Barry Wright

The 1:76 scale field is in many ways a specialist area, and Barry Wright has dedicated all his modelling career to it. As is often the case, Barry’s dad bought him Airfix kits to build in the 1960s, and in 1965, Barry joined the army. He became interested in the vehicles he encountered there, as a construction engineer, and in later life regretted not taking pictures of these.

Barry married in 1974 and left the army in 1976. Once in civvy street, Barry joined the Civil Service, and resumed building Airfix kits, but just the military vehicles. Come 1987, Barry moved from Birmingham to Northumberland, where he encountered a local branch of the Miniature Fighting Vehicles Association. This branch was in Newcastle, and it was the first club that Barry had joined. They took part in annual competitions around the country, and Barry was persuaded to enter his models in the competition which took place in Glasgow. There, he was amazed at the standard of other competitors, but pleased to have won a trophy for best resin model.

Subject ID: 81088

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The 1:76 scale field is in many ways a specialist area, and Barry Wright has dedicated all his modelling career to it. As is often the case, Barry’s dad bought him Airfix kits to build in the 1960s, and in 1965, Barry joined the army. He became interested in the vehicles he encountered there, as a construction engineer, and in later life regretted not taking pictures of these.

Barry married in 1974 and left the army in 1976. Once in civvy street, Barry joined the Civil Service, and resumed building Airfix kits, but just the military vehicles. Come 1987, Barry moved from Birmingham to Northumberland, where he encountered a local branch of the Miniature Fighting Vehicles Association. This branch was in Newcastle, and it was the first club that Barry had joined. They took part in annual competitions around the country, and Barry was persuaded to enter his models in the competition which took place in Glasgow. There, he was amazed at the standard of other competitors, but pleased to have won a trophy for best resin model.

The person presenting the prizes was a Gordon Brown, of Cromwell models, makers of resin kits in 1:76 scale. They chatted, and Barry was asked if he was interested in making some masters for the resin range. He gave it a go, and in the following five years to 1991, made between 30 and 40 masters for them.

By 1991, Barry was keen to make a particular vehicle in the range, but Gordon Brown was reluctant as the nature of the cab of the truck concerned, was that the window pillars would be very fragile in 1:76 scale. The answer was to use white metal.

Barry asked around, but no-one else was actively interested, so he sought advice, and acquired his own casting machine and associated equipment, for £300, and decided to do it himself.

The result was that BW models started in June 1991. By 1992 Barry had got some kits ready for sale, and placed advertisements in the Military model press. Over the next 18 months he attended many toy Fairs and model shows within reasonable travelling distance, whilst still continuing to work as a civil servant. He has always been a one man concern, but gradually expanded, and in 1994 asked a friend to assist with some masters, to increase the range of kits available in his range. Barry has seen steady growth since, and in 2009 had the best year for some time. He feels that people are now more shrewd about how they spend their leisure time and money, and thus try to do so profitably to them.

Finally in 2004 Barry retired at 55 with a reasonable pension, and has been able to concentrate more on his white metal business.

The work has continued to go from strength to strength, which Barry attributes to being clear about what customers want. He will listen to ideas, but takes care to assess the likely demand for a new model. Land Rover variants have always been popular, and recently a long term customer opened a model shop in Belfast and asked if he could stock Barry’s range of Northern Ireland military vehicles.

Both the flow of ideas and subsequent suggestions have generated a large increase in the number of Northern Ireland related vehicles in the range. Barry finds that each model will break even financially at about 40 models being made and sold, and some will achieve this in 12 months, whilst others are yet to make it.

Barry never drops a model from his range, as there is still an occasional demand for every one.

Subject ID: 81088

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