B Roll

From the July / August 2010 issue of The Car Room Magazine

The 1939 Mercedes-Benz 540K Cabriolet B was an enlarged version of the Type A, with added rear seating and a host of minor detail and design differences. Massive in size, this car was no slouch. “K” meant “Kompressor”, indicating the Rootes-blown 5.4 liter straight eight engine, mated to either a 4-speed manual or optional 5-speed transmission.

Wanna see the Wizard?

From the July / August 2010 issue of The Car Room Magazine

This is the first review from Marshall Buck’s new column “Big Bucks”, focusing on limited edition hand/scratch built models and other exotica in scale - Ed.

The 1938 Horch 853 A Sport Cabriolet is considered to be among the finest cars built during that era. Powered by a 120 BHP straight eight engine and offering great luxury at competitive prices - if you were among Germany’s rich and famous, anyway - these were supplied to customers as rolling chassis. This particular car was among those sent to coachbuilder Erdmann & Rossi to get clothed; just five of these 853 A Sport Cabriolets were built, and only three are known to survive. Needless to say (but I will), each car was somewhat different.

Founding Father

From the July / August 2010 issue of The Car Room Magazine

According to personal point of view, the original Griffith sports cars had an either awe inspiring or a truly frightening power to weight ratio. Likewise, they wore styling that could be described as devilishly attractive, or downright quirky.

Stunning. Yes, that will do nicely. Stunning, in black.

The subject of this adoration is this extremely rare hand-built limited-edition piece from the studio of Carlo Brianza / A.B.C. Brianza in Italy; a 1:16 model of the one-off 1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK built for Count Carlo Felice Trossi.

You’d have to edit a few old sayings when applying them to the work of master class model builder Alain Bouissou; “Good things come in small packages”, for instance, would need a touch up. You might start by replacing “good” with “amazing”.

McLaren’s McLaren

I have and always will be a big fan of Can-Am racing, with McLarens ranking among my favorites. Their domination in this series was truly awesome. 1967 was a championship year for the team; driving their svelte M6As (freshly painted orange), the team of Bruce (McLaren) and Denny (Hulme) won five of the six races in the series, and would most likely have won the last, had McLaren not run out fuel in the last 200 yards - handing over victory to John Surtees in a competing Lola.

Tank!

The 1923 Bugatti Type 32, nicknamed the “Tank”, featured a number of mechanical innovations in addition to its radical, aerodynamic shape, and rode on a very short 79.5” wheelbase. Due to Bugatti’s inexperience with aerodynamics the car had a tendency to lift off the ground at speed.

Four of these racers were built, to compete in the 1923 French GP, each powered by a 2.0 litre straight-8 engine. The best they could manage was a 3rd place finish with car number 6, and Bugatti quickly abandoned further development, to concentrate on other models. The Type 32 car has been produced before by other companies in 1:43rd, but I can’t say the last time I saw any.

Cheetah!

Here’s a model I’ve only seen made twice before; once in 1:43 scale as an excellent, high end limited edition hand built (and kit) by Marsh Models - and once by Mini Exotics as a 1:24th kit which was somewhat less than good.

Spark’s been busy, as usual. This model replicates the beloved racecar as driven by Ralph Salyer at Road America in 1964; somewhere between 11 and 16 Cheetah’s in total were built, and only one was a roadster - though it didn’t start life that way. The Cro-Sal Special was a conversion from a coupe, done by Gene Crowe and Ralph Salyer, the car’s mechanic and owner; hence the Cro-Sal name. This was also the most successful of all Cheetahs, and it won many races.