Scale Models Of 1960s And 1970s Exotics: A Tiny Tribute To Speed

If you’ve been around me for a while, you’ll have noticed that I don’t get over-excited about the Exotics. Or the Classics. Or the Big-name-anything that gets other people foaming at the mouth. I’m just me.

Today we redress things, a little with a collection of exotics.

I remember a friend in high school who got all hyperexcited one day, babbling on about this Lamborghini he’d seen. Now this was in the early seventies, so in all fairness to him, it was an ultra-rare sighting. In all honesty I knew way more about cars than he did, but I was like “That’s nice”. He couldn’t understand my lack of evident enthusiasm. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate what he saw, or its rarity, just that I got more excited about the more mundane, everyday things. Still do.

That’s not to say I haven’t built any exotics, or classics. Or classic exotics. Exotic classics? Whatever! I won’t attempt to delineate between exotics and (lesser?) sports cars, nor define what makes an exotic. I’m happy to leave such hair-splitting to others. I’d rather look at them. And build them.

For today’s exotics, I’ll start us off in the sixties. That’s not to say there weren’t exotics earlier; I’ll cover some of them another time.

Aston Martin had always made sports cars and racing cars, and fairly uncompromising they were. When David Brown became involved after the war, the sports car roots were most definitely there, but overlaid with a veneer of refinement and style. Motor racing figured prominently in the fifties, with a dash of Italian style with the DB4. This DB6 is the final flowering of the ‘James Bond’ era of Astons. I keep telling myself I’ll build a DB4 one day, it’s prettier than this DB6.

Ferrari! If ever there was a “Hail! All bow down!” marque, it seems to be Ferrari. Nothing mundane, even to the smaller mid-engine 206/246 being badged as Dinos – I know it was in memory of Enzo’s son, but I wonder whether Enzo felt these more ‘affordable’ Ferraris would sully the Ferrari brand. Anyway, back to models. I built this Daytona about forty years ago. It was a cheap and cheerful Japanese brand from a company I’d never heard of. There are better models, notably the Fujimi EM-series one. I have one, unbuilt, but it intimidates me. Yeah, that’s saying something.

Of course I have a 250GTO. This old Monogram kit traces its roots to the early sixties, when it was a new car! I picked this up about 1980. Incredibly complex to build, with opening everything – but without being all that accurate in the body. I know they were handbuilt, with some degree of variability in the body, but the nose doesn’t look quite right. There are better kits; I have two of them. Just haven’t felt motivated to put them on the bench.

More recently I’ve been working on this 275GTB-4. The tooling’s about thirty years old, but I’d put it right up there alongside anything from the last ten years for detail. Funny thing about Ferraris: red seems to almost be the default colour. I don’t like default, so I went with a metallic red. When I showed this in a model forum, someone posted a pic of one he’d painted yellow. For this shape, somehow I think the red works better.

You could argue that the Jaguar is more of a sports car than an exotic. While I would understand your point, I would respectfully disagree. I think back to my childhood memories and the impact that oh-so-long bonnet and tightly curled cockpit had on me. Gut reaction makes it an exotic. Maybe not as fast or as rare (or unaffordable) as a Ferrari, but – just look at it!

Of course we can’t have exotics without a Lamborghini, and then we have to have a Miura. Probably the first car to bring the mid-engine concept into the public consciousness. The first I’d heard of Lamborghini was the Matchbox one I had as a kid. This car just looks so right, I’m prepared to make it an exception to my lack of fascination with exotica. It’s another older build; newer kits are available, but….

Ferrari again. I’ve never been a great fan of the Boxer. To me that long front overhang on Ferrari’s flat twelves looks rather ungainly. But I built one anyway.

Exotic, or not? In retrospect, we’d say of course it is, but when the 911 first came out Porsche was definitely a sports car maker; while amazing in racing, their road cars weren’t in the same league as Ferrari. When the Turbo came along, it changed my perception of the marque somewhat. I’m probably not alone in that.

I’ve never liked the Countach, but felt I ought to have one. After the incredibly beautiful swoops and curves of the Miura, this seemed a step backward. Or sideways. It just seems brutal. Industrial. Car as machine.

Okay, here we have an aberration. My penchant for modifying things led to me leaving the front and rear spoilers off this Dino 206SP. I feel it looks better without them. Cleaner, certainly. Not much call for the extra downforce in my display.

I used to have a poster of one of these on my bedroom wall. Another one of those older builds with – you guessed it! – a more modern kit packed away to do it justice. One day.

The mighty BMW M1. As far as I know, there has only been the one model of the M1, this Italian one from around 1980. This was a race car kit I returned to the street, hence the oversized flares and spoilers. Please excuse the colour scheme; although I was using Humbrol enamels back then, there are plenty of other colours I could have chosen.

I have several Panteras. This is another one of those race-cars turned street car, built forty-something years ago.

Another Lamborghini, this Silhouette is another vintage Japanese kit. This time from Otaki, a well-regarded but now defunct brand. As with many of their kits, they provided opening doors, though the interior was often compromised by the need to fit in three electric motor and batteries usually found in Japanese kits of this period.

I’ll finish up today with this Jaguar XJ-S. Despite the plaudits it has received online recently as a classic Jaguar, I still haven’t warmed to it. A strange mélange of straight lines and curves, weirdly over-fussy detailing at the rear (compared to the simplicity elsewhere), and that 1966 Pontiac GTO-inspired rear window treatment made it too much of a visual comedown after the E-type. Personal opinion. You could argue it wasn’t an E-type successor, but what exactly was it? Odd.

We’ll finish up there for today. I’ll cover more modern exotica another time.