[woodcote]

   

CA18F Slot.it Ford GT40 #19 12 Hours of Sebring 1967 - Nino Vaccarella / Umberto Maglioli. RRP £64.95. Available now.

Slot.it's first release of 2022 is this superb Ford GT40 modelled on the Scuderia Brescia Corse Ford - winner of the sports car class at the 1967 12 Hours of Sebring. Like all Slot.it models, the Ford is a beautiful scale model and offers excellent performance on track. Of all the GT40 slot cars produced in the past 25 years, the Slot.it version gets top marks from me in terms of looks and handling...

       

The stance is immense and the detail more than enough...

       

So what of the car this new model is based on? All eyes were on the new Ford MkIV at Sebring in 1967 - it was the debut of the all-American challenger...

       

And with no works Ferraris - despite their 1-2-3 at Daytona - there was only Chaparral to prevent a Ford victory, either with the new MkIV of McLaren and Andretti or the MkIIB of Foyt and Ruby. This classic 1960s film (albeit with a modern-day ESPN introduction) sums up the race into the Florida night...



Nothing much in the film of the Italian Ford, but the Scuderia Brescia Corse GT40 battled with other 5-litre Fords for sports car honours. Vaccarella and Maglioli used all their experience to bring the car home in fifth - just behind the two Porsche prototypes - winning their class and Brescia Corse having the honour of finishing as top Italian team...

       

Although not well known today, the privateer Scuderia Brescia Corse were a prominent team in the late 60s and early 70s. Their cars could be seen everywhere - Le Mans, Reims, Paris, Monza, Pergusa, Zwelteg, Vienna, Innsbruck and the Targa Florio - as well as the European and Italian hillclimb championship events. Founded in 1964 by industrialist Alfredo Belponer (pictured below, in front of the 1967 Le Mans cars), Scuderia Brescia Corse was a typical Italian social and motoring 'club' of the time - a group of young, wealthy men who wanted to go racing. The first board of the Scuderia elected Belponer as President, Ugo Gussalli Beretta - the heir of the Beretta firearms company - as Vice President and co-opted Carlo Abarth as someone who knew something about the motor industry.

       

From 1965, Belponer bought some of the best racing cars available and lent them to the dozens of drivers of the Scuderia. Every weekend saw Brescia Corse cars entering hillclimb, circuit and long distance races in Italy and abroad. Scuderia Brescia Corse was soon a well-respected name in the racing world - the only privateer team to enter all the events of the 1967 World Sportscar Championship. The class win at Sebring was followed by an overall win for Vaccarella in the Ford at round 11 - the Coppa Citta di Enna at Pergusa. Despite these notable successes - and dozens of Italian championships - the high point of Brescia Corse was 1972, when Arturo Merzario and Toine Hezemans joined the team. Merzario took five overall victories in eight races with the Abarth Osella 2000 SP, winning the European Sportscar Championship for Abarth and Brescia Corse. Sadly, the story comes to an end in the aftermath of the '73-4 fuel crisis - Belponer pulled the plug on the team and retired to the Tuscany coast.

Yet again, Maurizio and the Slot.it team have opened a window on some fascinating motorsport history with a great choice of livery. However, many potential purchasers will be looking at what's under the body...

       

The GT40 is one of the mainstays of Slot.it's Classic range of cars. As you can see from the wonderful Slot.it historical archive, the GT40 was the third model in this range, after the Alfa Romeo 33/3 and the Chaparral 2E. The standard layout is the powerful and super-smooth MX16 23k rpm S-Can motor in a 0.5mm offset sidewinder pod, making the Slot.it Classic cars really easy to drive. The original GT40 / MkII chassis has been updated, with the Brescia Corse car featuring the EVO6 version, which has an adjusted guide position to improve handling. The car is fitted with a relatively weak magnet and has the new motor cable with connectors for easy, non-solder conversion to digital - if using a compatible Slot.it chip.

Although not the out-and-out quickest Classic car available, the Slot.it GT40 is a very enjoyable and competitive car to drive on club and home tracks. Its solid performance and exceeding good looks will make this a popular release. A big thanks to Jo at Galileo engineering for sending us the high-detail images and release information.

   

[Alcopa]

  A lovely car and very quick - but Andy - aren't the wheels new??? The inserts, I mean -- don't think I've seen those before..

[woodcote]

Thanks! As for the wheels, they are listed on the spec sheet as PA46 inserts - the same as before, just painted a little different. They look good.

[Alcopa]

Yes -they do look good - and also love the different coloration of the number roundels -- attention to detail!!!  Now for the Maranello Conn. P4!!!!

[Kevan]

I like the Abarth in the photo...quite a while googling tells me it's a Fiat Abarth 2000 Sport Tipo SE010