By Pete Vack
It was just the other day, as I was sitting here minding my own business when the doorbell rang. I turned to see the postman run away as fast as possible, leaving a mysterious, unexpected package on the porch.
The package was from VeloceToday contributor and Vintage Motorphoto CEO Dale LaFollette. A note inside said, “Tired of moving this from room to room so I thought you might enjoy it.” In the box was a model, about 1/25 scale, with a two step bonnet that could only be patterned after a Pegaso Z102 Touring.
Further Pegaso clues were a repeated two step trunklid and a unique rear window treatment. So, yes, it was at least supposed to resemble a Pegaso. But it came equipped with a driver, rear window bullet shield, machine guns and passenger ejector seat. A James Bond…Pegaso! Doubtful Ian Fleming would have approved.
And approval, or lack of, was the key to this toy. For in the early 60s, when James Bond paraphernalia was booming, Marx Toys wanted in on the action. But they couldn’t get a license to create a James Bond Aston Martin as others had already sewn up the market. So they created their own hero, “Mike Hazzard” put him in a Pegaso and let it rip. Fittingly, Bond’s Pegaso was placed on a copy of Enrique Coma Cros’s book, Ricart-Pegaso la-Pasion-del-Automovil and photographed.
Capturing the Market for Ugly Pegasos
A decade earlier, Ideal Toy Company had the market on ugly Pegasos. In 1954-56, the toymaker created a line called Cars of All Nations, with 35 easy to assemble parts. Offered were the Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Pegaso, Jaguar, Mercedes Benz, and finally a fairly decent Porsche 356 coupe. All but the Porsche had hoods that opened to display a flathead six, better known for powering Plymouths of the era. None of the cars were particularly well-conceived, and the attempt to scale down the Pegaso was one of the more ignoble failures. It would take the 1/43 revolution before a decent model of the Pegaso was created, no longer a toy and very expensive per inch.
The Ideal Pegaso; Found on eBay.
What about that book?
Ok, what about books on Pegaso? A good time to segue into what books are available about the Pegaso brand. And, not much. Of the above, we have the Coma Cros book and David Beare’s Pegaso and Ricart, and both are excellent, though Coma Cros is expensive and in Spanish. We also have the softback Pegaso by Monsalve, a compendium of photos of Pegasos in competition. Not familiar to us is Pegaso El Coche Español De Ensueño / Spain’s Dream Car. If you are into Pegasos, all four would be worthy to have on your shelves.
And, before we depart, Don Toms, who often handles Pegaso books, sent me a link to a bring a trailer by Raffi Minasian, who wrote a bit about owning and driving the Pegaso Thrill in Malibu during the 1960s. Tough, Raffi, tough. Here is the link:
Raffi on owning a Pegaso
Car Stories: Raffi’s 1953 Pegaso Z-102–The “Thrill” of a Lifetime
Great Pegaso history. I own the Supremo for couple weeks. A more audacious owner pay why I ask and Goodbye. I keep the Plate. Them see the car against in Essen and Amelia! So ugly that is beautiful! Godspeed. Jaime I
a man drove into automobiles international in the mid-’70s with an alloy pegaso Spyder on a trailer, complete except for one side curtain and the twin 4barrel weber carbs which he said he would send us from his mother’s house (he never did). it might’ve been another one of those $2500 deals but certainly not much more. I wrote pegaso and they sent me a bunch of publicity glossies, and for some reason I think a repro of an owner’s manual. if that’s true for some reason I never read it. what with things like the driveshaft u-joints being lubricated by an oil pump in the differential I knew that unless we totally rebuilt it I’d be taking my life in my hands to drive it. I think I sold it to alf Francis along with the almost-finished car he’d built for himself at Serenissima on the tub of the first Lola gt from Eric Bradley’s back garden–but that’s another story!
My first acquaintance with Pegaso was getting the streamline race car transporter. Later came 2 Provence Moulage kits of the cars that ran at LeMans and the Carrera Pan Americana. Then came the “Thrill” and a blue 102 coupe. I see that Grand Prix Models has the Cupola in aluminum, but am waiting for it to be made in the Ochre color I saw at Amelia Island. I was enthralled by the almost watch-like engine that I saw with my first Pegaso Z102 Touring, also at Amelia. The models I mentioned are all 1/43 scale and part of my race car and coach builders collection which dates from 1964.