History of Galgo, Part 6: Other 1:43 Street and Racing Cars

By Fedor Eliseev and Fernando Rey

In the previous part, we discussed 1:43 Galgo models of street and racing cars for the Argentinian market and the TC 2000 racing series in the late 1970s to early 1980s. Galgo also made 1:43 scale models of cars that were never sold in Argentina and never took part in local races.

Group 5 Race Cars

Besides Fiat, Renault and Ford, Galgo manufactured the BMW 320 Turbo and Porsche 911, both from Group 5. We don’t know exactly why but can suspect that it happened after Luis Biasatti visited Europe. He had negotiations there about acquiring diecast tools and techniques. While there, Biasatti also looked into the current European diecast industry.

Apparently, when he was in Germany he had an opportunity to watch local racing and Group 5 cars of the DRM championship (German Racing Championship in the 1970s and 80s); their massive rear wings and incredible sport body kits must have impressed Biasatti very much. Certainly, this is our assumption. As usual, the Galgo miniatures carried a plethora of liveries, mostly fictional.

Their design was the usual for Galgo. Both models were equipped with opening doors operated by a special spring. Interestingly, Galgo also offered the BMW 320 Turbo as a kit. The kits included road signs and spare axles with wheels. Instead of rivets, the baseplate was fixed with a screw, so it was very simple to change wheels. However, it is unclear why Galgo included the same exact wheels in the kits; logically a different type of wheel could have been used. The BMW, Fiat 131 and Renault 11 were all made as kits, but not the Porsche.

The most common liveries for 1977 BMW 320 Turbo were Miller beer, Skoal tobacco, and BASF (chemical company who sold fluorescent paint). Of course, all these liveries were generic, and it is impossible to find them in the German DRM championship.

If the 1977 BMW 320 Turbo Group 5 is similar to its real prototype, the Porsche 911 is not. We assume that Galgo modeled the Porsche 935 Moby Dick of Group 5 but instead named it 911.

Galgo made it in liveries of Marlboro, Rothmans, Canon, Martini and Jägermeister. The two last seem to have been used by the actual German teams. Their interiors were gray, blue or beige. The blue color looks very effective with the Martini livery (see below). By the way, BMW and Porsche were sold with two types of wheels: early and late (explained in the Part 5).

Vans

After street and racing cars, Biasatti decided to expand the range with vans: the VW Transporter and GMC Van which were very popular all over the world and in Argentina. Galgo modeled the 1967 VW T2, the iconic car of the swinging 60s. Unfortunately, the company made it only as a cargo van and never produced a passenger van. In the official Galgo catalog, it was declared as VW Combi.

There were many liveries: commercial and public service. As a rule, service models had flashing lights on the roof, for ambulance or fire. Also the VW Combi was issued in commercial liveries: Coca-Cola, Jockey Club, Austral (national airline), and many others. Even today collectors find new variants which they had never seen before, like for example, Nesquik by Nestle.

The GMC Van copied the 1970 Chevrolet Vandura. This van was legendary in Argentina and was in production until the mid 1990s! Similar to the VW Combi, the GMC model had only one casting type, a cargo van, in a plethora of liveries. Very unusual versions were the Therapia ambulance and Police explosives van.

But one of the most interesting was Duracell battery powered van! Its ‘off’ switch was located on the baseplate, and its body was plastic instead of zamac. The wheels were different from the other versions as well.

Unfortunately, the plastic was fragile and nowadays it’s not easy to find this model in mint condition.

Turismo Carretera Race Cars

One of the brightest chapters in Galgo’s history is their scale models of the Turismo Carretera championship, the main racing competition in Argentina. By the way, TC are one of the oldest racings in the world (see an article by Alex Wynson in Diecast Collector, September 2024).

In Part 5, we mentioned 2 championships in Argentina: TC 2000 and Turismo Carretera. The first was designed for 4 cylinder cars with no significant difference to regular series production cars. These races are not expensive, and many drivers, especially young ones , can afford to take part in them.

Turismo Carretera cars have 6 cylinder engines and have not many common details with street cars. These are sport prototypes and their bodies look different than the street cars which they are based on. Their details like suspension and transmission also use special components.

Luis Biasatti modeled the full range of cars taking part in the TC championships in the early to mid 80s: Ford Falcon TC, Dodge GTX, and Chevy TC. Their level of detail was the same as other models by Galgo, but using actual sponsor decals made them very effective. The TC range was made in both 1:43 and 1:55 with plastic interiors. The miniatures were packed in a common blue-checkered cardboard box and also in blister packs. The company also producing TC sets consisting of the Ford F-100 plus trailer carrying one of the racing cars.

Galgo focused not only on the winning cars but also on drivers who had never won a title. In fact, many TC drivers went to the Galgo plant and asking Biasatti to add their cars to the production programme. It was the most effective way to avoid any problem with royalties.

All TC castings had a plethora of liveries, so it’s impossible to track them all down now. That’s why we decided to show the readers just a few of the great TC racing cars.

The Ford Falcon TC represented drivers Oscar Aventin #6, Jorge Oyhenart #4, Angel de Nezio #11 and Eduardo Marcos # 7 in 1:55 scale.

In 1:43 scale we found Jorge Oyhenart #2, Oscar Aventin #6, Carlos Piaretti #16 and 177. As you can see, most cars carry advertisements for local brands.

In the first half of the 80s, the Falcon TC was successful with 19 victories from 1981 to 1986, and Jorge Martinez Boero became champion in 1982.

The Dodge GTX Coupe was represented by the drivers Tony Aventin #17, Juan de Benedictis #9, Eduardo Martinez #7, Roberto Mouras #1, Oscar Aventin #11, and Omar Castellano #3. The car of Tony Aventin (Tony and Oscar were brothers) is very interesting because an Argentinian division of an American oil company, Texaco, was his main sponsor.

By the way, you should not be surprised to see Oscar Aventin and other drivers on different teams. As in many racing series, drivers usually changed their teams; it’s a part of the game.

The Dodge GTX was the strongest sport prototype in TC during the early to mid 80s. Its drivers won 6 titles from 1980 until 1986! Tony Aventin won in 1980, and Roberto Mouras became 4-time champion winning in 1981, 1983, 1984 and 1985. In 1986 his successor was Oscar Agnetti. The drivers of Dodge GTX achieved 68 victories from 1980 to 1986.

The Chevy SS Coupe by Galgo was represented by Emilio Satriano, Osvaldo Morressi anf Roberto Moras #1, who changed from Dodge GTX to Chevy in 1986 but wasn’t able to defend his title. Unfortunately during the 80s after Francisko Espinosa’s triumph, Chevrolet didn’t manage to win a title for many years. Only in 1990, Emilio Satriano became a champion driving a Chevy.

Despite the failure in winning the championship from 1980 to 1986, the Chevrolet drivers won 22 races, even more than Ford.

Looking at the Galgo models of Turismo Carretera cars, we have a great view of early-mid 80s racing. But why did Biasatti never model the IKA Torino, one of the most iconic Argentinian cars in TC? Biasatti said that by the 1980s this car was already obsolete; he was interested only in current racing (according to a 2011 interview).

By the way, the three TC models of Ford, Dodge and Chevrolet were also made in the generic livery of the Galgo Racing Team.

The last model in the 1:43 range introduced by Galgo in 1986 is the Renault Fuego. Galgo made it in different TC 2000 versions. In fact, the Fuego was the newest Renault model, and for the French company it was very important to take part in TC 2000 racing. The miniatures by Galgo had diecast and plastic variants and had no interior under the orange windows. Two types of wheels were used.

The Fuego for the TC 2000 championship was represented in the liveries of 1987 Jorge Serafini, 1988 Silvio Oltra, 1986 Juan Mario Traverso, and 1988 Osvaldo Lopez. Number 1 on Oltra ‘s car reminds us that he was the reigning champion in 1987. By the way, the Renault Fuego provided its drivers 8 titles in TC 2000 starting in 1986.

The next 1:43 model which Galgo planned to launch was the Ford Sierra 5 doors hatchback in civilian version. There is not much information about this model, but looking at it in the catalog it seems to resemble a Corgi Toys casting.

Here are some undated catalog pages.

In 1986 Galgo’s owners made the decision to stop investment in new tools and stopped production of many ranges like the F1 cars, for instance. The reasons were economic conditions after import duties were removed. Secondly, after Carlos Reutemann finished his career in F1, interest in F1 significantly decreased in Argentina. Galgo models were rather obsolete by then, with simple construction making it difficult to compete with production from abroad. Export potential was also low and collectors from Europe, USA, and UK had minimal interest in Galgo models.

The company reduced production and introduced only a few new liveries using the current TC and TC 2000 castings. In our previous articles, we considered 1986 to be the last year of production but in fact this is a mistake. According to our latest research, the last models were made in 1990. In this year Luis Biasatti retired from the company. For some time production of Hi-Color video cassettes continuing, but Galgo became bankrupt in 1993 and all activity was stopped.

The molds of the 1:43 Ford F 100 were acquired by Buby in the second half of 80s and sold by them for a couple of years. In the next article about Galgo, we will discuss trucks and later buses from this manufacturer.

Acknowledgments

The authors are very grateful for the assistance of Jorge Garcia and Sebastian Ariel Palmeque.