Friday, August 28, 2009

1955 Volkswagen Type 1 Käfer Beetle Fusca Bug Sedán Oval Window 1:25 SS












The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German der Käfer (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, intended for five occupants (later, Beetles were restricted to four people in some countries), that was manufactured and marketed by German automaker Volkswagen (VW) from 1938 until 2003.

The need for a people's car (Volkswagen in German), its concept and its functional objectives were formulated by the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, who wanted a cheap, simple car to be mass-produced for his country's new road network (Reichsautobahn). Members of the National Socialist party, with an additional dues surcharge, were promised the first production, but the Spanish Civil War shifted most production resources to military vehicles to support the Nationalists under Francisco Franco. Lead engineer Ferdinand Porsche and his team took until 1938 to finalise the design. Béla Barényi is credited with first conceiving the original design for this car in 1925, notably by Mercedes-Benz, on their website, including his original technical drawing, five years before Porsche claimed to have done his initial version. The influence on Porsche's design of other contemporary cars, such as the Tatra V570, and the work of Josef Ganz remains a subject of dispute. The result was the first Volkswagen, and one of the first rear-engined cars since the Brass Era. With 21,529,464 produced, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single platform ever made.

Friday, August 21, 2009

1991 Chevrolet Beretta GTZ AMT 1:25











The Chevrolet Beretta is a front-wheel-drive two-door coupé produced by Chevrolet from 1987 to 1996. The Beretta was designed in the same design studio as the Camaro and the Corvette, Chevrolet Exterior Studio 3, and was built at the Wilmington, Delaware, and Linden, New Jersey assembly plants with other GM L platform models, the Chevrolet Corsica which came shortly before the Beretta, and the Canada-only Pontiac Tempest four-door sedans. The Beretta was produced in base, CL, GT, GTU, Indy, GTZ and Z26 models. A convertible was the pace car for the 1990 Indianapolis 500, and GM initially announced a production convertible replica, but a coupe version was offered instead.

Friday, August 14, 2009

1982 Citroën 2CV 6 Charleston 1:24 Welly











The Citroën 2CV (French: deux chevaux or deux chevaux-vapeur, pronounced [dø ʃ(ə)vo (vapœʁ)], lit. "two steam horses", "two tax horsepower") is an air-cooled front-engine, front-wheel-drive, economy family car, introduced at the 1948 Paris Mondial de l'Automobile, and manufactured by Citroën for model years 1948–1990.

Conceived by Citroën Vice-President Pierre Boulanger to help motorise the large number of farmers still using horses and carts in 1930s France, the 2CV has a combination of innovative engineering and utilitarian, straightforward metal bodywork—initially corrugated for added strength without added weight. The 2CV featured low cost, simplicity of overall maintenance, an easily serviced air-cooled engine (originally offering 9 hp), low fuel consumption, and an extremely long-travel suspension offering a soft ride and light off-road capability.

Often called "an umbrella on wheels", the fixed-profile convertible bodywork featured a full-width, canvas, roll-back sunroof, which accommodated oversized loads, and until 1955 even stretched to cover the car's trunk, reaching almost down to the car's rear bumper.

Michelin introduced and first commercialised the revolutionary new radial tyre design with the introduction of the 2CV.

Manufactured between 1948 and 1990, more than 3.8 million 2CVs were produced, making it the world's first front-wheel drive car to become a million seller, after Citroën's own, more upscale Traction Avant was the first front-wheel drive car to sell in six-figure numbers. The 2CV platform spawned many variants, as detailed in the "Production numbers" section. The 2CV and its variants are collectively known as the A-Series. Notably these include the 2CV-based delivery vans known as fourgonnettes, the Ami, the Dyane, the Acadiane, and the Mehari. In total, Citroën manufactured over 9 million of the 2CVs and its derivative models.

A 1953 technical review in Autocar described "the extraordinary ingenuity of this design, which is undoubtedly the most original since the Model T Ford". In 2011, The Globe and Mail called it a "car like no other". The motoring writer L. J. K. Setright described the 2CV as "the most intelligent application of minimalism ever to succeed as a car", and a car of "remorseless rationality".

Both the design and the history of the 2CV mirror the Volkswagen Beetle in significant ways. Conceived in the 1930s, to make motorcars affordable to regular people for the first time in their countries, both went into large scale production in the late 1940s, featuring air-cooled boxer engines at the same end as their driven axle, omitting a length-wise drive shaft, riding on exactly the same 2,400 mm (94.5 in) wheelbase, and using a platform chassis to facilitate the production of derivative models. Just like the Beetle, the 2CV became not only a million seller, but also one of the few cars in history to continue a single generation in production for over four decades.

Friday, August 7, 2009

2000 Ford Focus Rally WRC Burago 1:24











El Ford Focus WRC es un vehículo de rally basado en el Ford Focus con homologación World Rally Car. Fue diseñado y construido por Ford en conjunto con la empresa británica M-Sport y fue utilizado por el equipo Ford World Rally Team en el Campeonato Mundial de Rally durante los años 1999 y 2010 en sustitución del Ford Escort WRC, automóvil que había sido el primer modelo World Rally Car de la marca y con el que había competido entre 1997 y 1998. Hizo su debut en el Rally de Montecarlo de 1999, participó durante doce años como oficial en un total de ciento setenta y tres pruebas logrando cuarenta y cuatro victorias, ciento cuarenta y ocho podios y dos títulos de constructores, en 2006 y 2007. Se construyó sobre el chasis de la primera y la segunda generación del modelo de serie y contó con diez evoluciones diferentes. Su última aparición oficial fue en el Rally de Gran Bretaña de 2010 y en 2011 el equipo Ford lo sustituyó por el Ford Fiesta RS WRC.

Además del equipo oficial también fue utilizado por varios equipos privados como el Stobart M-Sport Ford Rally Team.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

1997 Sprint Car Greg Hodnett (RIP) Selma Racing 1:24












Greg Hodnett
Piloto de carreras
Nacimiento: 18 de junio de 1969, Memphis, Tennessee, Estados Unidos
Fallecimiento: 20 de septiembre de 2018, BAPS Motor Speedway, Pensilvania, Estados Unidos
Cónyuge: Sherry Hodnett (m. ?–2018)
Hijos: Ashley Koontz, Jeremy Barnes, David Herbst, Jr.
Padres: Hoyette Arlington Hodnett, Jr., Mona Jean Hodnett
Hermanos: Shelia Dalrymple, Donna Coleman