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Jouef
Jouef is a French brand and former manufacturing company specialized in scale model railroads. The brand name is currently owned by Hornby. Apart from model railroads, the company also produced model cars and slot cars. History Manufacturer Georges Huard founded Jouef in 1944 toward the end of World War II. The traditional home of the company was in Champagnole, France. In the early 1950s, as with many manufacturers, the company abandoned the use of lithographed tinplate for trains in favour of plastic injection moulding. In 1979, Jouef opened a factory in Limerick, Ireland, but the ill-fated venture closed in 1981. In 2001, Jouef was subsumed by the Italian Lima. After Lima shut down in January 2004, the Jouef brand was acquired a few months later by Hornby Railways. Trains The company's first offering was a rather toy-like tinplate 'Trans Saharan Express - Algiers to Tombouctou'. Other notable offerings were the French BB9200 which hauled the famous 'Le capitole' exp ...
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Jouef Sudex
Jouef is a French brand and former manufacturing company specialized in scale model railroads. The brand name is currently owned by Hornby. Apart from model railroads, the company also produced model cars and slot cars. History Manufacturer Georges Huard founded Jouef in 1944 toward the end of World War II. The traditional home of the company was in Champagnole, France. In the early 1950s, as with many manufacturers, the company abandoned the use of lithographed tinplate for trains in favour of plastic injection moulding. In 1979, Jouef opened a factory in Limerick, Ireland, but the ill-fated venture closed in 1981. In 2001, Jouef was subsumed by the Italian Lima. After Lima shut down in January 2004, the Jouef brand was acquired a few months later by Hornby Railways. Trains The company's first offering was a rather toy-like tinplate 'Trans Saharan Express - Algiers to Tombouctou'. Other notable offerings were the French BB9200 which hauled the famous 'Le capitole' exp ...
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Hornby Railways
Hornby Railways is a British model railways manufacturing company. Its roots date back to 1901 in Liverpool, when founder Frank Hornby received a patent for his Meccano construction toy. The first clockwork train was produced in 1920. In 1938, Hornby launched its first 00 gauge train. In 1964, Hornby and Meccano were bought by their competitor, Tri-ang, and sold when Tri-ang went into receivership. Hornby Railways became independent again in the 1980s, and became listed on the London Stock Exchange, but due to financial troubles reported in June 2017, became majority owned by British turnaround specialist Phoenix Asset Management. Apart from trains, Hornby also commercialises model cars and other vehicles through its brands Bassett-Lowke, Corgi, Jouef, Lima, Pocher, and Scalextric. History Early history: 1920–1938 Hornby was at first a tradename for the railway productions of Meccano Ltd and based around Liverpool. Until 1907 the company produced under the name of ...
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Lima (models)
Lima S.p.A. (Lima Models) is an Italian brand and former manufacturing company of model railways. The company was headquartered in Vicenza for almost 50 years, from the early 1950s until the company ceased trading in 2004. Lima was a popular, affordable brand of 00 gauge and N gauge model railway material in the UK, more detailed H0 and N gauge models in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States as well as South Africa, Scandinavia and Australia. Lima also produced a small range of 0 gauge models. Lima partnered with various distributors and manufacturers, selling under brands such as A.H.M., Model Power, and Minitrain. Market pressures from superior Far Eastern produce in the mid-1990s led to Lima merging with Rivarossi, Arnold, and Jouef. Ultimately, these consolidations failed and operations ceased in 2004. Hornby Railways offered €8 million to acquire Lima's assets (including tooling, inventory, and the various brand names) in March of the same year, ...
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Rail Transport Modelling
Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale. The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, tracks, signalling, cranes, and landscapes including: countryside, roads, bridges, buildings, vehicles, harbors, urban landscape, model figures, lights, and features such as rivers, hills, tunnels, and canyons. The earliest model railways were the 'carpet railways' in the 1840s. The first documented model railway was the Railway of the Prince Imperial (French: Chemin de fer du Prince impérial) built in 1859 by emperor Napoleon III for his then 3-year-old son, also Napoleon, in the grounds of the Château de Saint-Cloud in Paris. It was powered by clockwork and ran in a figure-of-eight. Electric trains appeared around the start of the 20th century, but these were crude likenesses. Model trains today are more realistic, in addition t ...
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Champagnole
Champagnole () is a commune in the Jura department in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. Geography Champagnole has the publicity tag of "Pearl of the Jura" and is a small town at the geographical centre of Jura tourism. It stands on the right bank of the young river Ain at the foot of Mont Rivel (800m). It is around 130 km north east of Lyon, around 90 km south east of Dijon, and around 60 km north of Geneva. Population Economy Champagnole’s economic activity is principally industrial. The town is surrounded by blocks of forest so the exploitation of the timber and of its derivatives supplies the raw materials for furniture factories, including bathroom furniture. There is also a craft trade in box-making, wooden utensils and toys. The presence of the Ain is the source of other industries at Champagnole: mills, iron and steel working, including specialist steels and drawing wire to special sections. The Forges de Syam, which are classed as an his ...
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Matra Bagheera
The Matra Bagheera is a sports car built by the automotive division of the French engineering group Matra in cooperation with automaker Simca. It was marketed as the Matra-Simca Bagheera until its final year of production, when its designation was changed to the Talbot-Matra Bagheera following Chrysler Europe's demise and subsequent takeover by PSA. Conception and development In December 1969 Matra and Simca entered into an agreement that rebranded Matra's racing cars as Matra-Simcas and give Matra access to the Simca dealer network in France and the Common Market. The first joint project of the new liaison was development of a replacement for the Matra 530, which had not reached either its targeted market or its projected sales volumes. Work on the new car began in 1970 under project code M550. Development was led by Matra's head of engineering and design Phillipe Guédon and Chrysler-Simca product planner Jacques Rousseau. Additional direction for the design was provided by ...
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Alpine A310
The Alpine A310 is a sports car built by French manufacturer Alpine, from 1971 to 1984. __TOC__ History Dieppe-based Alpine, once an independent company specialising in faster Renaults, later a Renault subsidiary, established a fine competition history with the Alpine A110 winning the 1973 Monte Carlo Rally and World Rally Championship. The successor was the Alpine A310, initially powered by tuned 17TS/Gordini four-cylinder engine, still rear-mounted. The maximum power reaches , thanks to the use of two twin-barrel 45 DCOE Weber carburetors. The first model of the A310, built 1971-1976, was a car with a four-cylinder engine and six headlights. Being larger, heavier, and no more powerful than its predecessor, the A310 was generally considered underpowered. The car was first shown at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show. The prototype A310 had louvres across the rear windscreen; these were not carried over to the production model. Early models had a NACA duct mounted near the window atop ...
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Lancia Stratos
The Lancia Stratos HF (''Tipo 829''), widely and more simply known as Lancia Stratos, is a rear mid-engined sports car designed for rally racing, made by Italian car manufacturer Lancia. The HF stands for ''High Fidelity''. It was a very successful rally car, winning the World Rally Championship in 1974, 1975 and 1976; and race car winning 1974 Targa Florio, five times the Tour de France Automobile and three editions of Giro d'Italia automobilistico. History Lancia traditionally used the design house Pininfarina and had not used Bertone before. Bertone desired to create an opportunity for a relationship with Lancia and knew that Lancia was looking for a replacement for the aging Fulvia for use in rally sports. Bertone decided to design an eye-catching model to show to Lancia. Bertone used the running gear of a Fulvia Coupé which belonged to one of his friends and built a running model around it. When Bertone himself appeared at the Lancia factory gates with the Stra ...
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Die Cast Cars
A die-cast toy is a toy or a collectible model produced by using the die-casting method of putting molten lead, zinc alloy or plastic in a mold to produce a particular shape. Such toys are made of metal, with plastic, rubber, glass, or other machined metal parts. Wholly plastic toys are made by a similar process of injection molding, but the two methods are distinct because of the properties of the materials. Process The metal used in die-casting is either a lead alloy (used early on), or more commonly, Zamak (called ''Mazak'' in the UK), an alloy of zinc with small quantities of aluminium and copper. Lead or iron are impurities that must be carefully avoided in Zamac, as they give rise to a deterioration of the metal most commonly called zinc pest. The terms white metal or pot metal are also used when applied to alloys based more on lead or iron. The most common die-cast vehicles are scale models of automobiles, aircraft, military vehicles, construction equipment, and tr ...
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Triumph TR3
The Triumph TR3 is a British sports car produced between 1955 and 1962 by the Standard-Triumph Motor Company of Coventry, England. A traditional roadster, the TR3 is an evolution of the company's earlier TR2 model, with greater power and improved braking. Updated variants, popularly but unofficially known as the "TR3A" and "TR3B", entered production in 1957 and 1962 respectively. The TR3 was succeeded by the Michelotti-styled, mechanically similar Triumph TR4. The rugged ‘sidescreen’ TR, so named for its employment of removable plexiglass side curtains, was a sales and motorsport success. With approximately 74,800 TR3s sold across all variants, the model was the company's third best seller in the TR range, behind the TR7 (111,500 units) and TR6 (94,500 units) models. The Triumph was campaigned in races, hill climbs, and rallies across Europe and North America, with several outright, team, and class victories to its credit. TR3 Although the car was usually supplied ...
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Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, intended for five occupants (later, Beetles were restricted to four people in some countries), that was manufactured and marketed by German automaker Volkswagen (VW) from 1938 until 2003. The need for a ''people's car'' ( in German), its concept and its functional objectives were formulated by the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, who wanted a cheap, simple car to be mass-produced for his country's new road network ( Reichsautobahn). Members of the National Socialist party, with an additional dues surcharge, were promised the first production, but the Spanish Civil War shifted most production resources to military vehicles to support the Nationalists under Francisco Franco. Lead engineer Ferdinand Porsche and his team took unti ...
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Ligier JS1
The Ligier JS1 is a sports-racing car that debuted in 1969 and was built by Automobiles Ligier. The car competed in various sportscar racing events during the 1969 and 1970 seasons. Background Guy Ligier was a French former athlete and successful businessman who began to pursue a career as a professional racing driver at 34 years of age. Ligier enjoyed many successes when partnered with fellow countryman Jo Schlesser driving Ford GT40s. The two men became friends and eventually went into business together, launching their own team, Ecurie InterSport. Ongoing mechanical problems with the various cars they drove moved Schlesser to ask Ligier "What if we did our own cars?" The question would not be answered before Schlesser's untimely death in practice at what was to have been his Formula 1 debut at the French Grand Prix in 1968. Following Schlesser's sudden demise, Ligier retired from racing to pursue the production of his own sports-racing cars. Ligier founded Automobiles Ligier ...
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