In 1967 Lamborghini made a very striking and yet rather classy looking 4-seater called the Marzal. Designed by Marcello Gandini, sadly they only made one of them. The last time it was sold it went for approximately $2 Million so it’s unlikely that I or you will be able to buy it any time soon.
Fortunately for us several model manufacturers liked it enough to make a smaller version.
At the small end of the scale Matchbox’s No.20 in their 1-75 Superfast series came in five different colours (with shade variations), different interior colours and different wheels, not to mention with or without stickers so you had better get started if you want to collect all of those.
The detail of their version is good with all of the important features rendered however they didn’t reproduce the full glazed roof as per the original but did mark it out.
Guisval of Spain managed to include opening clear plastic gull wing doors on theirs, which was quite an achievement on that scale, but the rest of the car looks a little crude compared to the crisp lines of the Matchbox.
Play Art of Hong Kong made a nice model with the glazed roof and good lines but no opening parts and let down a bit by crude wheels. It’s much the same story with Yatming and Zylmex models, the former having correct looking doors but a solid roof, the latter glazed roof but missing the lower glazed door section.
Moving up to 1:43 scale with Dinky, Politoys, Nacoral and Sablon all offering a version, and much more recently Whitebox whose model has good detail but no opening parts.
Dinky gave their version opening front and rear body sections but kept the doors closed. The external features are all well done, and they modeled the hexagonal seat design and full glass roof to show it off and yet didn’t copy the distinctive dashboard just giving it a basic moulding.
The main body came in five different colours, but the opening parts remained white, several interior colours were fitted and the nice original cast wheels with rubber tyres were sadly replaced with crude plastic ‘speedwheels’ in 1976.
Italy’s Politoys concentrated on the cars most striking feature giving it opening full length gull wing doors with the correct glazing divide bar but no actual glazing in them, they also glazed the roof but this ended up smaller and reshaped to accommodate the door hinges and they also included a faithfully copied dashboard with its octagonal features. Their pleasing level of detail even stretched to some very good tiny Bertone ‘b’ badges but then for some reason they omitted the rear engine cover shut lines altogether.
Only Spain’s Nacoral and Belgium’s Sablon give the full set of opening parts and a good level of detail but both seem to suffer from plastic wheel reaction.
Nacoral also went bigger and produced a 1:24 scale model but oddly it doesn’t look as good as their smaller one, the larger being rather chunky and angular looking.
So, there you are plenty to choose from, my pick would be the Sablon and fit some better wheels to it.
There could well be some more makers that I have missed as concept cars were always popular targets for obscure manufacturers.
If you have one of these, send us a picture, we’d love to hear from you!
