Full speed ahead with imagination!

By Andreas A. Berse

The model car industry wants to mobilize the next generation. Which ideas make the scaled-down speedsters hit the accelerator in the playroom? How do the racers get back on the road to success? It’s very simple!

For Niko Sieper the matter is clear: “If the product developers went where model cars are sold, they would immediately get better ideas for their young customers.” This diagnosis has at least a European dimension: Sieper is the head sales associate for model cars at Modellcenter Hünerbein. Located in Aachen, in the model-car triangle bordering Belgium and the Netherlands, he therefore also speaks for customers from Belgium and the Netherlands.

And lo and behold: “Children are fascinated by very similar things. For example, at our open house we held a painting competition using plain white Wiking cars. And it was a huge success. But: Wiking doesn’t actually have special products for such an idea.” Yet the competition worked great. Especially because girls also enthusiastically gave the “Wikings” new decorations. Sieper: “If I had told Wiking beforehand what we planned to do with the models, the colleagues would probably have shaken their heads at first.” Note: Trying beats studying. Not only for youngsters, but also for seasoned model-car veterans in retail.

1:87 is, for the expert from Aachen, in any case rarely the scale at which car passion starts in miniature. Sieper, however, has another scale in mind in particular: “The tried-and-tested Hot Wheels scale 1:64 is extremely important for successful youth engagement. That’s how many kids start, and later they discover the great collectible miniatures from Mini GT, which also come in 1:64.” The man from Aachen often hears one sentence: “These are something completely different than toys: this is for collecting.” My first 1:64er instead of my first Sony! That’s exactly how the model car industry gets back into the playroom and magnetically attracts tomorrow’s collectors.

Mini GT

Behind Mini GT is Glen Chou. The Taiwan-born Chinese, who now lives in the U.S., founded the label in 2007. Today he sells more than 20 million models a year under this name. His concept: high-quality decorated miniatures that are worthy of collecting yet cost only between twelve and twenty euros. The boom, almost a tsunami, comes from Asia and is now washing over into Europe. Chou, who revolutionized the production in this scale, is clever: “Children are the future for our label, and that’s why our flagship store in Taipei also has an area where kids can play with the models to their heart’s content.” Because: those are the collectors of tomorrow.

The excellent price-performance ratio allows for huge production runs: Chou has already sold more than 350,000 copies of the green racing Porsche 911 GT3-R in “dinosaur look.” Based on a single prototype, no less. The expert: “Gradually this scale is also becoming interesting in Europe. Here Matchbox and Hot Wheels have a long tradition as toy cars, and Majorette too.”

Majorette

At Majorette — the company is likewise a big player in the 1:64 sector — kids can also act as designers. At Europa-Park Rust there is one of the “Build Your Car Factorys” that this originally French company developed. There children can build their own cars and assemble a selection of bodies, interiors, rims and chassis in various colors to their taste. Markus Hirsch of the Simba Dickie Group from Fürth, which now owns Majorette: “This idea is a great success. Involving children like this builds a completely new relationship with the model car. We have also used the idea at our booth at the Motor Show in Essen and at other events.” By the way: as soon as creativity is involved, girls can also be enthused about the topic. Other Majorette hotspots for do-it-yourself building have appeared in the Galeries Lafayette in Paris, a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower, and in Italy and Poland. The idea is globally successful.

Jada Toys

The US brand Jada Toys also belongs to the Simba Dickie Group. And the California-based brand is also going full throttle when it comes to cultivating the next generation. CEO Bill Simons links model cars at Jada Toys with cartoon and action-figure themes that everyone knows. SpongeBob steers a cheeky yellow Ford Bronco in the underwater fantasy world of Bikini Bottom as a classic. 

Simons: “The fact that it can’t actually drive under water doesn’t matter. Children live by their imagination.” The video-game hedgehog Sonic is even faster. For the hero from the Sega world, Jada Toys gives a blue Lamborghini Veneno with matching decorations and a figure. Lightning McQueen from the Cars films must not be missing either, nor the Toyota Supra from Fast & Furious as a 1:24 model. Big, audience-strong themes like Back to the Future or Batman are ones children learn about within the family. Those work too to get them excited about model cars. Almost as well as SpongeBob and Sonic. And then comes Simons’ decisive sentence: “The path to becoming a model-car collector goes through Dad. But, and this is new: it can also work with girls!”

PS.SPEICHER

Experts in the Lower Saxony town of Einbeck have also thought about how to stimulate children’s imagination and have developed from this a permanent exhibition for the local PS.SPEICHER that opened in November 2025. It appears as a kaleidoscope on the subject of model cars. Matthias Kaluza, who built up the PS.SPEICHER—Europe’s largest classic car collection—more than ten years ago, on the new permanent exhibition Sammlung Modellfahrzeuge: “We considered how to present the topic of model cars to families, because alongside school groups they are our most important target group.”

In the entrance area visitors are greeted by a skyscraper landscape with a highway on which small 1:43 model cars drive. In the windows of the buildings a wide variety of models park in a colorful mix. Kaluza: “We want to show what model cars can do, up to aerodynamic miniatures in 1:5 that are so important for designers. The skyscrapers are meant to recall Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis. For the color concept I drew inspiration from Wassily Kandinsky’s style of painting.” The input and depth of information are provided by QR codes. And there are interactive elements that tell a lot of interesting facts about the history of the model car.

A visitor we met on the opening day who is a dad: “That immediately gave the kids fun with model cars. And I myself could wander around the exhibition for a whole day and would still discover something new. Great!” Jan Kalbfleisch, Managing Director of the PS.SPEICHER in Einbeck: “Although this exhibition is very unusual in its design, it harmoniously integrates into the overall concept of our location. I particularly like that.”

The answer to how to get model cars back into children’s rooms is therefore very simple: with plenty of imagination!

About the author

Andreas A. Berse holds an M.A. in communication studies and developed the trade magazine MODELL FAHRZEUG, the leading European magazine for automotive miniatures. In 2007 the magazine moved to the Delius Klasing. Berse published also his novel Borgward lebt and company chronicles of the major players in the toy market — Schuco, Carrera and Revell, with this publishing house.