My very first model development trip took me to London in October 1990. Revell wanted to release a Ferrari 250 GTO as a finished model on a large 1:16 scale. Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason owned an extensive collection of Ferrari sports cars at the time, including a 250 GTO. We had contacted his company Ten Tens and arranged a photo session. So I flew there in the morning and back in the late afternoon. Lots of photos of Nick’s 250 GTO in the luggage.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t there that day. As a Pink Floyd fan, I would have been very happy to welcome him. An employee put the car outside on a turning area so I could photograph the Ferrari in its entirety. Later we drove to an auto repair shop where the GTO was put on a lifting platform and I was able to photograph the entire underbody. This photo was taken by a passing Bobby.
No, no, I wasn’t the designer of the Audi TT when it was developed in Ingolstadt in 1998. Revell wanted to release a model of this sports car and this should then be available to match the delivery of the original. Since it takes a lot of time to develop and manufacture such a model, we needed some advance notice. For most of the day I kept my camera rolling, shooting film after film of the pre-production model sitting on a turntable.
After I had everything in the can, I had to hand over all the films to Audi. The Ingolstadt company had them developed at their own expense and checked all the recordings. They wanted to be sure that I hadn’t photographed something that wasn’t meant for the public at the time. A few days later, all of the footage arrived in Bünde.
On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Schnelsen volunteer fire brigade, the idea was born to convert a BMW Isetta into a fire engine. That was in 1978 and 15 years later Revell produced this “mini fire extinguisher” as a finished model on a scale of 1:18 as part of a large-scale Isetta campaign. At that time I was with the owners of the “Löschi” to photograph the little one and to take the measurements of the add-on parts.
This BMW Isetta served as a cheap means of transport for the police in the 1950s-1960s. Mainly in the fleet of rural police stations, they often replaced the motorcycles. In this way, the investigating officers were able to drive across the country to the next operation without getting their feet wet, even in the rain and snow. This Isetta was purchased and restored by the Hessian Police Academy in the 1980s. The then Hessian Minister of the Interior, Dr. Herbert Günther handed over the vehicle to the collection of the PMC Marburg in 1993.
Visit to the Thurn & Taxis brewery in Ravensburg. It would have been no problem at all for me to move this Kenworth truck and trailer, because I had a class 2 driver’s license through the federal government. For Revell I had developed this combination of the existing Kenworth W900 and a new trailer.
During my trips through some states of the USA I was also in the state of Pennsylvania and visited the Mack Trucks company in Allentown. There I had the pleasure of looking at the production of the heavy trucks as part of a factory tour. Of course, I also bought the original Bulldog and two Mack B models from their shop.
This photo was taken when I was at Fred Viohl’s in Haverstraw to photograph his Kenworth Tow Truck. The local fire station was about 200 m away from his property and of course I had to go there to see what kind of vehicles they had. In addition to an American LaFrance Tiller as a vintage car, I was able to look at an ALF Pumper and this beautiful Mack B Oldie.
And here it is, the Century 2000 American LaFrance from 1986. The guys from the Haverstaw Fire Department always set the pumper up for me so that I could photograph it from all sides. We also took driving shots with the video camera back then.
On the way from Los Angeles to San Francisco, I not only stopped at several truck stops, I also visited a number of fire departments. Besides the San Jose Fire Department, I’ve also been to Bakersfield. The firefighters there showed me all their vehicles, even took me around the block in a TDA. And a photo with an ALF 900 series pumper was a must.
I’ve been to New York City twice, in 1996 and 2016. On the first visit, Bertus Backer and I were also over on Liberty Island, the island where the Statue of Liberty is located. And in 1996 the 400 m high twin towers of the World Trade Center were still standing. Can’t believe they were destroyed on September 11th, 2001.
When I was on the road in California for Revell for 18 days, I stopped at almost every major truck stop and used my camera to look for interesting motifs. I could have taken thousands of photos because there were loads of trucks. This shot was taken while I was driving from Sacramento back to Los Angeles and from there on to Las Vegas.
California’s largest truck stop is located near Los Angeles off Interstate 10 at the Milliken Avenue exit. I stood with my video camera in the intersection area of the truck stop for a long time and was able to film endless trucks that were just driving off the highway. In the immediate vicinity of the crossing there was also a railway line, on which overlong freight trains kept rolling past at intervals.