FUTURE FANTASY RACE CAR - 1:18 SCALE X2010 SPEEDSTER FROM AUTOART

Sony PlayStation drivers will love this diecast future-machine, one of the star cars in the record-breaking Gran Turismo 5 video game. This one is now leaving the screen, to arrive as a real-life 1:18 scale diecast model from Hong Kong-based Autoart.

BUGATTI VEYRON COUPE PRODUCTION FINISHED - BUT PLENTY OF GS MODELS TO COME

SMN report:

Seven years after the first Bugatti Veyron Coupe was purchased by a car freak equipped with a brain-meltingly large wallet, the final one rolled off the dedicated production line at Bugatti just a few weeks ago.

Artoart Veyron about as good as metal-casting technology allows.

CLASSIC CORVETTE STINGRAY AUCTION AND MODELS

The Chevrolet Corvette has a passionate following, which makes the Mecum Corvette auction today and tomorrow a magnet for any 'Vette fan with money. And the real star of the sale is Harley Earl's personal runabout, a blue Stingray convertible (top picture).

Earl was a powerhouse of mid-20th century US car design and to thank him for his efforts, General Motors presented him with this unique 'Vette in 1963. It had special metallic blue and white-stripe paint, with matching blue leather inside. The engine was a 300-horsepower unit, with massive four-into-two exhausts running down either side.

Earl sold the car after a couple of years, and it has changed hands several times since. But the car is now fully restored, and the quality of the restoration is likely to be reflected in the price achieved at auction, even in these recessional times.

In the model world Corvettes abound, especially diecasts, though SMN hasn’t tracked down a model of this particular car - let us know if you know of one. There are plenty of others though, including several nicely produced 'Vette varieties from Autoart in big 1:18 scale. Three are shown here, representing (top to bottom) Corvettes from 1959, 1969 and 2005.

The Mecum auction Corvette Stingray is here.

Autoart's Corvettes are here.

ASTON-MARTIN TO RACE IN FORMULA 1

There’s winning news for Aston-Martin fans today - the company is planning to enter Formula One (F1) racing from 2012. It’s exciting too for SMN, as Aston-Martin is based at Gaydon, not too far from the SMN workbench, near Oxford, UK.

A-M is already into sportscar racing in a big way, and this will continue, with preparation by top racing outfit Prodrive. In fact, A-M cars will be running in F1 from 2010 under the Prodrive label, before changing to the fully-fledged Aston-Martin F1 name two years later.

For Aston-Martin model fans, there's plenty of choice out there, and one of the nicest diecasts around is the big 1:18 scale Autoart DBR9 in Le Mans racing finish (top picture). It’s a jewel-like production, packed with detail, and just made for display. In 1:43 scale, an attractive James Bond DB5 from the movie Goldfinger (lower pictures) was offered with an Italian partwork that has since included a whole range of well-known and not-so-well-known vehicles from the Bond movies - from a Lotus submarine-car to a Citroen 2CV.

These come up from time to time on eBay, so it’s worth keeping an eye open. Dozens of Bond vehicles have already been released so it’s probably a bit late to subscribe to the whole series.

Details of the Aston-Martin’s F1 ambitions are at Autocar magazine’s website here.

Autoart’s Aston-Martin racers can be viewed here.