Interviews

Fly Model cars - Passion for perfection

© Planetlemans - Gabriel Portos

Neglected by some and in many ways a lower art form compared to traditional die cast modelling, slot car racing had a shock when Fly models appeared in 1995. Founded by Spanish ex-driver Rafael Barrios and evolving quickly to a state-of-the-art facility in Alicante, Spain, Fly has been the cutting edge of the market for over a decade and has made many dreams come true for Endurance fans. We had the privilege to talk to Joan Albert Larrosa, one of the key people in Fly and defnitely one of the makers of this wonder.

PLM- Joan Albert, tell us about yourself and how you started.

JAL- I started with my own company in my home town Barcelona. I made 1:43 models (mostly of Spanish drivers) of Touring cars and GTs. I am a passionate of motor racing and its history so I know the subject and I've been always very involved in racing.

PLM- Driving, for example?

JAL- That's probably the only thing I have not done! I've been working with racing teams, mostly in car design and decoration: listers, lamborghini trophy just to name some. But I've also been a marshall at circuits, timing official, even rally co-driver. I've always been in racing so I could always get graphic materials to build my models. In fact, other 1:43 model companies came to me for the right stickers or painting design. They were looking for perfection, which is the main selling argument in this environment.

© Planetlemans - Gabriel Portos

PLM- How did that link you to Fly?

JAL- I produced all cars of the 1994 Spanish Touring car championship in 1:43, also for teams and drivers. Rafael Barrios was among my customers since he was back to racing, he started Fly in 1995 and he called me in 2001 to produce 1:43 die cast models for his company. I was not interested in slot cars but when Fly decided not to pursue the 1:43 line any further I moved to the 1:32 scale since this was (and is) the focus of the company.

PLM- So what did/do you design ?

JAL- Well, we have a wide range of products. Take the accessories: pitlanes, grandstands, I have worked with this as well since we are focussed on level of detail. Our constant evolution in this area means we have pulled the market with us and now all competitors aim at our level of quality in the slot car details, something that was unheard of before.

PLM- Any specifics on that?

JAL- Take the magnet. Fly was the first to come with standard magnets in the cars. Parents were delighted since the cars stayed on track and the kids were not chasing their cars all over. Also the cockpits, when we released the first Viper we had a half-bodied driver, when we moved to the Venturis and Marcos we had full-bodied drivers which was a sensation for the slot car world at the time. Now everyone does it. Rafael and I are both driven by the careful handling of the details, we do agree that this is our aim.

PLM- I noticed the models also got more and more detailed as time passed.

JAL- Exactly, the Corvettes were the first to demand a full-blown engine view so we had to design plastic parts to allow that level of realism. The Porsche 917 was a next step also in detailed planning. In fact I start with a concept and a list of materials/parts needed in the development. What I want is not doable all the time, sometimes we need to make something in 2 pieces rather than one but we improve every time.

© Planetlemans - Gabriel Portos

PLM- Why did you guys focus so much on historical cars? I was amazed when I saw a slot car manufacturer bringing out cars like the Porsche 917 , Ferrari 512, Lola T70…

JAL- Well, first of all we had no real competitors.Only Ninco was at a good level but back then the others’quality was pretty poor. And also, I’m 46 and rafael is 55. it is our time, the time so many call legendary in Sports car racing. Rafael raced from 1968 to 1974 with the 911, Escorts, Chevron B23 in the European 2 litre championship… it’s his cars, his time. We wanted to re-create this glorious years which we are so passionate about.

PLM- You have this new DVD+car series with some amazing films, I was really moved by “Live fast, Die Young” about Seppi Siffert.

JAL- This line is one of my biggest satisfactions. Actually I found the movie, spoke with the producers (it was not cheap!) but then I thought: I need to have a car to go with it and a car that is already designed at Fly…. I did quite some research and found out Siffert had raced at the Jarama with Juan Fernández so I called him. He received me in Madrid and he is a wonderful person, absolutely marvellous. He shared with me his personal pictures which we used in the booklet which he also wrote the text for , then he watched the film and was in tears…all those memories, all those people he knew so well. He’s one of the most successful Spanish drivers ever, 11 times hillclimb champion as an example…so there I am surrounded by what must have been 500 trophys and cups and he says “I will be eternally grateful for this moment. This is worth a thousand trophies”. It was amazing…

© Planetlemans - Gabriel Portos

PLM- You also started a new “Historical circuits” series now…

JAL- Yes, it’s a bit more generic because you cannot just associate a car with a circuit sometimes, however it is a very good way of getting some people the background information that is needed. Take the “Lucky Strike” Porsche 917 associated with Kyalami, you can talk about David Piper, how we was planning to race it but had the unfortunate accident during the “Le Mans” filming, there’s plenty of information to share.

PLM- The most remarkable in my opinion is still the Steve McQueen collection.

JAL- I was not at Fly back then, that was Rafael’s idea. Actually it is a way of bringing some logic to what you do. Many of our customers are collectors and look for alternatives, things that “make sense” to collect. You need to be able to supply that and Fly is unique in that sense.

PLM- And you are very diverse, isn’t this a problem?

JAL- Well, in fact in a market where some years ago you’d buy 8 cars a year and would have the complete Scalextric collection we release 8 a month and this is a challenge for people wanting to own our complete product line. On top of that our prices are not the cheapest so our continuous battle is to please the collectors. At the end of the day we want to have enough choice out there that when a collector is at the shop and needs to choose that they will choose a Fly car. We developed many different lines, like Lady Racers where we aimed at the girlfriend to be the trigger for the collector’s choice of car.

PLM- Moving to modern cars, why do you release more GTs than LMPs?

JAL- To be honest the LMP cars have the issue that an open car is less attractive to sell. People prefer closed cars although we have developed also some open prototypes like the Lola B98/10. Our issue is we don’t want to be the fourth manufacturer with the same model, I’d rather make an effort with another car than enter a war on who makes the best Audi R10, also because many people just select based on price, my car will be better and more expensive but people buying popular cars look at the price as deciding factor. I kind of flee from very commercial models.

PLM- Can you explain that?

JAL- Sure, take our new historical Formula 1 series. We wanted cars with many liveries so a McLaren M23 or a Ferrari would have been a safe bet. However, and also because of patents, etc. we chose a very popular car of the time like the March. Nice car and many liveries.

So we went on to know that the Fly Buggyra has even the keys modelled in the contact, that the Fly Alfa Romeo 156 has probably one of the most detailed logo work ever in the plastic mould and that the soon to be released Fly Ferrari F40 will have removable doors to achieve a top level of realism for a slot car. A fantastic journey and a real tribute to racing and cars that can only be realized with enormous passion, the passion that drives Joan Albert and the people at Fly cars to produce fantastic models…that you can race!

gabriel@planetlemans.com