SCX 62550 BRM F1 Vintage - Surely some mistake!
When SCX were owned by Tecnitoys they came up with a highly profitable idea. As they had kept all their old moulds (as opposed to Scalextric who let theirs rust and sold them for scrap) they introduced their 'vintage' series. Once a year they would dig up an ancient mould from the vaults, send it off to China for production with a modern paint job and some tampo printing, stick it in the customary posh box and - hey presto - a Limited Edition, premium priced item for the collectors’ market.
It is a sobering thought that most high-priced modern collectables are produced from some sort of moulding process and can be reissued in large numbers at any time as long as the mould exists. An antique hand made furniture item is very hard to reproduce but perfect replicas of old slot cars can be churned out at the touch of a button. Something to bear in mind when you are tempted to splash out serious money on that “rare” car perhaps.
Many of these cars were produced over a number of years, some were very nice and highly successful like Jackie Stewart's Tyrrell, others much less so. One of the absolute turkeys is discussed below:
1962 BRM P261
The 2007 Vintage series release from SCX was a reissue from 1968 originally listed as just a BRM F1. This time round they marketed it as a 1962 BRM P261 driven by Graham Hill to the world championship but if this is a P261 then I’m a banana.
BRM F1
They described the model thus:
SCX presents one of the legends of the early days of Formula 1, the BRM P261 F1 Vintage with which the British driver Graham Hill won the championship in 1962........ The BRM F1 Vintage with which Graham Hill became Formula 1 world champion in 1962 featured as its most noteworthy development the 1.5-litre V16 135º racing engine, highly powerful at the time for its cylinder rating.
All of this is, of course, the biggest load of old cobblers you are ever likely to read this side of a politician’s election manifesto!
Graham Hill did indeed win the World Championship in 1962 but it was in a P57, not a P261 (which was not even built till 1964) and both had 1.5 litre V8 engines - the V16 they referred to in the advertising was fitted in the original BRM of 1955. Apart from these minor inaccuracies it is also blatantly obvious that the thing is actually based on a P83 and not a P261 at all. The real giveaway is at the rear of the model - 16 engine intakes should have given them a bit of a clue that their alleged P261 possessed a few more than eight cylinders!
BRM F1
Let us be charitable and assume that all this nonsense was a genuine mistake/poor piece of research by Tecnitoys. However, it does not explain why, having been informed of their error by their UK distributors many months before it was released, they persisted in marketing it as a P261. One can only assume that they had already produced the boxes/booklets for the car and were reluctant to throw a lot of expensive packaging material in the skip. So, ignoring the shiny box and its equally inaccurate information booklet let's take a look at the 1966 BRM P83 H16 - which is what the 2007 release really represents.
The Real Thing
In 1966 the engine regulations for GP cars were changed and the maximum size was increased from 1.5 litres to 3 litres. As usual none of the teams was prepared for this and most just bored out their previous year’s engine to 2 litres - the maximum achievable with the thickness of the original cylinder walls.
BRM’s solution came straight out of the “seemed like a good idea at the time” school of racing car design - join two 1.5 litre flat 8s together (sort of) to make a 3 litre H16. The end result was underpowered, overweight and totally unreliable - the P83 chassis they housed it all in wasn’t one of their best efforts either! After their successes of 1962 - 1965 the team reverted to the bad old ways and began their slow descent into oblivion.
The 1966 season tended to follow a pattern - Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart would practise in a P83, the car would usually break down or be completely uncompetitive. They would then race 2 litre versions of the previous year’s P261 with some initial success - Stewart won the first round at Monaco and Hill was 3rd. As the season progressed, the other teams, particularly Brabham, acquired more powerful engines and the BRMs slipped down the field.
The P83 didn’t actually take part in a race till round 7 at Monza and both cars were out by lap five. The remaining two rounds in the USA and Mexico produced similar outcomes so the car never finished a race during 1966. 1967 was more of the same although the P83 did occasionally finish a race but was never really a competitor for the win.
BRM P83 H16
By 1968 both Hill and Stewart had left the team and the car was quietly retired to the home for failed GP cars - the F5000 championship, where it achieved a similar lack of success.
A 16 cylinder engine has rarely appeared in GP racing and only BRM was stupid enough to repeat the experiment after the first failure! However, the H16 was also fitted in the back of a Lotus 43 and, to everyone’s amazement, Jim Clark won the 1966 USA round with it. As far as I am aware this remains the only World Championship win by such an engine and certainly the only success for the H16.
Three P83s were built and all still survive - the Donington Collection had one (whereabouts currently unknown following the museum's closure) and Caister Motor Museum holds a second, plus the USA GP winning engine. The third (albeit with an F5000 power plant) was kept in an Australian museum for many years but believed sold to a private collector a while ago for circa £90,000.
The Model
Why Exin Scalextric chose to produce the car in the first place remains a mystery as its racing pedigree was virtually non-existent, just like that of the previous year's vintage series release, the McLaren M9A. It reinforces the view that slot car manufacturers rarely have anybody in the design department who has the faintest knowledge of real motor sport.
It would be silly to judge this car by modern production standards as the original 60s moulds were always used for these vintage releases. The car came in the usual colours of the day, red, green, blue, white and yellow and was of average quality for the time. The front end was reasonably accurate but the rear was largely a work of fiction. Apart from the obligatory unrealistic chromed engine and exhaust, an engine cover only appeared on the real car a couple of times in practice and was radically different to that fitted on the model. The model also lacked wing mirrors and the distinctive coolant pipes which ran either side of the cockpit.
BRM F1
Its modern reincarnation was much improved by a decent paint job and a BRM logo on the nose but they missed off the “Owen Racing Organisation” legend on the sides. The car carries the racing number 3 which is correct for two of the three races it actually contested in 1966 - this is probably more by luck than judgement as SCX would presumably have been basing it on the P261’s numbers. Their attempt at a Graham Hill look-alike driver is also less than perfect. Firstly they have got the helmet wrong - his name was not written on the side. They have also given him dark goggles and a rather droopy moustache as opposed to the pencil type he actually sported so he looks more like a Mexican bandit than the quintessential Englishman he was.
In summary then - a slightly inaccurate update of a less than iconic 60s car which was not that great a model in the first place. Its inadequacies compounded by a ludicrous attempt to pretend it was an entirely different car altogether.
Add to your Collection?
If you are looking for a BRM P261 then you would certainly be wasting your money - keep an eye out instead for the old Airfix/MRRC version which is a reasonable rendition of the original and doesn’t fetch silly money in the collectors’ market.
If you want a BRM P83 and can’t afford £90,000 for a real one then the SCX version is probably your only choice - I don’t think many other manufacturers will be making one in the near future! They can often be picked up cheaply on eBay.
By their very nature most of these Vintage series cars remain as shelf queens which is a great pity as they are really good performers, albeit a little more sedate than their modern counterparts. If you should buy one, throw away the box and run the car on SCX or Scalextric Classic track - Sport track is probably a bit too slippery for it. There is no need to remove the magnet as it hasn’t got one but it does possess an RX motor, an enduring wonder of 60s technology which provides a low centre of gravity and smooth acceleration. It may not have the rocketship speed of modern can motors but I guarantee that you will have a big smile on your face as you gently slide the car round the bends and accelerate away down the straight.