT2.

The Brumos car was issued a few years ago, and it does look a bit plain compared to the Flying Lizard. But the Champion GT2 car really shows the progress Minichamps has made over the years. The wheels, headlights and decals of the Champion car look almost silly next to the Lizard. I hope that the eBay buyers that pay over $150 for the GT2 cars realize they are investing in a very obsolete piece. It is not unlikely that Spark Model could issue these in a superior form.

There is a deep abyss that is the Porsche 911. Because this basic design has had so many iterations and subtypes over the years, it can be extemely difficult to understand how an individual car fits into the overall history of the model line.

I have only a few of these cars in my collection. While I am by no means a Porsche expert, I do have a solid understanding of the fundamentals that allows me to choose the proper pieces that satisfy my interests

The car shown is from Le Mans 2005, run by the California-based Flying Lizard team. Officially, it is called a 911 GT3-RSR, but most Porsche owners and enthusiasts refer to it as a "996", as this was the common type number of the generation of cars that were made from 1998 to 2005. The 996 cars were the first liquid-cooled cars in the history of the 911 series, and also had a distinctly non-round headlight design. These details angered some Porsche enthusiasts.

When the 'GT3' designation was created by Porsche at the end of 1997, there were GT1 and GT2 classes for FIA and Le Mans. Both of these were for highly modified "supercars" that were quite removed from normal road cars. The idea was that there would be a new GT3 class that would provide a place for cars that were closer to production units.

The problem with this was that the GT1 class strayed from its supercar philosopy and became a place for all-out prototypes. Costs escalated, and Mercedes won ten-out-of-ten races in the FIA GT series in 1998. So in 1999, the GT1 class was abandoned, the GT2 class was renamed "GTS", and the class that was to be "GT3" became simply "GT" for Le Mans and "N-GT" for other FIA races. So the GT3 name never really fit.

The first cars of this 996 generation were raced in this new GT class at Le Mans in 1999, and were called the 911 GT3-R. In 2001 an improved version of the car called the 911 GT3-RS was produced. To confuse things there was also a road-legal car called the 911 GT3 RS (WITHOUT a hyphen!). In 2004 the final race version of this '996' generation was made, and it was the 911 GT3-RSR. (Luckily, the 997 generation came along soon thereafter, because at the rate they were going we would be watching cars called "911 GT3-RSRSRS" by now...)

So that brings us to the model at hand. I am notorious for giving Minichamps shit on message boards about their erratic quality and detail, but I cannot say enough about how much I love this car. The red paint looks fantastic, and the decal printing and application is flawless. The interior detail is also excellent. This model shows what Minichamps are capable of, and it has helped re-establish my trust in their brand.

I picked this up super-cheap on eBay the other day. I always find myself enjoying IXO models, as I forget how nice of a job they actually do with the paint. This car is a nice counter-point to the Lotus mentioned below, and displayed together they show the trasition from front to rear engine placement...

This is also the first time I have broken the 1960 barrier with my collection...

I did wach some of the Daytona 24. It has such a strange feeling to it, doesn't it? There is such an "elephant in the room" attitude about the slowness, ugliness, and overall second-fiddle status of this race during the coverage. The arial shots of the infield showed it to be about 60% full...

Obsession of the day: Figuring out the real difference between the Porsche 911 GT2 and Porsche 911 GT2 Evo. These twin-turbo cars had a brief heydey in the late 1990's in the FIA GT2 class. (Hence the name). Shortly thereafter this class was renamed GTS, and eventually became the modern GT1 class. There were many Minichamps and Vitesse versions of these cars, and now Sun Star is re-issuing the Vitesse items.

I keep trying to improve the way I explain the various Le Mans classes, and have deveoped this chart. Moving left to right is the "practicality" level of the base car that the racing car is supposedly derive from. This has traditionally gone hand in hand with homologation production requirements. Moving up and down are the various levels of modification from the road going base car.

Obviously, prototypes have no production base car so there are no sublevels. I have lumped the various GT categories over the years into three sublevels, but the lines have often been blurry.

I would call today's GT situation as three-tiered, with GT1, GT2, and GT3 conveniently filling the slots as they do have somewhat distinct philosophies. The modern GT3 class is for the "Cup" cars that are component-upgraded versions of high-end road cars. These cars are actually rarely seen at Le Mans, as the rules usually are designed for higher performance cars.

The existing GT2 class has purpose-built cars that are quite visually similar to their road car derivatives, but have been very highly upgraded. The wide tires, performance-designed engines, and suspensions would not be suitable for road use. Historically, this type of car can be traced to the FIA 'Group 4' GT cars of the early 1970's, with the 2.8 Porsche Carerra RSR being the classic example. The current crop of GT2 cars from Porsche, Ferrari, and BMW are of the same quality.

The existing GT1 class is somewhat like the silhouette cars of the 70's. They are almost completely re-engineered versions of GT base cars, in both chassis and engine. But the GT1 class also has the 'supercars' like the Maserati MC12 and Saleen S7R. In this case, the racers are more of an upgrade to the road cars rather than a wholesale redesign.

Anyway, I am pulling this into a feature article. Thoughts???

The Lotus mentioned below came in yesterday, and I can't get over how tiny the thing is. One model I always keep in the display case is my Minichamps SAAB 900, which is also my daily driver. It helps maintain a sense of proportion as the true sizes of some race cars are difficult to concieve. Next to the SAAB, the Lotus seems more like a large go-kart rather than a "Sports Racing Prototype"...

Here is something that is on the way to my collection, a Lotus 19 driven by Sterling Moss to a commanding victory at Laguna Seca in 1961. This was the first rear-engined Lotus Sports-Racer, and I see the beginnings of the Can-Am movement in cars like this...

The real story here is that I paid only $23 for it on eBay, and I am seeing other Spark & Minichamps items sell for this price. Is the global economy hitting the 1:43 market? There also seem to more listings from collectors that are liquidating their Porsche models...

In other news, I did huge cleanup and reorganization of my collection. I re-did my office display case and am curently showing 15 Can-Am cars.

I am still updating the damn Late 1970's Group 5/DRM page. I wish that there was as many IMSA cars available from the same era. I want to get through it so I can get back to the Alfa Romeo 33 series.

If you ever have the chance to maintain a web site for ten continuous years, you will be shocked to find that you have written some embarrassingly incorrect shit. That said, there has been more work on the Late 1970's Group 5 page. The BMW Procar items are gone for the moment, and will re-emerge with their own dedicated page that will have more enrties and less factual errors.

Merry Christmas! Here is the start of a Solido Directory Page. Lots of classic items on this list.

I am working on a new page dedicated to the Vitesse Porsche 956. The recent Spark releases have inspired me to compile this list.

For you big-fender fans out there, I have done a solid revamping of the Late 1970's Group 5 page I finally found some decent images of the old Quartzo BMW 320i Group 5 models. However, the real trick was doing the research, as much of what is out there is completely wrong.

Fixing up the 1989 Le Mans section of the 1986-1990 Le Mans page on this fine, drunken Thanksgiving. Which begs the question, "Why didn't the fucking pilgrims plan their journey so as to land in America in the early summer?" Then they could have spent the summer building shelter and hunting deer, and by the time winter came along they would have been fairly established. Instead, they showed up in late November, which is the absolute shittiest time of year... I'm just sayin'...

More progess, but yet still far to go on the 1986-1994 Le Mans Section. I can't believe I split it at 1994, as the 1991-1993 3.5 litre 'Atmos' era is such a more logical grouping.

Finally got around to updating the 1986-1994 Le Mans Section. There are a lot of missing items, but I have the tables completely updated to the new system.

I came across this slice of brilliance from Rio Models (#4229) a while back. And if I do say, this may be the most perfect object in the entire universe. How awesome is a model that honors a somewhat disturbed holy man. Pio of Pietrelcina was famous for his expression of stigmata, and had a host of other truly odd behaviors like being able to spontaneously smell of flowers. He was also accused of fucking in the confessional, fraud, and pretty much making up the whole bleeding hands thing.

A rock star without the music... definitely worthy of a diecast car...

In less interesting news, the real challenge of the night is to fix up the 1970's FIA Section.

Teensy update to the 1973 Le Mans Section.

More updates to the 1968 part of the 1966-1969 FIA Championship Section. And also I redid the 2005 portion of the American Le Mans Series page.

I have both updated and split the 1966-1971 FIA Championship Sections, and have re-established my "contact" page. Let's see what you have to say...

I am cleaning up my 1966 and 1967 sections, and came up with a Ferrari 330 P3/412P page. The next effort is to update the race-centered pages with these entries.

Well how totally gangsta was Petit Le Mans this year? Audi and Pugeout finish 4 seconds apart after ten hours...what more do you want?

Ten years ago the first Petit Le Mans was run, and we've been dealing with the ridiculous split ever since. Let's reflect upon the state of racing in the United States, a decade later...

Call me a fag or whatever, but I do NOT want to watch ugly cars race. Sorry.

As far as models go, I hope Spark does the Lola test version. The BP colors on the black body is sick.

Anyway, I am doing some fill-in work over in the 90's IMSA section. I have some updates to the pre-split 1994-1997 page in honor of the Kyosho Nissan winners...

A brand-new Gulf Diecast page is now available...

I went to Mosport for the ALMS this weekend, and it was twelve kinds of awesome. The only bummer was the insane prices for diecast cars. The new list seems to be $55 for everything, so I left empty handed.

I have the 1000km Nurburgring LMS race streaming on the other terminal, and am passing the boredom... So some cleaned-up versions of the old pages are now avalable in the Reviews section.

I am pissed.

Why in the hell are these Spark Models B-K motorsports Mazda Lolas from the ALMS not available in the US? (The bottom two cars) Really, this is where these cars actually race, and you'd think we would be able to buy models from our "own" series. I blame Spark, the distributors, the team and the ALMS for this insult...

I am developing a whole new style update to have the pages blend better with the frames. I redid the Can-Am page as a test.

The links on the "Reviews" page are now working

Here is a timeline of the FIA Classes from 1966 to 1981. The interesting part is the evolution of the term Group 5. In 1966, it was a touring car designation used for highly modified cars. It then refered to the "sportscars" of the classic Porsche 917/Ferrari 512 era of 1970-1971.

In 1972, Group 5 was for the 3-litre prototypes that had been in Group 6. Finally, in 1976 the final Group 5 designation was for the sihlouette formula cars like the Porsche 935.

The links on the "Reviews" page are now working

Well I have the new Ebbro Porsche 917 from Le Mans 1969, and in honor of the new purchase I redid the late 60's Le Mans page

Welcome to 2007. I'm going to do a major update in the next few weeks. The links from this new site will re-appear as the pages are updated. If you want to hit the old site, go to http://www.diecastsportscar.com/index_old.html.

I once owned a Brumm Ferrari 512M, and sold it as it was truly awful. But along comes this item. They are advertising it as a "special" model, and I wonder if the quality is any better than their normal products. I really like the livery, it has as great 70's West Germany feel.

As if the Minichamps, Brumm, Solido, Auto Art and Minichamps (again) versions of the 1970 Porsche 917K LM winner were not enough, IXO has started pre-production of their units, as evidenced by this model's eBay appearance. The tell-tale "mint without box" means they are probably aiming for a fall release of the proper model. This also shows that IXO is moving in on the Porsche market again, which they seemed to have abandoned when the company changed hands. As far as this model goes, I'd have to see it in person before "upgrading" my collection. I would guess it is far better than the Brumm, and may even have better detailing than the Minichamps. If anything, the decals on this line may end up being more accurate, as the level of historical research seems to be improving industry-wide.

Give me your opinion at: webmaster@diecastsportscar.com

Ebbro is showing their new Porsche 908/2, which in both the Targa Florio 1969 winner and Japan GP versions. While I applaud the effort, I question their marketing stretegy a bit. The Targa winner is probably the most desireable variation possible, and it would have seemed wiser to issue a different model for the "mould launch" and then delay the "must-have" version for a few months.

Anyway, the real payoff will be when someone does a side-by-side with the old BEST version. I'm sure the wheels and engine detail will be a huge leap forward.

Enough emo crap. I've started compiling a Nissan Prototype page. Let me know if you have a list of the various IXO, Ebbro, and Q-model units out there so I can save time cross-referencing. Contact me at webmaster@diecastsportscar.com

To really understand me, you have to realize I currently have an entire room of my house dedicated to Gran Turismo 4. I have the excellent Logitec wheel, and the purpose-designed racing seat by Playseats. Now this gives me an actual feeling (at least in a relative sense) of the cars that I am driving. Recently I experienced the (virtual) thrill of blasting a Nissan Group C car down a chicane-less Mulsanne straight, and was amazed at the incredible braking power, not to mention the suprizing bumpiness of the course.

This was all well and good until I went on to the next race section, where I was to enter a 427 Shelby Cobra. Now like you, I have read what a legendary car this is countless times, and how it beat Ferrari, and how cool these guys looked in their team jackets, etc... Anyway, it turns out that this car actually drives like shit, and has such undersized brakes that most of the 7-litre man-muscle is wasted while you stand on the brake pedal and pray for the damn thing to actually make it through the braking zone. The front-engine layout also contributes to the truck-like handling, and it is no wonder the Shelby team embraced the GT40 design.

So it goes without saying that because of a video game, I will no longer dream of having a Shelby kit-car in my outer garage. And while the odds of me actually owning even a crappy Cobra replica were remote at best, it is more than a little bit sad that I am no longer attracted to them...

Wonders never cease. I do a full update to the 1967 Le Mans Page, and not ten minutes later I learn that Bizzarre are going to do a Mirage M1.

In keeping with the idea of marque-themed pages, there is now a Ferrari 330P4 Prototype Page.