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.
Yet another fine collection! I was getting a little nervous about whether we were going to see a Pantera or not! LOL
Thanks! Yes, I’d certainly view the Pantera as exotic. Unfortunately there isn’t what I’d view as a good kit of one, just a couple of Japanese kits from the seventies that are compromised by the inclusion of an electric motor and battery box. Back in those days it seemed everybody and his dog made a Pantera kit; I think the one I show here was a Nichinmo – another defunct brand.
Here’s a bonus Pantera for you.
I was wishing you had built a Man from U.N.C.L.E car, it was based on a Lotus I think. Nice work! I like the Jaguar E-type the best of this lot.
Could you tell me what Scale we are talking about here?
1/24.
from AMT
Ah, that one! No, I’ve never had that kit. Ars longa, vita brevis, and all that.
Must build a better Jaguar some time. Oh, hang on…..
Peter,
regarding the Jag, I’m pretty sure Enzo thought it was the most beautiful car in the world, so I’m with you on exotic. I’m sure I saw one or two of them in the 60s around my midwestern town as opposed to no Ferrari’s, but not common like an MG or Triumph.
nice stuff here as always
Thanks Dave. Yes, I remember reading that Enzo quote, but didn’t think to bring him into the ‘exotic or not’ argument when I was writing this up. I remember seeing an E-type out the back of a small-town accountancy firm where a friend’s Dad worked. No, it wasn’t his, but I’m sure we must have left grimy, sticky fingerprints all over the poor car! Guess owners of such cars get to expect that sort of thing.
I like the green M1, no apologies necessary for the color!
Thanks Jeff!
I built that Monogram Ferrari GTO when it was pretty current, in the Sixties. And even as a ten year old kid who didn’t exactly see real GTO’s (or any Ferraris for that matter) on the streets, I also felt the shape was off – it didn’t match the pictures in Road & Track.
Yes, I also have the kits by Protar (said to be excellent) and Fujimi (pretty much the gold standard), neither of which I’ve built yet. Looking at their bodies, the noses are shaped much more like cars in the photos I’ve seen.
Maybe I need to invent an imaginary Italian carozzeria (Carozzeria Dubiosa?) and say the Monogram kit is their take on a GTO? 😉
The 250GTO varies wildly between scale models, even the expensive ones often look “off” from the real deal.
Indeed. But I’ve never seen a photo of one with a nose quite like this one.
I’m currently working on an Aston Martin DB4 from that same series, and there are some areas of that which don’t look quite right too. But in all fairness, the early sixties was very much the early days of plastic model kits, and Aurora’s engineers (who developed the kit; Monogram bought the tooling later) did an incredible job with all the detail and opening parts – way in advance of what anyone else was doing at the time. I can forgive them if the shape’s a bit off. It’s a difficult shape to capture in scale.
Interesting bunch of models here. The 275GTB was a good choice for lead photo, I like it best both as a car and in your craftsmanship.
I would give a working definition of “exotic” as a high performance car that’s too expensive for typical non-wealthy car buyers to purchase. The E-type skirts the line, as it certainly seems exotic even though it was not as extravagantly expensive as many undisputed exotics.
Now that we’ve seen the “classic exotics”, I look forward to seeing the “exotic classics”.
Thanks Jon. The 275GTB-4 was fresh off my bench last week. I’d been holding back this story until it was finished – so it seemed natural to lead off with it.
I like your working definition of exotic. The contrarian in me would like to point out that many modern engines are so highly strung and expensive to repair as to make even some family cars exotic these days! 🙂
Exotic classics? Duesenberg SJ, Delage D8, Bugatti type 35B, maybe a V16 Cadillac (or is that just a ‘regular’ classic?). There’s a few more I’d like to build up first before I write that chapter.
Totally agree with you on the Dino — IRL, it’d probably flip over at the first turn, but you can actually see the car’s beautiful lines without spoilers. They’re called that for at least two reasons.
Indeed!
I can see the “Curb” has a varied amount of topics, and plastic models sure hits home. Being a poor carpenters boy, riches were never in our realm, so plastic models were the escape. We could have a Jag or Pantera, until the real one came around, if ever. As a kid, I was an avid model car builder, later semi trucks, all with alarming detail, until I got my drivers license,then I was driving those trucks I made models of, and no time. I recently completed a Haynes Visible V8 my daughter got me. I had built the Revell V8s years ago, and not the best, however, the Haynes one was really fun to build. Well engineered,( the spark plugs actually flash) unlike the original, however, if you do attempt the Haynes V8, there is no glue, and held together with 100 little screws. Magnetizing the little screwdriver ( provided) was paramount. Now retired, I’m thinking of buildng models again, a local hobby store has a slew, but they aren’t $1.99 anymore. 🙁
Thanks Howard. Yes, we cover a variety of automotive and related topics here. I’ve been writing on my model cars for over two years now, and try to provide a variety of information about the hobby, not just a bare pictorial. There are other avenues for that, Sometimes my enthusiasm for words runs away with me, and Rich has to rein me in a bit.
Coming from a similar background, models started out as an escape for me too; well, maybe not as escape so much as an outlet for the creativity I had within me. I knew there was no way I’d ever have a collection of cool cars – keeping one car on the road was expensive enough back then – but one model led to another and…. almost sixty years later, here we are.
They kind of sneaked up on me.
That Haynes V8 sounds cool. Although I love machinery, especially vintage machinery (watch this space…), I can’t see myself building one, as I have enough other projects awaiting attention.