Untitled Document

The very young Andre-Marie RUF Company was developing gently, led by Andre-Marie and Michel Crocquefere, accompanied by the sound of different radio stations and CDs. Among them, for my father, albums of Mike Oldfield were indispensable and necessary for the work to continue.
I nearly wrote the very young Andre-Marie RUF Company was stagnating. As the cruising speed had reached about 300 kits for each reference there was no place for fits of madness. However, (despite the financial situation) the Pegaso Z 102 Bisiluro was launched in January 1995, available as a kit or factory built. I don’t think my father had this idea alone, and I don’t remember who introduced him to this original Spanish record speed car. One thing is sure; it was one of the greatest flops of all the AMR history. Most of the kits were destroyed (pieces in white metal were re-melted). The factory built series, though numbered to 120, did not exceed ten or so pieces. Admittedly well conceived by some objective critics (I don’t know them personally but surely they exist), this model is therefore very rare what with the quantity produced and the originality among the 600 models created. However, it is valued less than a GTO or a SWB. My friends, let us revise our standards of liberalism and remember the basic rule: what is rare is expensive; forget that and you will pay a fortune for items produced worldwide in thousands of pieces.

The direct consequence of this failure in 1995 – the Pegaso, are you following me? – was a return to the prancing horse on the front grill, and also an effort to explain the choice of models and their history on every document announcing a new model. The Fanzine, launched in January 1998, drove home a bit more the idea of communication. Distributed monthly to 70 subscribers, these 4 pages in French had for the main ambition to create a link between the company and its customers. The pedagogy was a big part of the general content: “here is what we do, here is why we do it, and here is how we do it. Any questions? Send us a letter; we’ll publish it with the answer.” The Fanzine lived 2 years and still today represents a very useful history of the period 1998-1999. The proof is I used it for writing what you are reading. It also encouraged meetings between collectioners, but to my knowledge, no marriages. To limit the period from the cellar of the family house at Grisy-Suisnes to the Pegaso and the launching of the Fanzine is to skip details of course, because for example, the Porsche Yellow Bird and the Plan X43 range were born in Grisy-Suisnes.
The Yellow Bird originates from several discussions around the same wish expressed by several friends: “André, you must show to all these young men that you are not over. Do a remake of the BB 512 97 parts, still better.” Financed by a Dutch collector, John Chin, the result celebrates the 51st anniversary of my father. That is why Jean-Paul Magnette built 51 pieces and there were 251 kits. “And the 100 kits of the Export series and the 6 green factory built, they are for what then?” you are asking? Hem ... that is because there were a lot of demands for this model, though its main defect – or its best quality – is not to flaunt but to be modest and not exhibit all its pieces (its directional front axle and its wheels able to turn in theory). As they say, a Teuton is never a flirt even one who has undergone a course of bodybuilding.
As for the Plan X43 range – led by Michael Piranha Craig, the penultimate pupil of André-Marie Ruf - the aim was to propose kits in 1/43 scale in painted resin, reproducing prototypes and show cars. That was until one of the rarest PLAN X created by my father: the 250 GTE Lazio Motors completely conceived and born at Camaret sur Aygues in 2002. Because in October 1998, Mummy and Daddy moved to Provence after 28 years spent in the Parisian suburbs. Michel Crocquefere ended up joining Provence Moulage and we thank him sincerely for his commitment and his perseverance with my father in order to make a certain ethos of the model car live and sometimes survive.

Bienvenou en Provençou
I wrote above: “Mummy and Daddy settled down into Provence”, and it is not quite right. The exact phrase in this beautiful month of October 1998 is: “Mummy and Daddy were starting one year of camping”. Actually, the building work for the creation of the work shop were promptly finished (the first floor of Le Mas de l’Andiolet farm bought by my grand parents in 1961 on their return from Tunisia), those for the home took “a bit” longer.
It is not a legend: in Provence, the gentle way of life well and truly exists. They take their time: not too fast in the morning, and slowly in the afternoon, with supporting invoices. It is part of the folklore.
Therefore the couple lived more than a year in the Iscariot’s (my father’s teenage friends) summer house. I can see from here that some of you are raising their eyebrows like the private detective finding an indication susceptible to leading him to solve the riddle. Iscariot ... This name is not unknown to you, is it? And for a very good reason! It appears on the decal sheet of the 275 GTB Fire engine. It is one of the many messages more or less hidden which decorate most of the models created by my father.
But let us come back to this strange fire engine, just for a few lines, if you don’t mind. “With all these red cars, it’s just like a collection of fire trucks!”. This ironic remark of a collector’s wife was thoroughly exploited. The close military air base and a body of 275 GTB provided the essentials of a model which belongs now to the small history of model cars. A little imagination and industrial accessories provided the rest. Moulded in resin and painted by JPS like the Plan X43 and the Comme Papa, the final result is a kit produced in 170 numbered examples (including 10 special issue). The build sheet is rich in jokes. Yes a dose of humour had been ordered in expectation of the difficulties to come. Unfortunately not all the parcels were delivered.

Postal misadventures
My parents had only been one month under the warm sun of Provence, to live and work under the supposed kind protection of the Mont Ventoux, when they were caught off their guard by this hand of fate: the brass master of the first 375 Plus was lost in the mail. In spite of the strokes of file to rhythm of singing ants instead of the cicadas, there were 3 weeks of work lost and a serious loss of profit for the insatiable treasury of the company. This glutton asked for one new model every 4 weeks. So, while Mummy was trying to make an insurance claim and negotiate with an understanding banker (he exists, I met him), my father worked like a madman to hurry the birth of the 250 GT TDF 1058 sn O931 ... and began a second wax of the 375 Plus. The brass master of this second one arrived safely in February 1999. And now we ask the question: which of the two 375 masters is the best? A man’s hand is not a machine, and the resulting work of the artist my father was is a strong revealer of his moral. To answer to this palpitating question, my sister Magali and I, ask whom ever has the first brass to return it to us so we can have the pleasure of comparing it with the second brass we still own !
A bit later, it was a parcel sent from Normandy which did not arrive at Camaret sur Aygues. It contained several built models and archive photos. The searches were in vain.
In April 1999, a third parcel disappears on its way to Fred Suber’s workshop in Belgium. In it, twenty kits. Among them the n°97 and 98/100 of the CTR Export series, and all the small parts for building about thirty 375 Plus. This latest example of the random reliability of the mail service encourages at least my parents to solicit a private carrier. It was about time wasn’t it? Contrary to all expectations, this solution will not be the best one: in November 1999, the parcel with the wax of the Corvette C5R, ready to be cast in brass by the lost wax process vanishes between Camaret and Avignon airport. Did this make a rival or a collector happy? Did it melt like wax in the sun? I don’t know but do say: re-belote, a second wax of C5R is created.
The couple of quinquagenerians need more than that to become discouraged. This happened. And I am thankful of it for the interest it creates for my narration.
But of course I deplore it personally.

The amputation
Still in November 1999, almost at the same time as the loss of the C5R, appears the spectre of cancer. Pins and needles stretching into the left arm, ring finger and little finger numb, difficulty in controlling precision and strength of gesture with the left hand, etc...
"These symptoms may be showing cancer" said the doctor to the left-handed and heavy smoker who was my father.
Eventually, detailed tests rule out the outset of the cancer. Phew! It is only the ulnar nerve which is displaced. The fault of 24 years throughout which the position of the left arm on the bench moved day after day the quoted nerve. An operation is necessary and a post-operative inactivity of one month minimum. I recall the well known song: no new releases, and even less income, pressure is going up and moral is going down. And when everything is bad, it shows. The rare models issued in 2000 show this to at which part some collectors start to call others asking: “has his left hand been amputated or what?” This joke, very likely made by a man amputated from most of his neurons, became a rumour and spread until it was believed as true: “Andre-Marie Ruf is missing his left hand!”. So, Mum received a call from a stunned friend who asked how my father felt after his amputation. This amuses me, have you heard what Beethoven composed when he was deaf?
More seriously, in a model car market where the single event happening was the unstoppable spread of industrial products as far as in the newspaper kiosks, this sudden change of fortune was a proof that in spite of all, my father’s work stayed in conversation of admirers . To speak ill of it perhaps, but it was better than to no longer speak of it. This was not a reason for collapsing: the retirement time was still far off. It was crucial to return to the foreground. It was not overnight, but a series of good news and the support of several passionate collectors, completely without self interest, worked as strongly as the best anti-depressant. The 25th anniversary secretly organised behind Dad’s back was a part of the treatment. Emotion overwhelmed him when he saw all these collectors and friends brought together just for him, in the yard of the Mas de l’Andiolet. And this true emotion was not simulated. Besides how could he be able to simulate anything, this man more famous for his strong character and the thickness of his armour than his sense of diplomacy and public relations?
Full of passion, that’s what he was.
Full stop!
End of the story!
It could be, but I go on with year 2002.
It began with the launching of the AMR website after my buddy Mikaël Gourvenec and I drank several beers while working on it. Then, Retromobile, where my parents were proud and enthusiastic to propose for sale a beautiful series of thirty 375 Panamericana built by the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity? No, no, no, there had not been any sightings. I leave this rare privilege to others. I was simply raised in the Judeo-Christian known part of the Universe and when three person meet together to give my parents a saving hand, I can’t keep from changing a universal symbol to identify Alex, Valdo and Max. Max is the last pupil of my father and more particularly the designer of the body buck of the Cobra Daytona. Under my father’s guidance, it is to him you owe for the last Corvette created on an AMR base of the seventies.
(All that aside) thanks to their wives especially and all the wives in general who left these big children, the collectiors, display or store these small cars, expensive and useless, as their own children may not play with them (end of the aside)
Some months later (thank you Mr Le Comte) the historic AMR logos which were now opened to reuse, were registered at the INPI. This coincides with the return of quality casting conforming to AMR standards: Mike “Piranha” Craig tracks down an English founder, reliable and competent. Also at that time, Johan Dirickx, a Belgium friend and collector, finances the Saga Carrera in 1/43rd.
And last but not least, at the end of 2002, the first Titan was on the right track. The moulding of the pieces in resin was made by Philippe Gaffe Le Prévost, the author of many of the instructions leaflets of kits and a few masters, including a California at the beginning of the AMR adventure.

Passion is growing
AMR, le résultat d’une passion. Do you remember this slogan of the eighties? It stayed alive in the collectors’ spirit. So we chose to update it for the Titan range launch. Tired by the 1/43rd and the rhythm of new models to complete –without speaking of the saturation of the market, my father became interested by the 1/12th scale in resin. Pushed by Joël Fumey, the designer of Ultimate Models, he grappled with something which for him was like a second childhood and a new source of inspiration and creation.
The result, for the 2003 Retromobile show, my parents were enthusiastic and proud to expose the finished prototype of the Daytona Gr4 in 1/12th after six months of work.
Nevertheless the financial difficulties remained. The financials where always the Achilles’ heel of AMR after the eighties (see the first chapter – the Danaïdes’ barrel). The good average of sales in the beginning of the 21st century was about 200 kits per reference. Beyond that, we began to believe in a miracle. Thanks to anybody you want, we could remain agnostics even dangerous heretics because the numbers of sales for each reference rarely went above 250. But as you understand, the desire had come back. The proof at the 1/43rd scale with a new series of GTO, Daytona Gr4, the GTB Speciale, etc...
Beginning of 2004, a variant of the first Titan was presented at Retromobile and also the BB 512 and the prototype in progress of the GTB, still at the 1/12th scale .The BB512 well built in spite of the urgency –delay was the AMR trademark – was again a distinguished action of the Holy Trinity . They can be proud of having moved my father to tears, he was so happy of the result.
But we were all ignorant that this 2004 Edition of Retromobile would be his last and short public appearance ... Two months later, at the beginning of April, with the “help” of the traditional blood test became necessary because of hypertension and exhaustion, we learnt that Dad was suffering from the most acute form of leukaemia The 1st of August 2004 he died
End of the story?
No.
AMR survived him until the end of September 2005, the date when Mum took her well deserved retirement. Well supported by her nearest and dearest (I include among them a lot of the first collectors who had become friends), she found the energy to complete most of the plans left on my father’s bench. The reason she could go on was also because you bought the last proposed models. Thank you sincerely.
But the unhappy consequence for you of AMR stopping, in September 2005, it is now pointless to contact us for spare parts, kits or built up models. And “rogntudju” respect also my grand-mother Simone Ruf! To make her have to put her phone number on the red list at her age, to escape the calls of men devoid of their senses, asking for everything and anything from AMR, claiming they have, apparently, knew well her son !? They deserve a good headbutt! (see Soccer World Cup Final 2006)

Another world
The story could have of course been prolonged with the use of the brand and masters created by other hands without the critical eye or the inimitable talent of Dad. We could have used with excess the available 1/43rd masters to produce many variants of the existing models.
We did not want to be part of this world. Even if we have accepted that the series of 10 or 20 factory built models, that are being built by my brother in law Mike Craig for Miniwerks, from AMR kits bought before the close of the company.
We also do not want to be part of the world of those who were shocked in this year 2006 by the GTO Speedster, gone from the status of April fools joke to one of a new Piranha model. It is sold from Camaret sur Aygues where Mike and my sister Magali have recently moved to. Mike will go on building kits and making Piranha Models live. However, it is also pointless to ask him for pieces for your AMR kits and built models.
Then, end of the story? Not yet, I know someone who owns masters created by my father.
The masters of the two Titans for exemple have been transferred to the Belgium creator of Masta models .They have a nice line-up of variants . But the ten other ones, including the 275 GTB the front of which has to be refined, will remain a dream for all of us. And what a dream! A Corvette Greenwood was planned after the two first really Italian Titans! A Berlinette Alpine, Moby Dick, Lola T70 were a part of a programme the twelfth of which and last recreated myth ought to have been a Porsche RSR Turbo Le Mans 1974!
So yes, the loop ought to have been looped at the 1/12th.
It will not be.
So now is the end of the story.
Hum, not yet. After all, even if it is no longer quite the same without new AMR models (too big, not detailed enough, too much one thing, not enough of another), the world of model cars collecting still turns. But thanks to the standards imposed, thanks to Dad’s work and model makers he taught, thanks to the vocations he caused, the model car story is a little richer today than in 1975.
Well, here now, the history is finished, isn’t it? Not yet, not yet, some aces of over moulding and champions of the pantograph engraving remain (hollow laughter).
Now sincerely, because this story must have an end even if I don’t yet accept it, you who are still reading, is your AMR collection complete?
Are you tired of contemplating it?
No?
So I give you the torch: it is your story now!

CREDITS

Modelers
André-Marie Ruf
Francis « Oval » Bensignor
Michael « Piranha » Craig
Etienne « Renaissance » Dhondt
Max Fabre
François Laplace
Philippe « Gaffe » Le Prévost
Jean-Pierre « Tenariv » Viranet
Laurent Tancré

Main builders
Jean-Paul Magnette
François Laplace
Thierry Pinel
Olivier Thuet
Franklin Ducreux
Olivier Bachellerie
Jean-Pierre Greselle

Technical and administrative staff
Marie-Claude Ruf
Michel Crocquefere & his wife