Product Features and Details
HANDMADE AND HANDPAINTED MILITARY HO MODEL:
Prototype: After working with Karl Benz for a couple of years, August Horch started producing cars under his own name as August Horch & Cie in 1899. In those early years, August engineered many ground breaking designs, including a friction clutch and shaft-driven rear wheels in lieu of chains. He left the company he began, to form Audi (the latin translation of his surname) in 1909 due in part to a dispute with his shareholders. Production of Horch models continued without him and in 1926 the Horch company introduced a new model powered by a straight eight engine. This powerplant would form the base of the Horch company's most famous designs to come.
In the following several years the Horch eight cylinder engine grew in size and displaced just under 5 litres by 1935. This 100 bhp engine made its debut in the Horch '850' series. The shorter wheelbase '853' model was especially popular among Germany's rich and famous. It offered 'Mercedes Benz luxury' at a very competitive price. August, in the meantime led Audi to some brief racing and rallying successes until World War I forced him to supply the military with armored vehicles.
In 1932, financial problems forced August to sell Audi, which joined the Horch company, DKW (Das Kleine Wunder), and Wanderer as Auto Union. All four manufacturers continued production of road cars independantly but jointly backed the Auto Union racers. Some of the racing car technology made its way onto the recently introduced '853' chassis. Most evident was the rear suspension, which consisted of an exotic DeDion axle.
To keep up with the competition, Horch introduced the '853 A' model in 1937, fitted with a more powerful 120 bhp version of the straight eight engine. Production lasted until the outbreak of World War II. Today the '853' and '853 A' are considered some of the finest cars constructed in the 1930s and can be regularly seen in Concours d'Elegances all over the world.
Horch offered both completed cars and rolling chassis to be bodied by coachbuilders. Of Horch's own creations, the featured Sport Cabriolet is the most exclusive. This fine example is seen here at the 2003 European Concours d'Elegance.
Model: Each REI Military model is professionally hand-painted and thus unique. You'll find such features as carefully painted roadwheels, wood decks, metalized tracks and MG barrels, and real wooden chocks, along with hand-tied ropes on the smaller vehicles. These vehicles carry authentic camouflage patterns, and each one is disassembled, masked, and airbrushed before being reassembled for the final touches.
ABOUT THE ARTIST: Our artist is a professional model builder and one of the world's premier commission scale model artists in North America. He is also former US Army paratrooper and has garnered over 300 awards for his work. He has published dozens of articles in numerous scale modeling magazines and has painted box art buildups for most of the world's leading scale model companies, his work is found in private collections around the globe. This is a great opportunity to own a true piece of art by a master modeller.
