In mid-March, I posted a Twitter poll asking people to vote for the “greatest two-wheel-drive rally car ever”.
Four cars to choose from: Mk2 Ford Escort, Lancia Stratos, Lancia 037 and Peugeot 306 Maxi. I illustrated each car with a period action picture and a recreation using 1:43 scale models I happened to have.
This prompted my friend Tom Banks to ask me how many model cars I had. The answer was, ‘Way too many, easily more than 50’. That’s when he made the suggestion of selecting 43 of them, showing one per day: with a correct McKlein Archive image and the scale model recreation – from the actual rally. And thus ‘McKlein’s Daily Diecast’ was born, a 1:43 scale, 43-day lockdown–period project.
Here’s some of the highlights.
Day 1: Subaru Impreza 555 - Colin McRae, RAC Rally 1995
The very first Diecast Daily featured one of the most iconic cars in rallying: L555 BAT. Better still, it’s on the 1995 RAC rally, which McRae won to become Britain’s first World Rally Champion. I own 14 Colin McRae model cars, having previously supplied archive photos to a model maker to detail the “McRae Collection”. This one is special.
Day 10: Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI - Tommi Mäkinen, 1999
This group shot (the original is Finland 1999) highlights the manufacturer depth in WRC at the turn of the century - there were seven of them back then. Day 10 got the most ‘Likes’, and comments early on - it really boosted the credibility of the project. I don’t own a 1999 Ford Focus and some people picked up on that [I used a 2000 car] in the comments.
Day 19: Porsche 911 RS 3.0 - Jean-Pierre Nicolas, Monte Carlo Rally 1978
A seminal moment for the Daily Diecast, the first appearance of the Lego figures. The shot of the winning car in the snowbank is quite well known, I love it and wanted to recreate it. Fortunately at home, we’d kept my son’s box of Lego pieces and after a rummage around I had what I needed - mini rally fans! An oven dish, some flour and a crepe-bandage did the rest. Things were starting to get a bit more complicated.
Day 21: Lancia Super Delta HF Integrale - Juha Kankkunen, Rally Portugal 1992
Two days later and another seminal moment for the Daily Diecast - a double-first in fact. This was the first time ‘we’ [my kids were now involved] got the leaf-blower out. I wanted to recreate the dynamic dust, so we used a flour and cocoa powder mix, with my daughter operating the leaf-blower. This was also the first time I used a proper SLR camera; everything up to this point had been shot on my mobile phone.
Day 25: Citroën DS3 WRC - Sébastien Loeb, Rally France 2013
Technically this was quite a tricky one to recreate. Firstly, the UK lockdown weather had been fantastic for weeks and I needed to wait for a wet day for this scene. Secondly, the model’s underside is plain black plastic, so I had to recreate the sump and diff guards with aluminium foil and tape. Thirdly, it’s a model I really like, one that I’d bought and did not want to damage [the roof aerials in particular]. I had to water the scene and halfway through the shoot a giant worm came out from underground and crawled over the car.
Day 27: Audi Quattro - Michèle Mouton, Sanremo Rally 1981
Team Lego came out in force for this one and justifiably got loads of ‘Likes’ and comments. Many noticed the bloke, minus an arm, diving out of the way of Michele Mouton. All quite apt considering some of the things that happened during Group B’s darker days. Today Mouton controls WRC safety, she’s seen it all before, first-hand.
Day 28: Ford Focus RS WRC 02 - Colin McRae, Acropolis Rally 2002
My favourite Daily Diecast, by far. When people ask my [13-year-old] son, “What did you do during lockdown?” he will be able to say: "I was leaf-blowing gravy, around the garden! My Dad made me do it". We needed to recreate a mudhole, so we filled the birdbath with gravy, mixed in a blender. We did it four times to get the shot, which was about six liters of gravy. Afterwards the whole garden [and our next-door neighbor’s] stunk like a roast dinner.
Day 32: Toyota Yaris WRC - Ott Tänak, Rally Finland 2018
This is the Ouninpohja stage in Finland, a real favorite of mine. Of the current cars, Toyota’s Yaris WRC is my favourite, so I had to combine the pair. What I like most about day 32 is that it took literally 10 minutes to set up and shoot, yet it was one of the most popular of the whole series.
Day 34: Mitsubishi Lancer WRC04 - Panizzi Bros, Rally Germany 2004
‘Hate’ is a very strong word, one I seldom use. I hate this rally car, with a passion. It all started when I drove six hours to shoot it at a test, for a Japanese magazine that had obtained permission from Mitsubishi for me to be there. When I arrived, I was told I couldn’t photograph the rear wing, but I could watch their photographers shoot it. Sod that. I hid behind a cattle-shed, waited for the car to run and photographed it anyway. I got ‘seen’ and sent home! So day 34 was my own personal tribute to this car.
Day 40: Subaru Impreza P2000 WRC - Richard Burns, Rally Portugal 2000
By contrast, the last of the three-door Impreza WRC cars happens to be my favourite rally car of all time, driven to victory [on its debut] by my best mate, Richard Burns. This was also the last of the leaf-blowing shots we did for the Daily Diecast, but by far the most precarious. I didn’t want the model damaged and my wife didn’t want a single flower in her rockery hurt. Mission accomplished!
