Similarly to what we saw here (#23), these are two cars made within the first years of Guisval. Both are Lotus 63/2 and share the same cast, but one was built 6 years after the other.
The blue version was first made in 1970. In the previous years, Guisval had already built a few formula 1: Ferrari, Lola-Climax, Brabham, in several colours and carrying different decals. To tell between the F1s, the name of a famous racetrack was added to the name, for example: Ferrari F1 “Jarama”, “Spa” or “Reims”. Since 1970, the company kept producing formula 1 models, and although they were all different, they kept carrying a racetrack behind their names. In opposition to the ones made in 1967 and 1969, these were more “modern” not the old ones, with the typical cigar-like form.
Those casts were used during many years. If you want to know in which year approximately a certain model was manufactured, you have to take a look at the tyres. The most primitive ones are the ones in the blue model: they have two parts, the wheel and the tyre. These were used between 1967 and 1972. The second and third types are the ones in the Lamborghini Marzal and the Seat 850 respectively, which were used approximately between 1970 and 1975.
In 1976, all wheels are replaced by the new models, which are the one in the red Lotus. These are the most typical in the history of Guisval, since it was between 1976 and 1982, that Guisval built and sold more scale cars than ever.
If you try to find the differences between both cars, you’ll probably notice, that the quality of the toy has decreased from 1970 to 1976. The windshield has been redesigned and the mirrors are not present anymore. The pilot however remains, but with a new form (by the old Lotus F1, the pilot is unfortunately missing). On the back part, there’s another part which disappeared from one model to the other: the motor, and the exhaust pipes are poorly casted and made of plastic (one is half broken in the red model), while in the blue model, they’re made of metal.
Another difference, that allows to tell between old and older models, is that on the chassis from the older ones, you can read “Fabricado en España”, while on the newer models, that were already exported and sold in a few European countries, this same sentence appears in English.
Curious about the red "Clermont" model is that there was already a 1970’ Lotus 63/2 “Clermont”; it included a white rear spoiler, while the rest of the car was bright red, but it was made from a completely different cast than the Lotus 63/2 “Zandvoort”, so when it was re-edited in 1976, it is uncertain why it was named "Clermont", and not "Zandvoort", maybe it was just mistaken because of the colour by the person who had to name them checking old catalogues.
FACTS AND FIGURES
- Name: LOTUS 63/2 (Ref. 37 “Zandvoort”, Ref. 34 “Clermont”)
- Scale: approx. 1:60
- Year: version 1: 1970-72, version 2: 1976
- Company: Guisval (Spain)
No comments:
Post a Comment