THE SUPER MODELS
Sandy Copeman and his team of master craftsmen in Bristol, England, build cars that enthusiasts covet: the 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 Mille Miglia, 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic, 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO 3589GT, 1961 Jaguar E-Type Series 1-3.8 Coupé and 1957 Porsche 356A Speedster, to name a few. Each car is an impeccably detailed, beautifully painted handmade masterpiece—and costs a fraction of what these vintage vehicles and contemporary exotics would sell for at auction or through a dealer.
Then again, they’re also one eighth the size. That’s because Copeman’s company, Amalgam Collection, specializes
in building meticulous scale models of vintage and modern automobiles. In fact, without a visual clue to reveal the relative size, it’s often hard to tell Amalgam’s miniature masterpieces from the real thing. “That’s the goal,” says the 65-yearold founder. “If you can take a high-resolution photograph and put it in front of somebody, and they have no idea whether they’re looking at a model or the real car, then we’ve done our job.”
Some of Amalgam’s models even perform like their full-size cousins. For example, the new 1:8 scale McLaren Senna, which costs a little more than $13,000, features headlights, taillights and hazards that light up via remote control. The doors are motorized and can move up and down on command.
Want a vintage Bugatti, a classic Ferrari or a modern Mclaren supercar at a fraction of the cost? Amalgam Collection will build one—at a fraction of the size.
Copeman’s interest in tinkering developed when he was a teenager. He built a reflecting telescope when he was 14, as well as a couple of electric guitars. One of his greatest passions was modifying and racing mopeds. “I used to strip all the steelwork off them and turn them into lean, mean machines and then race them in my parents’ garden in London,” he recalls with a chuckle.
After dropping out of school at 17, Copeman became something of a nomad: “I was a young hippie and traveling throughout Europe and North Africa. That’s what anyone with a sense of adventure would look to do at the time.” He eventually settled in an artists’ colony in Somerset, England, called Nettlecombe Studios, which was established by British painter and printmaker John Wolseley. At Nettlecombe, Copeman found his vocation as a model maker after being asked to create scaled buildings and villages for an architecture firm.
He moved to Bristol in the late 1970s, and within a decade he and three of his colleagues had formed Amalgam Modelmakers. “After six years [working for a small model-making company], our skills and confidence had grown to the point where we decided to start our own partnership making architectural models for the likes of Norman Foster and other rising starchitects, as well as industrial designers like James Dyson,” Copeman says.
Amalgam began designing model cars for Formula 1 racing teams in 1995 after approaching Jordan Grand Prix, a nascent