Category Archives: Western Models

1:43 Accuracy in White Metal from the Turn of the Century, Part 2

Race Cars, Pace Cars, Street Cars, Show Cars

By Karl Schnelle, with input from Dale Dannefer

Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.

Part 1 discussed Dale’s VLC revival race cars and his KD street cars, pace cars and show cars. In this second and final part, we will talk about the WKD Chryslers.

WKD Race Cars and Street Cars

Working with Mike Stephens at Western Models, Dale also commissioned several exclusive models of early 1950s Chrysler cars, including the 1951 Indianapolis Pace Car and at least five (5) different race cars competing in the 1951 Carrera PanAmericana.  These race cars included the two cars entered by Carl Kiekhafer’s (owner of Mercury Outboards, later of NASCAR fame) team, with lead drivers of John Fitch (car #32) and Tony Bettenhausen (car #7).  Dale discussed this car with John Fitch (see photo) and was provided a color slide of the original Bettenhausen #7 race car by Charles Strang. These cars were black or dark blue over red.

Charles Strang, an engineer for Kiekhafer who had prepped the cars for the race in 1951, told Dale that they made sure to make them the same color in case they needed to switch doors and car numbers during the race. In addition to his engineering work, Strang was also a journalist who wrote about the race in Speed Age which features a photo (incorrectly tinted) of Fitch’s car on the cover. John Fitch could not remember the color of the #32 car and so Dale was put in touch with Strang.

Many people are not aware of the dominance of the new Chrysler hemi-powered cars in the 1951 Carrera PanAmericana.  On the first day, John Fitch’3 #32 led the entire field (including the light and nimble yet very powerful entries of Ferrari, Lancia, etc.) until an oil line break ruined the engine.  Teammate Bettenhausen, in car #7, fell back in the field due to brake issues, but on the final day, he ran the fastest time of any entrant on the last leg of the race. 

Very importantly for the record books, a new Chrysler Saratoga taken directly from dealer stock (car #16) was the top finisher in the big US stock car class, and finished 3rd overall, behind the Ferrari 212s of Ascari and Taruffi.   Unlike the Kiekhafer, Cunningham and other entries, this race car was a 4-door sedan rather than the club coupe body style. Entered by the A.B. Poe Chrysler dealership in El Paso, Texas, this car’s performance was quite remarkable as it was driven by an untrained driver, a local furniture salesman named Bill Sterling.  The car was finished in Gull Grey over Foam Green, with color information and other details provided by Dick Poe (son of A.B. Poe and who continued to run the dealership until a few years ago), who remembered the car from his college days and signed certificate cards that accompanied these models. 

Dale modeled the #32, 7, and 16 cars as well as car #39 driven by Phil Walters and Briggs Cunningham, and car #31 driven by Jacqueline Evans, believed to be the only woman entered in the race.  Cunningham expert Larry Berman provided a photo of the Cunningham-entered car (white with blue stripes of course) and a photo of the Evans car, finished in Continental Green Poly (dark) over Foam green, was provided by Charles Strang.

Below are photos of two of the Western 1951 Chrysler Saratoga Club Coupe PanAm race cars. About 30 or 40 of each of these were done.

As you can see John Fitch very generously signed about 25 cars of the 40 or so that were made. The #39 car driven by Cunningham/Walters were actually done later, after Western closed, by noted model craftsman Graham Price, who mastered a lot of the MiniMarque cars.

The late Martin Swig, a major San Francisco auto dealer, created a replica of Fitch’s #32 Saratoga for vintage racing.  He and Dale met serendipitously, when he passed Dale in a vintage race car he was testing, which was his Fitch-replica 1951 Saratoga coupe, as they were approaching the Oakland Bay Bridge in California. Dale chased him down leading to a longtime friendship, and a collaboration with a small number of variations being built of Swig’s replica racer, which was Continental Green over Foam Green.

Here is a photo of John Fitch and Dale (taken at an event at Watkins Glen) looking at the magazine article in question (photo credit: Joe Constantino). Fitch is also sitting in the hemi-powered Cunningham that he raced at Watkins Glen and the guy in the background whose head is just above the headrest is Bill Milliken.  This was in about 2004-5.

Here are all, or almost all, of the numerology and colors of the street WKD Chryslers: 

WKD1 51 Chrysler New Yorker convt, Belvedere Ivory, interior green/grey.

WKD 1-A Same. Indy Pace Car, White with dark red interior.

WKD 2 51 Chrysler New Yorker Club Coupe, Ecuador Blue, Tobacco Brown over Arizona Beige.

WKD 3 52 Chrysler New Yorker Newport (2-dr. HT), Gull Grey over Superior Blue with maroon/grey interior, Ivy Green over Florida Green with green/grey interior.

WKD 4 52 Windsor Club Coupe, Monitor Grey over Gull Grey (and reversed), Banner Red (maroon) with grey interiors.

WKD 5 52 Windsor DeLuxe Club Coupe, same colors, but with Highlander plaid interior and whitewalls, also “Deluxe” side script (decal).

The following are Carrera PanAmericana Race cars:

WKD 6A 51 Saratoga Club Coupe driven by John Fitch, car #32, black over red with Halibrand mag wheels.  About 25 of these were signed by Fitch. (A small number of these #32 Fitch cars were done in Continental Green Poly over Foam Green before the correct colors were discovered).

WKD 6B 51 Saratoga Club Coupe driven by Tony Bettenhausen, regular road wheels instead of Halibrands.

WKD 6C 51 Saratoga Club Coupe, street version, Foam Green.   <12 of these were done, representing Swig’s replica racer as it was when he purchased it.

WKD  6D Swig vintage racing replica of Fitch’s #32 car, only perhaps 6 of these were made. This is the car as Swig bought it before he turned it into a replica of Fitch’s PanAm car. It was featured in the Chrysler Museum’s short-lived Forward magazine. Continental Green Poly over Foam Green, vintage racer raced by the late Martin Swig of San Francisco.

WKD 6E 51 Saratoga Club Coupe, Carrera PanAmericana racer #31 driven by Jacqueline Evans. Continental Green Poly over Foam Green #31, the only female entry in 1951.

No number, but would be 6F we suppose, 51 Saratoga Club Coupe white with blue stripes, #39, driven by Briggs Cunningham and Phil Walters in Carrera PanAmericana. These were produced after Western closed, by Graham Price’s enterprise in Southern England.  Graham had made many of the Duesenberg and Auburn masters for MiniMarque.

WKD7 51 Windsor 4-door sedan, Buckskin Tan, Continental Green over Foam Green, or Buckskin Tan / Arizona Beige.

WKD8 51 Saratoga Sedan, Gull Grey over Foam Green (street version).

WKD8A 51 Saratoga Sedan, Gull Grey over Foam Green, Carrera PanAmericana #16 and 3rd place overall finisher, as noted above.  Dick Poe, who took over the dealership from his dad and gave Dale information on the car, signed some signature cards that went with these models.

WKD9 52 Saratoga Sedan, Huron Blue,

WKD9A 52 Saratoga Sedan, Huron Blue, Mille Miglia winner driven by Paul Frère and signed on the roof by him, only about 12 of these were done.

Here are two shots from the rear to show the difference between 1951 and 1952 models — the tail lights are the only styling difference. The #407 car is the car driven by Paul Frère in the Mille Miglia in 1952.


Several models from all three series were shown in a small poster from the turn of the century.

This may be too much information, but we wanted to document these 1:43 cars all in one place. If any readers have any of these rare models, please share your photos with us!


We welcome your comments and questions.   Please go to our Model Auto Review Facebook page or email the Editors at maronlineeditor at gmail.com.

1:43 Accuracy in White Metal from the Turn of the Century, Part 1

Race Cars, Pace Cars, Street Cars, Show Cars

By Karl Schnelle, with input from Dale Dannefer

Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.

This article summarizes information on a series of models produced by Dale Dannefer, with the assistance and collaboration of others, with three different manufacturers.

During the mid-1990s, Dale first did three Code 2 (factory-produced limited) Brooklin Models, in a series of Carrera Panamericana revival race cars known as the VLC (Viva la Carrera) series.  Soon after, he did a string of street cars, pace cars and show cars with Milestone (also known and Gems and Cobwebs or 43rd Avenue), most with reference numbers beginning with KD (for Kaplan-Dannefer, since Dale had begun international model activities in collaboration with his collector friend and noted Pontiac expert Frank Kaplan). Later, a series of Chryslers were produced with Western Models, carrying the designation WKD. Most of this activity was from about 1996 to 2007.  In every one of these projects, the goal was accuracy in every historical and technical detail.

Brooklin Viva La Carrera (VLC)Carrera Panamericana revival race cars

The three Code 2 Viva la Carrera Brooklins can be seen in the big Brooklin Model Collectors Guide (Cappi, 2019) and in the online Brooklin archive.  Gianluigi Cappi has a nice writeup on these three as well. They are the 1955 Chrysler C-300 (BRK 19-1), the 1953 Studebaker Commander Starliner Coupe (BRK 32-2), and the 1953 Packard Mayfair (BRK 55-1, based on BRK 1951 Mayfair).

A scan of the flyer for the first of these, the 1955 Chrysler C-300 driven in the race by Carl Schneider and Ron (Juan) Davis, is shown below.  These models were inspired and produced in collaboration with noted classic auto expert and PanAm racer Carl Schneider, who himself drove both the red Chrysler (faux) 300 and the blue Packard.

Because the Packard race car was a 1953 model, Brooklin made a correct grill for it and several other modifications to its casting, as well as to the casting of the race-winning 53 Studebaker. The flyer featuring all three is also shown below.  These cars came with numbered certificate cards signed by drivers or other key players.  At least one more car, a 1953 Hudson coupe, was planned but never (at least not yet!) produced.


Milestone – KD Models

KD produced Ford, Mercury, Plymouth, Studebaker, and Nash models with Milestone, as well as two beautiful Packard show cars.  Some of these were pace car variations but were always made in other variants.  A 1940 Studebaker was even made as a sedan delivery, with one version, with Mar-Main Pharmacy livery (from an actual photograph of the vehicle), inspired by a Studebaker historians’ legend about this vehicle.

According to local history, Paul Hoffman, CEO of Studebaker at the time, was part of a weekly poker game, along with the proprietor of the Mar-Main Pharmacy in South Bend where the poker game typically occurred.  The pharmacy owner reportedly won this sedan delivery from CEO Hoffman in a poker game, and it served as a delivery vehicle for the pharmacy for many years. 

Here is a list of KD series cars Dale made with Milestone/43rd Avenue:

68 Ford Torino GT, pace car and street convertible.  Pace car is Wimbledon White, the street convertibles were done in Gulfstream Aqua and Sunlit Gold with matching interiors.

40 Studebaker Champion 2-door, pace car, street car and sedan delivery versions.  Pace car Ruby Red, the street cars were done in Colleen Green and some special “California Colors” 2-tone schemes featured by Studebaker – Silver over blue metallic, and 2-tone (dark and light) Santa Ana Beige.  There may have been a third color.

40 Studebaker Champion sedan delivery, in two different liveries:  Studebaker service (yellow) and Mar-Main Pharmacy in cream/maroon.

66 Comet Cyclone GT convertible, pace car (Cardinal Red) and street versions (Bronze Poly or Blue Ice Poly, all with black/white interiors).

66 Comet Cyclone GT hardtop coupe, Jamaican Yellow, or Coventry Gray Poly.

65 Plymouth Sport Fury convertible, pace car (white with blue interior) and street (Electric Blue with white interior).

47 Nash Ambassador sedan, pace car (yellow with black roof), Indy official car (platinum blue), and street (solid Avon Green, 2-tone green (Guiana Green) or 2-tone grey).

48 Nash Ambassador sedan, Brown over tan, lt. grey over medium blue.

Later, again in collaboration with noted authority Carl Schneider, Dale also produced two Packard retro concept cars in a special Packard “Showstoppers” SS series, based on the 1951-53 Packards. 

First was the 52 Packard Pininfarina (fastback coupe). The actual car was drawn up by Pininfarina in the early 1950s but never produced.  Carl Schneider, who has a particular interest in Packards, brought the Pininfarina design to life around the turn of the century.  The model was finished in the exact colors of the actual car, metallic silver green with a dark green interior.  A very few variants were made in other colors (maroon, white, French blue, British Racing green, and yellow).

Soon thereafter, Carl also created the Packard Pacifica show car (2-seat convertible), which may have been partly inspired by Ed Macauley’s 1952 Packard Special Speedster.  The ShowStoppers 1:43 model of this beautiful car had the claim to fame of being the only 1:43 white metal model with a transparent plastic steering wheel, since that’s what the real car had.  Trouble is these were extremely prone to breakage.

Both of these are very beautiful cars, that have been featured at America’s Packard Museum in Dayton, OH USA. See https://www.americaspackardmuseum.org/

The 1:1 versions of these cars were featured in the April 2004 issue of Collectible Automobile. A 1:43 replica of the third member of Carl Schneider’s trio of Packard concept cars, the beautiful El Paso wagon, was planned but never built, as Milestone ceased manufacturing.

The silver green finish on the Pininfarina coupe is the color of the real car, but a handful of models were also done in maroon, white, yellow and British Racing Green.  


In Part 2, we will discuss the WKD Chryslers, the third set of models that Dale commissioned.


We welcome your comments and questions.   Please go to our Model Auto Review Facebook page or email the Editors at maronlineeditor at gmail.com.

The story of my 1:43 Scale Bentleys

By Patrick Grumillier

Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.

I explained in my first article that I found that producers of miniature Bentleys, industrial and artisanal, could not satisfy my appetite for models of specific Bentley cars. I decided to modify existing models by improving and detailing them and sometimes to create new models where the work to do so can be undertaken by an amateur modeller of modest abilities.

To illustrate this I have written about some of my creations below where I have made modifications to make them more desirable.

Bentley S1 Flying Spur

This is based upon an FYP model – yes even FYP models are used when I am determined to create the model that I want, some might say that I am an iconoclast. This model has been detailed with an open door showing the interior which has been upgraded to have a leather interior, The model has also been modified to have front wheels which are posed in a turned position.

1936 Bentley 4¼ Litre by Park Ward

This model started with an Autoreplicas white metal model. This was modified to have an open bonnet showing a detailed engine. The interior was finished in leather.

Bentley 3.5 Litre Coupé by Gurney Nutting

This is based upon a model produced by Western Models. Here again the interior has been re-finished with leather and a door opened so that the interior may be seen.

Bentley Mark VI Coupé by Mulliner

When I follow my second approach and create a model of a car that no-one has modelled it is often more difficult to identify the base model that I have used to create an entirely new one.

Bentley 4¼ Litre Streamline by Vanvooren

Again a lot of work on the interior was undertaken.

Eight Litre Limousine by Park Ward


I have added about fifty detailed or self-created models to my well-stocked Bentley collection, but the number of coachbuilders who worked during the inter-war years was so large that my whole modelling life will not be long enough to bring them all together. Books by writers like G. Green and pictures and writing on the Internet bring new discoveries every day.

To end the article on a humorous note the picture below shows a Bentley Mark VI with a utilitarian and playful appearance. Yes this Bentley does really exist!


We welcome your comments and questions.   Please go to our Model Auto Review Facebook page or email the Editors at maronlineeditor at gmail.com.

1968 Mercury Cougar

By Robert Brodowski

Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.

Long time collectors in the US may remember Toys For Collectors, the Massachusetts, USA, based importer and retailer of scale models of cars, trucks, and heavy equipment, especially from Europe. All through the eighties, and until Elisabeth and Gerhard Klarwasser retired in the late nineties, their mail order business boomed and grew. I always dealt with them at toy shows throughout the Northeast and mid Atlantic states where they set up tables.

They had a series of 1:43 scale white metal handbuilt cars available under their own brand “TfC” in dark blue with white boxes. TfC models were actually produced for them in England by Western Models who were a prolific producer of their own white metal handbuilts sold under a couple of names.

Now, to the subject at hand, this is a TfC Models 1968 Mercury Cougar in a gorgeous shade of blue. Because it’s a nearly 30 years old white metal handbuilt, it’s not perfect. And I love it.

And here is the blue TfC box.

The few pages below are from the Toys for Collectors Catalog 17 from October 1995 showing the Cougar and other TfC models available at the time.


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Hundreds of Handbuilts!

By Karl Schnelle

Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.

I seem to be on a certain 1:43 model car site just about everyday and noticed a fellow member posting strange and wonderful cars every so often. The site is Forum 43 and the collector’s name is Albert Kopans. Old posts scroll down to the bottom and seem to be lost over time, so I asked him if I could save his photos to a more permanent site. He willingly agreed so I have uploaded hundreds of handbuilts to hobbyDB, 404 to be exact!!!

Western Models Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z 1985

Albert has sold off most of these 1:43 cars already, and so I thought it was even more important to capture his photos for posterity. Many more model cars are still for sale on Albert’s online store. I created a spreadsheet with the vital information about each car and then worked with a hobbyDB database admin so that he could bulk upload the photos. It was a real team effort. HobbyDB was so happy to receive this donation of photos that they thanked Albert publicly.

BBR Ferrari 348 Zagato 1992

The number of models from each manufacturer are listed below, all of which are low-volume resin or white metal. Most are now obsolete and hard to find. Another 47 brands were uploaded with less than five photos each.

BrandPhotos
Western Models98
BBR61
Ban Seng48
Milestone Miniatures29
Motor City USA24
CCC19
ModellAutomobile18
Alezan12
MAE11
Walldorf Miniaturen9
ABC Brianza5

Thank you, Albert and hobbyDB!

Ban Seng Ford Coins 1974

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An Amateur Builder #1 – Western Models 1936 SS Tourer

By David Holcombe

All text and photographs by, and copyright of the Author unless otherwise stated. 

Amateur– “Participating in an activity for pleasure, not as a job; from the French ‘lover of’.” “Unpaid performer.” “Not qualified as a professional.”

Well, that’s me, plus add over seventy-five years of enjoying without becoming expert. But I have had fun in the process. Here’s just a taste:

Around 1973 Mike and Joyce Stephens started a little company to produce white metal model cars in both kit and built forms. By the 1980’s, their Somerset, England, firm had over thirty employees and were building under their own Western Models name and also for Motor City USA and other companies. Chinese competition cut their success and they became a smaller firm. They retired about 2007 and sold their firm, which now produces mostly plastic airplane models.   (Editor’s note:  Their 1/43 American model cars were bought by an American firm and are now sold as detailed handbuilts!) But for several years, the Stephens’ Western Models, in both 1:43 and 1:24, were admirable projects for amateur builders.

This is one of them, Number 43, the 1936 SS1 Tourer, probably produced in the early 1980s. Its 1:1 master was built in the mid-1930s by SS Cars Ltd., perhaps at that time better known as the old Swallow Sidecar Company and later as Jaguar. I bought it on eBay for less than 20 US Dollars.

Buying models on the secondary market (that means “used” or at least “previously owned”) can be risky. These parts can be small, tiny, miniscule, and all that means “easily lost.” This one I found in sealed envelopes, but somehow by the time of final assembly one door handle was missing. I fashioned a replacement and it seems okay. After all, one can’t see both sides of the model at the same look.

The other term to consider is “file to fit.” Remember, no matter how many files you have, from a Dremel tool through smaller and smaller files right down to your wife’s fingernail equipment, you still won’t have one that is exactly right. Sometimes it’s “make do with what you have.”

If you’re in a hurry, avoid white metal models. Go find a plastic Heller product and enjoy construction without filing. I recently finished a Heller 1:43 Citroen 11CV and had a lot of fun with it. Well . . . I may have touched it a little with sandpaper a time or two.

Keep an eye out for special features, and also for special problems. This Western SS has some of the best looking wheels I have ever used. They are almost jewelry. I buffed them a little with the Dremel’s soft brush and then mounted them. I also added a driver, probably an Arttista but I’m not sure. Getting him under the wheel was another “file to fit” chore. And fitting the windshield? Right now, after all the photography, the model is out on the desk with no windshield, waiting for yet another fitting. In one of the pictures, I noticed a gap where the body’s rear side panel meets the rear fender. Yep. It’s there. I tried to readjust it with the rear screw, but it doesn’t happen. This one I will live with.

Finally, develop a thick skin. There’s nothing like a combination of zoom lenses, enlarged pictures, and collectors who buy 200-dollar models assembled by the nimble fingers of people who grew up with chop sticks to point out flaws in your completed final product. Remember: building white metal models in 1:43 scale is fun. That’s the mantra to keep mumbling while down on the floor hunting for that door handle.


We welcome your comments and questions.   Please go to our Model Auto Review Facebook page or email the Editors at maronlineeditor at gmail.com.