If one pattern maker were to be regarded as being consistently at the top of his profession for over 40 years, then Ian Pickering would be high amongst the likely contenders.
Ian was born in 1948 in Derby and moved to Leigh on Sea in Essex as a baby. He spent his childhood making any model kits he could find. At the age of twelve he became diabetic and consequently missed a lot of schooling, leaving with few qualifications. He feels it was this that pushed him into working for himself. He says he’s never had a proper job.
Subject ID: 82190
MoreIf one pattern maker were to be regarded as being consistently at the top of his profession for over 40 years, then Ian Pickering would be high amongst the likely contenders.
Ian was born in 1948 in Derby and moved to Leigh on Sea in Essex as a baby. He spent his childhood making any model kits he could find. At the age of twelve he became diabetic and consequently missed a lot of schooling, leaving with few qualifications. He feels it was this that pushed him into working for himself. He says he’s never had a proper job.
In 1964 he joined his local slot car racing club, Estuary Equipe. There he met organiser Reg Chapman who collected 1:43 scale model cars. As a result, he did some repaints and conversions for him. Occasionally Ian went to swapmeets somewhere near Liberty’s in London. There, he was introduced to people such as Guy Harrison. Reg introduced him to David Pressland, a well known collector from Poole for whom he did some one-offs in balsa wood. He passed Ian’s name to a couple of American collectors, for whom Ian produced more one-offs. One of these models held special attraction for Dr. Clint Seeley as he had made a road trip across U.S. with some friends which included a young Elizabeth Taylor in the car.
Ian also did some work for Neil Eason Gibson who at the time ran the RAC Competition Dept. About this time, Ian was buying and building the range of 1:24 scale Auto-Kits, as his father worked close to Auto-Models in Finsbury Pavement. Ian was asked if he was interested in building kits for them at £2 a time. He remembers building an ERA for them which was presented to Billy Cotton (Sometime racing driver and bandleader), by Eamonn Andrews on “This Is Your Life”. Ian also made 14 Lotus Indy cars in a week for the Racing Car Show, in the late 1960’s.
Ian had continued slot car racing and became a member of Team Russkit (An American slot car manufacturer) which ran a works slot car in endurance races, (12 and 24 hours) on commercial tracks. They also did a 500 mile race at Westcliff-on-Sea (close to his home), the first commercial track, which lasted about three days. The team came third of sixteen. They might have done better, but replacement tyres from the U.S. were held up in Customs and they had to scrounge worn tyres from other teams, which were luckily larger diameter than their own. (sounds like F1)
At this time Ian met Mike Karslake (a local commercial model maker) and joined him on a freelance basis, helping with all sorts of projects, from planning models to dioramas, to a six feet high pneumatic drill. This was where he learnt the importance of deadlines. Mike would struggle with these by leaving everything to the last minute. None were missed, but Ian remembers several all-nighters. He particularly remembers one architectural model subject to a tight deadline. Ian was at the workshop at 8.00am to finish a model for that day, waiting for Mike who had the necessary drawings. Ian finally cajoled Mike into the workshop at about 2.00pm. Ian was not impressed finishing work at about 4.00am the following morning. Mike had four children and Ian remembers well his daughter Jo, who grew up to be a model and marry Ronnie Wood (Rolling Stones Guitarist) and be a celebrity on “Strictly Come Dancing.”
In 1970 John Day called Ian and commissioned him to produce the first of his range of white metal models on a commission basis, the first being an Alfa P2, 1954 Ferrrari, and a range of Lotus were favourites. The models were still made in wood and plastic. The problems with John Day are well documented and Ian did have trouble getting paid many times. John Day was a man before his time who took on too much.
Later in the mid 1970s, Ian was called by Marcel Van Cleemput, chief designer at Corgi Toys, in Nottingham and began a very fruitful working relationship with him, producing prototypes and patterns for Corgi for the next 10 years or so. Most of these were on-offs, but he did produce short production runs for toy fairs of the Spidercopter, Buck Rogers Star fighter and Superman in large and small sizes. Ian was responsible for the complete production on these. Through this connection Ian met Roy Fisher who was working for John Piper Models in Kingston upon-Thames and Roy produced the castings. Roy later formed Mastercraft and thirty years on, Ian and Roy still work together. Ian had been working for John making military patterns for him in 1:100 scale and Roy was his caster.
Ian also produced a working model in August 1980 of a Dan Dare vehicle for a TV series that never materialised. Marcel Van Cleemput suffered from insomnia and Ian would often meet him somewhere between Hockley where Ian was living and the Corgi base at Northampton at about 6.00am, so they could both do a full days work afterwards. When South Mimms Services on the M25 was built, it became a favoured meeting place. Ian and Marcel worked well together and Ian found Marcel a fine and honourable gentleman.
When Corgi Toys went bankrupt, Marcel Van Cleemput set up a company called Acorn Technical Design and Ian made various models for him and found himself producing a run of BAE 146 aircraft models, in various liveries, one of which was for the commercial launch for Dan Air. These were approx. 5” wingspan. In May 1983 Ian recalls the decals for these being supplied without any clear backing, just the colours. As there was no time before the deadline to re-do them, Ian managed to deliver them by working through several nights, putting on each colour one at a time! He succeeded in delivering 100 models just in time. Ian also made a De Havilland Dash model for Marcel Van Cleemput.
Marcel had introduced Ian to Phoenix Model Development based at Earls Barton, for whom Ian produced a series of Victorian hand carts and coaches, including a Royal Mail Coach. However, his favourite pattern was a model of the Cosworth DVF racing car engine, produced in 1978, to celebrate its 100th Grand Prix win. The full size engine was delivered to Ian to copy. The following year he produced a model Opel engine that Cosworth were developing. Both these models were cast and finished by Phoenix.
In the mid to late 1970s production of white metal cars boomed and various manufacturers approached Ian, one of the first being Jim Varney of Transport Replicas. Ian remembers producing an early fire engine for Jim and later, vans, lorries and buses. Brian Garfield Jones of Motokits also commissioned Ian to produce an Austin 7 for him and this was one of the first brass patterns. Ian went on to produce 3-4 patterns for Brian.
In 1978 Abingdon Classics commissioned Ian to make an MGA and this started a long association with John Roff and Max Kernick. By this time Ian was working for Western Models. In the early 1980s John Hall returned from Canada and Ian met him when he set up in England. Ian’s first pattern for John was a Lincoln Continental.
Richard Briggs of MiniMarque43 approached Ian in 1983, which led to a long association with Richard on a wide range of models until his death. Ian remembers making the pattern for the Bugatti Royale that was auctioned in the U.S. and became the most expensive car in the world. This was done to a very tight deadline, requiring only 2 or 3 weeks to make the pattern. Then it had to be cast and finished before Richard took the models to the auction. Ian remembers the information he had to work on was numerous professionally taken photographs. Richard was outraged to find that the photos cost him more than Ian’s pattern, clear evidence that pattern making has never been a well paid job.
From the early days of Ian’s career as a pattern maker he has worked for people in the U.S, from the early days of one-offs to brass patterns. John Roff, of K&R Replicas put Ian in touch with Auto Buff in 1979 and he worked for American companies such as Great American Dream Machine, Legendary Motorcars Inc., Highway Travellers, Motor City, Durham classics and Franklin Mint.
In 1984 Ian produced a 1:32 Buick Reatta for Hawtal Whiting, a company who had designed and developed prototypes for General Motors of the full size car. He made 100 or so models to be produced and presented to various people involved in the development of this car. These were mounted on a base with the name of the recipient on them. Ian recalls the names changing as various people were sacked and others replaced them. It was of interest that joins in the brass body pattern mirrored those on the full size car; a detail pointed out to Ian by their engineering director.
In the early 1980s, a friend of Ian’s who worked as a public relations officer at a local airline, British Air Ferries based at Southend Airport, approached him to produce a gilt lapel pin of one of their aircraft with a 1” wingspan. This led to a very fruitful association of 10 years or so. The first pin led to contracts with British Aerospace, both military and civil, and others such as the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Airlines around the world in some 13 countries were also supplied. Ian actually exported to China to a BAE representative who found it easier to source pins from Ian than BAE itself! He also supplied larger scale aircraft, encapsulated in acrylic for the El Yamamah Project in Saudi Arabia. Some 40 different aircraft were produced, the BAE 146 being the most successful. Ian stopped counting after some 350,000 were produced! Unfortunately, come the mid 1990s, the Chinese started using Ian’s pins and patterns, producing their own product for a price he could not compete with. However, he did produce some in precious metals, gold and silver, hallmarked.
In the 1980s and 1990s Ian created a range of ship models approx 6” long, comprising container ships, tugs, a Viking long boat and oil rig supply boats for a company called Castco, run by an American named James McMillan and his wife Jenny. James later learnt to cast himself and went on to develop an improved casting machine. Ian recalls the first pattern he made for James was returned for some repairs, damaged. When Ian asked how it was damaged he said he had used it to learn how to make moulds and some had to be levered out of the moulds with a screwdriver when they became locked in the rubber. It was a steep learning curve, and he used approximately 50 moulds in the process. He went on to produce really good castings, and an innovative new way to cast. Ian found it amusing to hear that a Swedish museum had praised James on the accuracy of a Viking long boat. They obviously did not realise that a large scale plastic model kit had been used for a copy. While James was a hard task master to work for, Ian recalls that James always treated him to a good lunch somewhere, and many times he helped Ian on to the train back home, both of them very much the worse for wear! James became a very good friend and is now living back in the U.S.
It was at this time Ian realised his patterns would need to be bullet proof, as he was never sure who would be casting them and certainly did not want them returned for repair. To date, Ian confirms that he has only ever seen his patterns come back for conversions, for example, a saloon into a convertible.
Over the years Ian has worked for virtually all the manufactures in the white metal car scene. Scales have varied from 1:144 scale – 1:8 scale, and subjects ranging from oil rigs, engines, to motorcycles, lorries and, of course, cars, in fact anything mechanical. Ian’s current clients include Brooklin, Illustra, Mastercast, Fire Brigade Models, Spacroft, J & M classics and Wargames South.
In 1989 John Simons of Marsh Models was approached by a film company to make a video on making model cars as part of a range of hobby films. There were 2 videos, one featuring making a Marsh model from a kit and the other featuring the process of production from the beginning. Ian was filmed for a day in his tiny workshop, which became very crowded with director, cameraman and soundman. Ian is unsure if the video was very successful, and his dreams of becoming the next Tom Cruise receded.
As a lifelong motorsport enthusiast, Ian enjoyed working with Mike Stephens of Western Models, particularly when he was producing F1 cars. Ian was able to visit the McLaren and Tyrell factories to see cars to be modelled, as well as attend various test days at Silverstone. Occasionally, he also reproduced obsolete car parts, such as door handles, badges, and light fittings for an old friend who had a company selling, restoring and building old Alfa Romeos. Ian’s own classic motoring interest includes 3 Alfa Romeos, and a Ginetta G15 that he has owned since it was 6 months old. It is now 37 years old and in need of its second rebuild. Ian used this car for Hill Climbs and Sprints in the 1970s.
Through his many work contacts, Ian got to know a dealer, Steve Mattero, a model car dealer in New York and in 1990, with John Simons, of Marsh Models and Colin Fraser of Formula Models they visited Steve in New York and then flew to Indianapolis for the 500 mile race. As motor racing enthusiasts they had a great time, although the comparison of a model of an Indy car Ian had done for Colin from photos and a few dimensions with the full size car in the museum was a little challenging, he thought. This was ostensibly a working trip, although Ian cannot remember much work being done.
A couple of years later Steve was touring with the rock band ZZ Top. Their drummer, Frank Beard, (the only one of the band without a long beard!) was a keen model collector and had invited Steve to tour Europe with them. Ian, his girlfriend, Suzie and John and Colin met him backstage at the Milton Keynes Bowl after watching the performance from the sound stage in the company of Brian May, of Queen and his wife Anita Dobson, the EastEnders actress. When he introduced himself, his first words were “Hi, Ian. I recognise your face” Ian hadn’t a clue who he was until he said “I’m Frank”. Apparently he had watched the video Ian had appeared in. Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll, Ian can now add Model Cars.
In 1994, Ian was asked by an old friend, who was living in Holland, to produce a 1:12 scale model of a Lola racing car to be used for raising sponsorship. These were to be in resin and he supplied some 20 models in white on acrylic bases. Ian had been to Silverstone to see the car testing, where something in the suspension broke and the driver, Cor Euser, managed to stop the car from 180mph. without crashing. When the car was brought back to the pits the driver was still in the car, wide-eyed, red-faced and looking as if he had stared death in the face. Shortly after this, when Ian had the last 6 to deliver he could not contact his friend in Holland, and no information was forthcoming. A few weeks later, Ian read in Autosport magazine that the team owner had been stopped with his car transporter and many kilos of drugs and guns had been found hidden.
Ian is philosophical about the white metal model car business, which he recognises has been seriously challenged by the Chinese in the last few years.
Subject ID: 82190
Subject ID: 82190