And How! Ferrari Toy Story

And How! features open and innovative formats for notices, articles and posts

Story and model photos by Pete Vack

Following our Alan Boe feature on the 166 MM Ferrari 0010 M in the past two editions of VeloceToday, I thought it might be fun to show a very early model Ferrari. It dates from about 1953. And like most old Ferraris, it has an interesting history.

This is called Pete’s First Ferrari, because it was the first model Ferrari I owned. Because of this, despite its lack of proper scale, (it’s a toy, not a model) and somewhat ungainly appearance, it meant more to me that most of the other models or toys I still have.

This model represents the 1949 166 MM Ferrari barchetta, which was one of the first and most successful Ferraris.

In the early 1950s, The Ideal Toy Company created a line of “International Cars”. The model line-up included this Ferrari, a Pegaso, a Rolls Royce and Jaguar, a Talbot Lago and later, a Porsche 356 coupe. I collected them all, but all disappeared over the years.

The models cost 98 cents each, and could be purchased from local drugstores in the area where I lived. The Ferrari was purchased in about 1953-54, and other followed. The assembly didn’t require any glue, being screwed and snapped together. It could be assembled in minutes by an eager 6 year old. The toys were far from perfect, some almost grotesque, and all until the Porsche came along featured the exact same flathead six engine that could be viewed from the opened hood. To small kids, or so it was reasoned, an engine was an engine was an engine and even the Ferrari suffered this fate.

Since mine had long since bit the dust, I was lucky enough to find an unassembled Ideal Ferrari at the antique toy show in Annandale, Virginia back in the 1990s. However, this model was produced by a firm named Ringo, who bought the molds from Ideal many years after Ideal was through with the model line. Perhaps thankfully, no engine was supplied with the molds although the engine lid still opened. The Ideal trademark, once on the bottom of the chassis, was scrubbed off the Ringo versions.

Rather than paint the Ferrari red, I decided to paint it in ivory and blue. The colors are similar to those of the 166 MM Ferrari built for Evita Peron. The Peron car can be seen on the cover of Prancing Horse #126.

Below, we have arranged a few of the photos with Alan Boe’s shots of 0010 M. His articles can be read here:
0010 M Part 1
0010 M Part 2