FSW Weekly Edition #37/2026

Senna's Detroit Comeback

Spark's Lotus 98T 1st USA 1986 #12 Senna in 1:43 scale records one of the great street circuit drives of the 1980s. The 98T was the last of the John Player Special Lotuses and the last of the Renault-engined cars, a turbocharged machine of fearsome qualifying pace in Senna's hands, and Detroit in June 1986 gave him both halves of the story. He took pole with a course record of 1:38.301, better than half a second clear of Nigel Mansell, then missed a gear on lap three and let the Williams through, retook the lead on lap eight and lost it all again on lap fourteen when a deflating tyre forced him into the pits and dropped him to eighth place, some twenty seconds off the lead. What followed over the remaining laps was Senna at his most relentless, picking off Alboreto, Johansson, Arnoux, Prost and finally Mansell to retake the lead and win the sixty-three lap race from Jacques Laffite and Alain Prost. On a circuit where an error meant a concrete wall rather than a gravel trap, it was as complete a performance as the season produced.

Spark's resincast interpretation captures the #12 car as it appeared in Detroit, carrying the Team Lotus and De Longhi identification that the American rounds demanded in place of the familiar John Player Special branding, with fine etched detail used where the subject calls for it and the 98T's distinctive nose, sidepod profile and rear wing arrangement all cleanly resolved at 1:43. The black and gold remains one of the most recognisable schemes in the sport, and a well finished 98T is a model that anchors a shelf rather than simply filling a space on it.  

The Lotus heads a strong week for the Formula 1 collector. Spark's substantial new delivery is unusually deep in historic single-seater content, bringing Damon Hill's Williams FW15C from his winning drive in Belgium in 1993, Graham Hill's Lotus 49B from Germany in 1969 and Piercarlo Ghinzani's Osella FA1F from Brazil in 1986, a car from the other end of the grid entirely and all the more welcome for it. All are available to order, with the Graham Hill Lotus 49B currently in stock and ready for immediate dispatch, which makes it the pick of the delivery.

There is a good deal more to look forward to besides. Spark's latest shipment announcement is strong on the current era across 1:43, 1:5 and 1:64 scales, headed by Ollie Bearman's superb fourth-placed Haas VF25 from the 2025 Mexican Grand Prix, the Haas VF26s of Esteban Ocon and Bearman from the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix, the Racing Bulls VCARB 02s of Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson from the 2025 United States Grand Prix and Williams FW47s for Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz, the latter including Sainz's third place in the Austin Sprint, with 1:5 helmets for George Russell and Lawson from the 2026 season and 1:64 Sparky Mercedes W16s for Russell and Kimi Antonelli from the 2025 Australian Grand Prix completing the list. Looksmart's own shipment announcement runs to Charles Leclerc's Ferrari SF-26s from his third-place finishes at the 2026 Australian and Japanese Grands Prix, together with 1:5 helmets for Leclerc from Japan 2024, Singapore 2025 and the 2026 season and Lewis Hamilton's helmet from the 2025 Singapore Grand Prix. Both are last chance announcements, so orders want placing sooner rather than later. Looksmart has also opened pre-orders for the Michael Schumacher tribute decoration Ferrari SF26s of Hamilton, sixth, and Leclerc, who retired, offered in both 1:43 and 1:18 scales alongside their 1:5 crash helmets. Further out, Tecnomodel has published a very large list for the first half of 2027 which includes, exclusively in 1:18, the 1993 Ligier JS39, the 1995 Tyrrell 023, the 1997 Prost JS45, the 1999 BAR 01 and the Ferrari F399, a run of 1990s subjects that the larger scale has waited a long time for.

Lotus 98T 1st USA 1986 #12 Senna - SPK7155

McLaren F1GTR 1st Monza 1000kms 1998 #11 Davidoff Classic - SPKSI033

Davidoff's Monza Giantkiller

Spark's McLaren F1GTR 1st Monza 1000kms 1998 #11 Davidoff Classic in 1:43 scale marks the last great day of one of the finest racing cars of its generation. BMW left the programme at the end of 1997 to concentrate on its own Le Mans prototype, McLaren withdrew factory backing for 1998, and the F1 GTR was left in the hands of privateers running increasingly elderly longtails against purpose-built machinery. Team Davidoff persevered, and at the Monza 1000kms the #11 car of Thomas Bscher and Geoff Lees did something that ought not to have been possible, beating the open-cockpit prototypes outright and taking overall victory by eleven laps. For a closed GT car derived from a road car, against prototypes designed for nothing else, it was a result of a kind the sport very rarely produces, and it gave the F1 GTR a finish to its front-line career worthy of everything that had gone before it.

Spark's resincast interpretation captures the long-tail bodywork with its extended nose and tail sections and the full-width rear wing, and the Davidoff Classic scheme is one of the more elegant liveries of the period, its restrained cream and dark tones sitting rather better on the car's shape than the busier colour schemes the category was accustomed to. At 1:43 the F1 GTR's proportions are unforgiving and the model resolves them cleanly.

The McLaren heads an unusually rich week for the endurance and GT collector. Spark's delivery takes in the Cougar C20 from Le Mans in 1989 and Porsche 911 entries from the 1971 and 1974 runnings of the same race, while Mazda features strongly with RX7s from the Daytona and Spa 24 Hours, a marque and a period that have been poorly served in the scale until now. More recent GT racing is represented by the Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo and a pair of Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evos from the 2025 DTM season, with the Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth from Tsukuba providing the week's dose of turbocharged Group A. All are available to order.

There is a good deal more to look forward to besides. DSN 43 has five new subjects on offer for release later this month, headed for the endurance collector by the pair of Charles Pozzi Thomson sponsored Ferrari 365 GTB4s from Le Mans in 1973 and the Gordon Spice Ford Capri 3000 GLX from the Spa 24 Hours of the same year, three cars that between them sum up the closing years of a very particular kind of endurance racing. Looksmart's shipment announcement adds the Ferrari 296 GT3 in the shape of Antonio Fuoco's Macau GT Cup winning #50 AF Corse entry and Ye Yifei's fourth-placed #83 Harmony Racing car, and as a last chance announcement it is worth acting on. Ixo has Nürburgring and Le Mans 24 Hours Porsche 911 GT3s among its long new future list in 1:18 and 1:43, Matrix slips the 1967 Brumos Porsche 911S as run at Sebring in 1976 and Bridgehampton in 1969 into its own forthcoming programme, and Tecnomodel leads its first half of 2027 sports car announcement with the 1965 Ford GT40 X1, to be modelled in both 1:43 and 1:18 scales.

Rally and touring car collectors have not been overlooked either. Ixo's new list of classic and modern subjects in 1:18 and 1:43 is about as broad a sweep of the special stages as anyone could ask for, running from the Opel Ascona 400, Saab 99 and Toyota Celica through the Ford Sierra Sapphire 4x4 and Porsche 911 Rally GT to the current Hyundai i20N Rally1 and Rally2, the Lancia Ypsilon HF Rally2 and the Toyota GR Yaris in both Rally1 and Rally2 forms, with a road-going Holden Torana included for good measure. Trofeu has added two more subjects to its forthcoming releases, a Mk1 Ford Escort raced to eighth in the 1975 Diepholz DRM round by Alois Roppes and, for collectors of Alpine A110 rally cars, the third-placed car of Pradera and Mata from the 1977 Firestone rally in Spain. DSN 43 completes its September list away from the circuits with the Datsun Violet 160J which finished third on the 1978 Safari in the hands of Aaltonen and Drews and the class winning Porsche 911S of Nunes and Amaral from the 1977 Portugal rally. For the saloon car collector, Spark has opened pre-orders on the Macau 1991 Watson's Team Schnitzer BMW M3s, a livery and an event that need no introduction to anyone who followed Group A touring car racing at its peak.

Zagato's Finest Hour

Matrix's Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato 1962 Metallic Blue in 1:43 scale brings us one of the most admired shapes in the history of the British motor car. The DB4 GT was already a formidable machine, shorter in the wheelbase than the standard DB4 and considerably more powerful, and when Aston Martin sent a small number of chassis to Zagato in Milan the result was something else again. Ercole Spada's body, lighter, lower and more tightly drawn than the Touring-bodied original, gave the car the covered headlamps, the cut-off tail and the gently swollen wheel arches that have been copied, admired and reinterpreted ever since, and with only nineteen cars built between 1960 and 1963 it remains among the rarest as well as the most beautiful of Aston Martins. This particular example, chassis 0188/L, is presented in metallic blue, a colour that suits the Zagato body rather better than the racing liveries the type is usually seen wearing and one that shows off the subtlety of the surfacing to considerably greater effect.

Matrix's interpretation is a sealed resincast model in the maker's usual idiom, which is to say excellent casting quality and a paint finish held to a very high standard, and on a subject of this kind those two things matter more than anything else. There is no fussy detail to hide behind on a DB4 GT Zagato, simply a shape that is either right or it is not, and the roofline, the set of the arches and the treatment of the tail all need to be resolved together for the model to convince. It is available to pre-order now with delivery expected during the fourth quarter of this year.

The Aston heads a good week for the classic and road car collector. ABC Brianza's latest delivery brings together three rather unusual 1:43 subjects, the elegant 1933 Delage D8S with coachwork by Grummer supplied as a hand-built model, and the Alfa Romeo Vega Dart 38 record boat of 1972 and the Lancia Molivio LV91 offered as detailed resin and metal kits. The Lancia and the Delage are currently in stock and ready for immediate dispatch, with the Alfa Romeo available to order, and it would be difficult to assemble a more characterful trio from any single announcement this week. Spark's delivery balances all that period charm with a selection of modern Porsche road cars, also available to order.

There is more to come on the road car shelf as well. Matrix has published a long list of 1:43 models scheduled for delivery between now and the end of the year, and it is a characteristically eclectic one, taking in the Alfa Romeo 1900 C Coupé 2-Seater Pininfarina of 1952, the Aston Martin DBS Banham Convertible, the Bentley 4¼ Litre drophead coupé by Vanden Plas of 1939, the Cadillac Professional S&S Florentine Flower Car, the 1976 Cadillac Seville and the 1970 Cadillac Superior Hearse, the 1971 Chevrolet Impala Convertible, the 1975 Jaguar XJ-C Avon-Stevens Convertible, the 1929 Maserati V4 Sport 16 and the 1935 Mercedes 500K Speziale Stromlinie, which is a range of subjects almost nobody else would attempt. Cult Scale Models expects the first of its 1:18 models before the end of the year covering the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Ti (101) of 1961 to 1964, the Aston Martin 2 Litre Sports of 1949, the Jaguar 420 of 1966 to 1969, the 1971 Lincoln Continental Mk3 and the 1998 Rolls Royce Silver Seraph, each as usual available to order in three colours. KK Scale continues its run of 1:18 diecast American metal with another film car, the metallic red 1965 Buick Riviera driven by Patrick Swayze's character James Dalton in "Road House", also offered in cream, gold and metallic red, alongside the newly listed 1957 Buick Special Station Wagon in three two-tone period colour schemes. Spark has meanwhile opened pre-orders on a broad group of 1:43 road cars covering Aston Martin, Chevrolet, Donkervoort, Gordon Murray, Lamborghini, Maserati, Opel and Porsche, and Tecnomodel closes its first half of 2027 announcement with the 1966 Lamborghini 400GT Monza, to be produced in several colours in 1:18 scale.

Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato 1962 Metallic Blue - MTX40108-192