Philippe de Lespinay started with Heller, the French model kit company in the 1960s as a designer and project engineer. He also also worked for Cox, who are now known for their remote control and gas powered vehicles, but also created many kits over the years. More recently, he was the curator of the Los Angeles Slot Car Museum. And he’s on the hobbyDB Advisory Board, so yeah, he’s our kind of guy.
hobbyDB will be regularly sharing his insights on particular models he has worked on including production kits, never-produced projects, and his own custom builds. We hope you enjoy the journey through his career as well.
Read more about his history in the toy and model business here.
Heller Liore et Olivier 45 Bomber
This WW2 light-duty bomber was my first attempt at designing an aircraft model kit. I tried to introduce much detail in this 1/72 scale model, that included for the first time ever in a plastic model kit, inner cockpit detail such as decals for dashboards, accurate seating arrangement, radios…
The landing gear doors were fully functional, the modeler able to simply open them in the exacting correct position as the design was using flexible hinges from the very plastic they were molded from.
also drew and organized the assembly instructions that show the cockpit detailing and the lower retractable machine gun station. The landing gear detail was also very accurate and this model drew very high marks from the specialized magazines when issued
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