1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review Welcome to my review of the 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 in red! If you don’t fancy reading the whole background of the real car, feel free to click here and skip straight to the model itself. Vittorio Jano (born Viktor János to Hungarian immigrants) hailed from the Piedmont region of Italy in the early 1890s. He started off his career at Società Torinese Automobili Rapid, a car and truck company. In 1911 he moved to Fiat under Luigi Bazzi. In 1923 he made the move to Alfa Romeo alongside Bazzi and it is here Jano really made his mark as Chief Engineer. His first design was the 8 cylinder, in-line mounted P2 Grand Prix car which actually won Alfa Romeo the inaugural world championship for Grand Prix cars in 1925. In 1932, he produced the P3 model which was raced with great success by Enzo Ferrari when he began Scuderia Ferrari in 1933. Jano also worked on Alfa’s road cars and designed a range of 4, 6 and 8 cylinder engines based on the aforementioned P2 unit that set the tone for Alfa’s architecture, with light alloy construction, hemi-spherical combustion chambers, centrally located plugs, two rows of overhead valves per cylinder bank and dual overhead cams. In 1936 he designed the V12 engine for the Alfa Romeo 12C, but that really struggled to make an impact and is thought to be the reason he left Alfa Romeo for Lancia at the end of 1937. Some of his work at Lancia revolved around their Grand Prix efforts. The Lancia D50 was introduced in 1954, but 1955’s tragic loss of Alberto Ascari (only 4 days after he crashed into the harbour and miraculously walked away nothing worse than a broken nose, bruises and shock) and the Le Mans disaster of that year (where 83 spectators and driver Pierre Levegh died and 120 more were injured in the most catastrophic accident in motorsport history and caused Mercedes to retire until 1989) left a sour taste in Lancia’s mouth and they left Grand Prix racing. Ferrari took over the effort and inherited Jano that same year. This turned out to be a great career move for Jano with his contribution to Ferrari being www.themodelcarcritic.com | 1 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review hugely significant. With the encouragement of Enzo’s son, Dino, his V6 and V8 engines pushed the older Lampredi and Colombo engines aside in racing. After Dino’s death in 1956 from Duchenne muscular dystrophy and aged just 24, Jano’s “Dino” V6 became the basis for the company’s first mid-engined road car – the 1966 206 Dino. The V6 and V8 went on to displace Ferrari’s V12 focus and their descendants continue to be used today. Like Enzo, Jano lost his own son in 1965. He became seriously ill that same year and sadly committed suicide in Turin. The D50 was perhaps way ahead of its time in Formula One. Jano’s design had some really innovative features. Among its characteristic features were a transaxle that lowered the centre of gravity significantly, a light-weight compact 2.5 litre V8 engine with a 90 degree cylinder angle and four overhead camshafts that produced 260bhp. The engine formed a stressed member of the chassis by foregoing the upper tubes between the cockpit structure and the front suspension in the space-frame tubular chassis. Only two lower rails were needed to hold the engine in place. The aerodynamically-shaped pannier fuel tanks were particularly useful – they could hold 200 litres of fuel which meant the D50 could go a whole race without needing to refuel, thus being a huge advantage over competitors with conventional fuel tanks in the tail. To get the driveshaft, which was rotating in concert with the crankshaft revolution, to bypass the driver cabin, the engine was tilted off the longitudinal axis by 12 degrees to the left. This allowed the driver to sit really low and improved the centre of gravity and aerodynamics of the car. The gearbox was mounted transversally just in front of the de Dion rear axle. These were ground-breaking features that made the D50 one of a kind. These works team Lancias in period were beautifully made, expense no object. Every suspension and ancillary mounting point on the D50’s lightweight multi-tubular chassis was precision-machined to aeronautical tolerances. Everything about these cars breathed quality. At the beginning of the season, this model was already being viewed as the only rival to the Mercedes-Benz W196. Accordingly, two-time world champion Alberto Ascari was signed from Ferrari to lead the team, alongside Gigi Villoresi and a young Eugenio Castellotti. On www.themodelcarcritic.com | 2 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review 24th October 1954, the Lancia D50 made its debut at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, the last event of the season. Ascari took pole position in qualifying and drove the fastest lap of the race with a time of 2 minute 18 seconds. However, a failed clutch forced him to retire in just the ninth of 80 laps. The revolutionary spirit started gloriously, but it came to an abrupt end – at least for that season. The image below shows Vittorio Jano on the far right, sitting alongside Luigi Villoresi, Alberto Ascari and Eugenio Castellotti. No other Lancia automobile had ever caused such an emotional stir in competition and among the public, not to mention its lasting impact on the company’s fortunes. With the demise of Alberto Ascari shortly afterwards, the costs from the development of the D50 and the pursuit of victories in prestigious Grand Prix racing proved to be too much for Gianni Lancia to bear and that is when Ferrari took over the Lancia team and the entire D50 fleet after Lancia withdrew from racing on 31st May 1955. From 1956 onwards these cars were used in the Grand Prix races as Lancia-Ferrari D50 and then simply named Ferrari D50. Juan Manuel Fangio won his fourth world championship in a Lancia-Ferrari D50. During their competition lifespan, D50s were entered into 14 World Championship Formula One www.themodelcarcritic.com | 3 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review Grands Prix, winning five of them. The review… As is usually the case with CMC, they have a few variants of this model in 1:18 form: 1. Plain red (#M-175 and unlimited in production) 2. The #26 car driven by Alberto Ascari in the 1955 Monaco GP (#M-176 and limited to 1,500 pieces which have already all sold out on pre-order) 3. The #30 car driven by Eugenio Castellotti in the 1955 Monaco GP (#M-177 and limited to 1,500 pieces). The recommended retail price is 497EUR for all three variants, so it is quite nice to see a premium hasn’t been placed on the latter two variants. The plain red car is already available in shops, whilst the #26 and #30 cars are expected to be delivered sometime in 2018. CMC were very kind in sending me this sample to review after the apparent success of my Talbot Lago T150 C-SS review and I really appreciate the gesture to allow me to cast my critical eye over another one of their (hopefully) detailed masterpieces! Again, I was provided this press sample in a standard Styrofoam shell, so unfortunately I cannot comment on the unboxing experience. Like the Lago, I spent a decent amount of time handling the D50 and playing around with the opening parts and ogling the details dripping from this model. Some people might baulk at the price of this thing – heck, close to 500EUR for a model is a significant investment in anyone’s books, but like a piece of fine art some of CMC’s models have been known to appreciate quite nicely in value. You simply cannot compare this kind of model to something www.themodelcarcritic.com | 4 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review like a Davis & Giovanni Lamborghini which I’ve seen offered for more than the D50. Even if you have zero interest in the subject matter of the model, I can almost guarantee every collector will be impressed with the level of detail found in a CMC model – and this one is certainly no exception! Made up of 1,598 individual parts and various materials including leather and stainless steel can this model top their Talbot Lago from earlier on in the year? Prepare your eyes for the visual feast of details as we strip the model back, piece by piece! Whilst researching the Lancia D50 online, I came across a set of pictures taken at Jim Stokes Workshops Ltd. in Waterlooville, England. These pictures showed the CMC team from Germany at Jim Stokes taking a 3D scan of the vehicle at the end of May 2016, with the final production version going on sale in December 2017. Just think about that for a second – it took a year and a half from scanning stage to shop shelf, which surely makes you appreciate just how much effort goes into creating a CMC masterpiece! Here are those photos…. www.themodelcarcritic.com | 5 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review www.themodelcarcritic.com | 6 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review www.themodelcarcritic.com | 7 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review www.themodelcarcritic.com | 8 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review www.themodelcarcritic.com | 9 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review www.themodelcarcritic.com | 10 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review www.themodelcarcritic.com | 11 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review www.themodelcarcritic.com | 12 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review www.themodelcarcritic.com | 13 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review www.themodelcarcritic.com | 14 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review www.themodelcarcritic.com | 15 1:18 CMC Lancia D50 Review Only two of the original cars survive and they remain on static display in museums in Italy, I believe.