The creation of this year’s PreWarCar Christmas Quiz

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Only 3 days to go! Also this year we put together a PreWarCar Christmas Quiz for you! We are really looking forward to it , as we have something very special for you… Before we start with the actual quiz on the 25th of December we give you a sneak preview and would like to tell you about the creation of this year’s Christmas quiz.

PreWar Lego Models

Friend, historian, researcher and writer Vincent van der Vinne started to build car models in Lego around the age of 18. Over the years, the models became more and more detailed. At the time it was very difficult to get good information as the internet did not exist. So you could not search at Google for images of cars, chassis and/or engines. We are talking about around 1982. This meant that you first had to look for good images in books and magazines. Sometimes Vincent wrote to an international trader with a request to send some photos. Slowly he collected more documentation and built more detailed cars.

In 1988, when Vincent was 23 years old, he was asked by Lego The Netherlands to make models for them. They wanted to use the models for promotional purposes. The same year, he became a freelance model builder. Lego then organized several exhibitions in The Netherlands, in which the models became the centre of the exhibition.

The PreWarCars Vincent has built are approximately 50 cm long. The scale of the models was determined by the size of the Lego wheels. He made the construction and the drawings all by himself. This way he was able to design and build the models, but also dismantle them with the possibility of rebuilding them the same again later or duplicate the cars.

The challenge in making a model car from Lego was and is that Lego bricks are rectangular and have certain dimensions. That means that you have to see the smooth line of, for example, the mudguards and the bodywork with straight stones, which makes the whole suggest that there is a round or flowing line. This, for instance, also applies to details of the engine block, the chassis or the interior. With Lego bricks, you have to create the impression that the same details are visible, although Lego bricks do not look exactly like this or have a slightly different size. But the point is to what extent you can succeed in using Lego bricks to display the design and characteristic details of a car. Not everything was possible. The Lego wheels that were used, were relatively wide in relation to the wheel size. For example, a Mercedes-Benz SS could be copied, but the whole did not look nice enough because of the too wide wheels.

In total Vincent designed around 50 to 60 different cars from different brands. From Bugatti, Cadillac and Cord, to Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen. Some of them with around 10 different body styles.

Around 1994 Vincent stopped designing the cars. Designing a completely new car (chassis, engine block and bodywork) and making a building plan of it took 3 months. The hobby had gotten a bit out of hand. Afterwards, he focused on research for articles and books about cars and automobile. Click here for more information about Vincent van der Vinne and his work.

We would like to thank Vincent for making his great collection of Lego models available to us. But also the knowledge he shared with us and all his help.

This Wednesday, December 25, we will start with the PreWarCar Christmas quiz. We have planned 7 days with PreWar Lego models for you to identify.

On Saturday, January 4, 2020 we will give you the answers. Sunday, January 5, we will reveal the winner of the PreWarCar Christmas Quiz 2019! Vincent van der Vinne himself will have the final saying in designating the winner. He or she will not only be honoured but will also receive a PreWarCar related trophy!

Attached you find some beautiful PreWar Lego models to give you an idea of what to expect. None of these will be used in next week’s Christmas quiz...

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