Controversy is all the rage these days so here is my little grenade; I am not really a Ferrari fan.
There I have said it, they have made a few nice looking and sounding cars over the years but they have never been top of my list. However I have just bought this rather charming example.
It was made by Mercury in the mid-1960s and features opening doors and a removable rear body section. There were several variations of this casting, this is the Nürburgring model number 60, they were available boxed individually or together as a set of 5 x sold as ‘Scuderia Corse Ferrari’ with number 57 in red and called Monza, number 58 in white called Sebring, number 59 in green called Silverstone and with the original red hard top 250 LM model number 39.
They came with driver figure but mine has gone missing. It’s a nicely detailed model but you can clearly see that they made these on the cheap from their existing 250 LM , there are little stubs where the roof pillars used to be and a bulge on the base plate where there was previously a full model name which suggests that factory workers literally cut the roof off these and filled over the base plate before they went to be painted! The paint finish and decals look very good as do the wire wheels which are plastic and not pierced metal like you got on Corgi’s 250 LM but they still give a good impression.
Keep a look out for Mercury models as they seem to slip under the radar on the internet auction sites, I paid just £25 for this one (together with a Sebring white car with an unbelievably bad repaint job) which seems like excellent value to me.
What’s your passion? A fan of Ferrari? Passionate about Mercury models?
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