REVEL This German model company has a large range of cars in its catalogue, spanning pre-1964 classics to what it calls post-1974 moderns via motorsports, muscle cars and street rods.
POCHER Owned by Airfix parent firm Hornby Hobbies since 2020, this Italian company specialises in large, high-quality model cars and motorcycles, with prices starting from around £600.
ALUMINUM MODEL TOYS Legendary US firm AMT specialises in classic American road and racing cars. Now owned by Round 2.
MPC Another famous US model car maker that’s now owned by Round 2, MPC specialises in extreme cars, including dragsters and hot rods.
TAMIYA This long-established Japanese model maker boasts a selection of ranges, including grand prix cars and sports cars, all beautifully detailed and in a variety of scales up to 1:12. It’s also a leader in radio-controlled car sets.
FUJIMI Produces exquisitely detailed model car kits, specialising in Japanese domestic motors.
AOSHIMA Another Japanese model car company, which specialises in lavishly bodykitted cars. Bizarrely, it also produces a model of a 1992 Range Rover.
Top tips from a model making maestro
Ian Welsh, 68, has made almost 1000 model cars from plastic kits. The retired prison officer, who lives in Edinburgh, was inspired to start collecting when, in the early 1980s, he was leafing through a model magazine and was astonished by the variety of American model cars that it featured.
“I lived in a quiet Scottish fishing village and thought they were fantastic,” he says. “It encouraged me to start making models of cars and other things.”
One year, Welsh built every model in Airfix’s catalogue. Now his speciality is 1950s and 1960s US cars. “My favourite is a 1964 Cadillac Coupe de Ville,” he says, “and the longest I’ve taken to build a car was three weeks, at two hours a night. It was a 1958 Plymouth Belvedere.