Amalgam Collection is a British company known for producing some of the world’s best – and most expensive – replica model cars. Their models tend to be scaled between 1:18 and 1:18, but for its latest release the company has stepped up to 1:4 – and instead of complete cars, it’s offering a set of beautiful Ferrari bodies formed from hand-beaten aluminum.
There are two of these large-scale bodies available. The first is the beautiful 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa – the pontoon fender variant, of course – and the second is arguably the most iconic, and most expensive, Ferrari of all time, the series one 250 GTO from 1962.
Each replica is created by rolling and hand-beating sheets of aluminum using traditional ‘carrozzerie’ skills usually seen in archive footage of Ferrari’s Maranello workshops. The panels are constantly honed and adjusted by test-fitting them over a trellis, which is a wooden buck of the car, to achieve exactly the right shape. It’s all exactly how the real cars would have been made back in the 50s and 60s.
There are three distinct products on offer here. The first is the 250 Testa Rossa, which is to be sold unpainted and with a bright polished finish. Amalgam Collection says how the trellis for the pontoon fender Ferrari was created using extremely accurate data from a digital scan of the real car. “The investment in skilled man hours is significant, and so each piece will be made to order,” the company says.
Next up is the famous 250 GTO. This 1:4 scale body is available either in Ferrari’s famous Rosso Corsa red, or it can be painted as an exact replica of one of 16 period race liveries. In this case, the wooden buck was made using digital scans of several real GTOs. Again, Amalgam Collection says these bodies will be made to order.
As you might imagine, such craftwork doesn’t come cheap. The polished 250 Testa Rossa and red 250 GTO are both priced at $52,000 (£41,750). The 250 GTO painted with a racing livery is $56,000 (£50,556) and the company says it will only produce 10 examples of each of the 16 liveries on offer.