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The small, red "Wooshmobile" from the Grand Bazar in Grindelwald

Gerhard Schütz
11/29/2025

Faracars-Modell STP Paxton-Indy-Turbinenrennwagen (© Gerhard Schütz)

"What do you do with vacation souvenirs?" asked Martin Sigrist recently in his blog "Back in the box - my Porsche Supertune". That immediately brought back memories for me. In the seventies, there were actually still quite a few stationery, toy and souvenir stores in Switzerland, but also in France (a medium-sized town like Chalon-sur-Sâone in Burgundy even had three model car stores until around 2010, but none today!

One unforgettable example was a bad weather day during the 1975 skiing vacations in Grindelwald, which led to a visit to the "Grand Bazar", where I immediately caught the scent and was not disappointed: I came across a 1:43 model of the exotic STP Paxton Indy turbine car from 1967 in its original packaging on a high, long-forgotten shelf, a car that, like all special racing cars (see series "Technology in racing cars") , was of burning interest to me even then. The bad weather day in Grindelwald was saved!

Faracars-Modell STP Paxton-Indy-Turbinenrennwagen (© Gerhard Schütz)

The model is very successful for the small 1:43 scale, the then new NACA air intakes, for example, are very vividly reproduced, as are the suspensions with the drive shafts. And the proportions are just right. The original price had been reduced from 9.80 francs to a very reasonable five francs and yet it remained a shelf warmer. In 1968, the model cost 20 francs new in France, which was expensive.

Faracars-Modell STP Paxton-Indy-Turbinenrennwagen (© Gerhard Schütz)

The two detailed texts about the car on the box are surprising. Among my more than 500 1:43 boxes, this is the only one with this kind of information.

Faracars-Modell STP Paxton-Indy-Turbinenrennwagen (© Gerhard Schütz)

The label "Faracars" meant nothing to me at the time, and I still haven't found any trace of this model brand despite searching the Internet.

This naturally raises some questions: Was it founded especially for the STP? Were sales then so poor that further models were dispensed with from the outset? Or were there even more models than this STP?

Faracars-Modell STP Paxton-Indy-Turbinenrennwagen (© Gerhard Schütz)

Perhaps a passage in the small text on the box will help: "We broke 19 speed marks." We? "We broke." Does this mean that Faracars was simply the model brand of the STP Paxton? Was the model a merchandising product of the sponsor or the racing car manufacturer? The English text and the box design suggest a US origin rather than a French one.

Faracars-Modell STP Paxton-Indy-Turbinenrennwagen (© Gerhard Schütz)

But the embossing on the base of the model makes it clear: "Faracars 101, STP Turbine Car, Made in France, under exclusive U.S. rights". And according to the imprint on the box flap, the box was also made in France.

It's amazing what questions such a model and its small box can raise. That's also part of the appeal of collecting...

By the way: If you would understandably like to have such a model of the STP - you are welcome to do so. Unfortunately there are none left in Grindelwald, but "thanks to the Internet" there are quite a few nice examples, even with a box and a small sheet of decals, at quite decent prices. The only thing you won't get again is the unforgettable experience of discovering and shopping in the Grand Bazar on a bad weather day during your skiing vacation.

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For particularly exotic cars

Bruno von Rotz
11/28/2025

Aspark Owl (© AllCarIndex)

If you are interested in cars that hardly anyone knows, you should take a look at the "Exotic Car Catalog" . It lists 800 makes and 1500 models. However, access to the database is not free, it costs EUR 20 per year.

Screenshot AllCarIndex Exotic Cars

Before you pay, you can at least have a look at three examples. You can already see what you get, namely the basic information about the brand, contact information and an overview of all the models, for which there is then a detail page showing, among other things, the technical data and, above all, photos. A total of 11,000 photos are already available.

The creators talk about the "most comprehensive digital reference for rare, low-volume, and boutique car brands" and that could certainly be true. The focus is on supercars, hypercars, but also kit cars and low-volume cars as well as unknown small manufacturers around the world. And yes, the site is in English. But this should not bother anyone with this topic.

So anyone interested in exotic and hyper sports cars should at least take a look at this online database . After all, the creators have already invested considerable energy in it.

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Pleasure over profit

Paul Krüger
11/27/2025

Triumph TR4 A IRS (1965) – Testwagen der Automobil-Revue im Winter

For a few weeks now, there has been a magazine on the editorial floor whose headline jumps out at me every time I go to the coffee machine: "These classic cars are better than shares". Classic cars whose value has increased many times over a defined period of time and will certainly continue to rise, which is why you should buy them now. Quite apart from the fact that this "logic" is based on the widespread misconception of wanting to read the future from the past, I always ask myself: who wants that?

I certainly don't. The worst thing that could happen to me in automotive terms would be for a Triumph TR4A to suddenly be worth millions. Not only would this make spare parts and insurance unaffordable for a poor hack. Above all, I would have to live with the constant fear that it would be stolen as soon as it was left unattended in public for two hours. That would be an irreplaceable loss, not only financially, but above all ideally, after almost 50 years of "family membership".

That's why all the talk about appreciation, the secret longing for it and even more so the speculation on it are quite alien to me, in the latter case even extremely repugnant. Somehow it adds an obsessive component to the hobby, which in my opinion hobbies should never have. Fortunately, I only own cars where a spontaneous escalation in value is almost impossible. Nevertheless, they are all better for me than shares. I can't drive with shares.

Preisentwicklung des Triumph TR4A IRS zwischen 2017 und 2025 nach Classic Data

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French rarities and exotics

Bruno von Rotz
11/26/2025

Peugeot 104 (© Aguttes)

Next Sunday, November 30, 2025, the French auction house Aguttes will be auctioning 144 vehicles, many of which are rarely seen. However, the cars seem so interesting to us that we would like to take a moment to mention them.

Alpina B7 Turbo (© Aguttes)

In fact, leafing through the catalog (online) is really entertaining. The cars start on page 32 and there is no shortage of exciting vehicles on the very first pages. One example is the Alpina B7 Turbo from 1984, one of 236 examples sold, which is expected to cost EUR 85,000 to 100,000 as lot 32.

Of course, French brands are particularly present in the catalog. But it really takes your breath away on page 98 at the latest when it comes to the vehicles from the collection of a Monsieur F.. From the 1960s onwards, he had apparently put together an entire factory hall full of rarities. Now that he has died at the age of 99, the cars, most of which are of French provenance, are going under the hammer.

Darmont Spécial von 1933 (© Aguttes)

There is, for example, a Darmont Spécial from 1933 (circa), which is being offered as lot 66 for EUR 25,000 to 35,000. The tricycle, which can best be compared to the Morgan Threewheeler, has been in the collection since 1962. It even comes with a few spare parts.

Amilcar CGSs von 1927 (© Aguttes)

One page further on is an Amilcar CGSs from 1927. Monsieur F. bought it in 1965 and it appears to be in reasonably original condition. However, EUR 40,000 to 60,000 shows that the auction house is still expecting restoration work.

Hotchkiss Grégoire Cabriolet Chapron von 1953 (© Aguttes)

The Hotchkiss Grégoire remained a rarity throughout its life, but Chapron's convertible version was even rarer. Only seven of these open-top versions of the Hotchkiss Grégoire, of which 247 were built, were made, and EUR 30,000 to 50,000 is now expected to be paid for them.

Cisitalia 202 SC Pinin Farina von 1948 (© Aguttes)

One of the few non-French cars in Mr. F.'s collection was a Cisitalia 202 SC Berlinetta Pinin Farina from 1948. Once considered the most beautiful car in the Museum of Modern Art, this coupé still does not impress with its elegant shape. EUR 160,000 to 240,000 is the estimate here, and some work will probably still be needed.

It makes no sense to describe the entire catalog now, so we will concentrate on two very special individual pieces at the end. These are two converted Peugeots that were used for the 2013 film "L'écume des jours", based on a novel by Boris Vian from 1946.

Peugeot 404 Familiale (© Aguttes)

For the film, a Peugeot 104 and a Peugeot 404 Familiale were modified by welding the rear section of another historic Peugeot to the front. In the case of the Peugeot 104 (picture at the top), it was the rear of a 404 saloon; in the case of the other vehicle, it was the rear section of another 404 Familiale. The results, designed by the Peugeot styling department, are impressive and certainly made an impact in the film, but they are not allowed to drive on the road. They are pure collector's trouvailles and are now expected to change hands for EUR 2000 to 4000, or EUR 8000 to 14,000 respectively. Until now, they have been stored in the Peugeot Citroën DS Adventure Museum.

Of course, the individual lots can also be viewed online on the Aguttes website .

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A supermoon?

Daniel Reinhard
11/25/2025

Speichenrad im Abendlicht (© Daniel Reinhard)

At the beginning of November, the moon came an impressive 50,000 kilometers closer to the earth, up to 357,000 km. As a result, the Earth's satellite shone particularly brightly and also appeared much larger than usual. This phenomenon is known as the "supermoon". The distance between the Earth and the moon is normally 406,000 kilometers.

No, the photo (above) is not a picture of the moon in the orange Sahara dust, no, the picture shows a wonderfully preserved spoked wheel in the last evening light.

The sun only caught a very brief glimpse through the clouds and windows, creating a wonderful atmosphere for a few seconds.

The heavily patinated rim will thankfully not be repainted, it has already been preserved and will remain as it can be seen here.

All in all, this super wheel is just as beautiful as the supermoon, isn't it?

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Bad luck and mishaps and other curious experiences in 15 years of Zwischengas

Bruno von Rotz
11/24/2025

Pannenrückschau - 15 Jahre Zwischengas

In 15 years, and that's how long we've been writing and photographing for Zwischengas, a lot has happened. We may have written some of it down before, but we kept some experiences to ourselves years ago. Some of them can also be found in the picture story by our colleague Daniel Reinhard , edited especially for our 15th birthday.

When you think about all the things that went wrong or didn't go as planned, surprisingly little comes to mind at first. Everything was either suppressed or somehow forgotten. But wait, there was something else?

Exactly, there was the Ferrari where the ignition key broke off, with the engine running and in the middle of a photo shoot. There were also major oil leaks and one or two cars got too hot to start.

There was also a special incident with another Ferrari, which ran out of fuel at the most stupid place on the route, namely in the middle of a roadworks where the traffic on the remaining lane was alternating and controlled by traffic lights from both sides. And there I was in the luxury sports car from Maranello, with a queue behind me and traffic approaching from the opposite direction. Everything was blocked until a few friendly helpers were able to push the Ferrari with me into a niche next to the road.

Maserati Ghibli mit Benzinpanne (© Balz Schreier)

However, an empty gas tank was not that rare on photo drives, fuel gauges are not always reliable. I remember a BMW from the fifties, a Maserati Ghibli, an Alpina BMW, but also a Citroën 2 CV.

And then there were also technical problems. For example, a somewhat more modern Maserati with an automated gearbox. There was suddenly no power, so the gearbox could no longer be shifted.

Wer liebt, der schiebt (Mercedes-Benz 250 C) (© Balz Schreier)

Flat batteries were the number one cause of breakdowns during the photo sessions anyway, just like in real life.

Fotografieren des Citroën BX Gruppe B (© Bruno von Rotz)

And yes, the equipment also had to suffer sometimes. Once we drove over the camera with a Seat, which the lens didn't appreciate at all. Another time, the SLR fell down while we were unloading it and the housing was gone.

Porsche 964 RS Gruppe N im Regen (© Bruno von Rotz)

Some cameras were flooded when shooting in the rain, sometimes the hairdryer in the hotel helped, but sometimes not. Or all the monopods that were either run over or simply forgotten.

Photo shoots were not always peaceful. Sometimes we were threatened with the police because the engine noise was disturbing or because other road users were in danger of being slowed down during car-to-car shots. And then there were one or two encounters with law enforcement officers because we were driving without a license plate or on prohibited routes. However, it has to be said that the police were always understanding and accommodating. Thank you for that at this point.

Fotografieren VW 1303 Cabrio im Schnee (© Bruno von Rotz)

Overall, however, bad luck and mishaps never prevented us from delivering and publishing articles and image productions. This certainly has something to do with the reliability of the camera equipment. But also with the robustness of our Zwischengas platform (thanks Balz! Please also note his reminiscences in a blog post published a few days ago), which has always been immune to major failures to date.

Server prüfen im Jahr 2011 (© Balz Schreier)

There have been problems in other areas, for example when we wanted to print the Zwischengas annual magazine in November as usual and the printers told us that capacity would only be available again after Christmas. This meant that the magazine would not have been published until January. Impossible. But we found a way out and were still able to deliver on time. The fact that almost everything always worked out is of course also down to the enthusiasm and improvisational skills of the Zwischengas team.

Schlafen im Schatten eines Ferrari 250 GT Drogo (© Marcel Hayoz)

Sometimes, however, we had to work until we dropped, and some nights turned into days.

15 years is a long time, a lot has changed, some things have stayed the same. What will happen now? We are curious to find out ourselves!

Foto-Session unter Beobachtung (© Bruno von Rotz)

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15 years of Zwischengas - an (editorial) look back

Bruno von Rotz
11/23/2025

Das ursprüngliche Team von Zwischengas: Daniel Reinhard, Balz Schreier und Bruno von Rotz im Jahr 2010

When we started spinning the idea of "Zwischengas" in 2009, we had no exact idea of what it would become. In fact, we didn't even have a name to begin with. We then came up with one after a presumably lively brainstorming session in November 2009 and the first drafts for the new website were created in February 2010.

Over the next eight months, the first version of the Zwischengas platform was developed, and at the last minute we updated the logo design.

So begann Zwischengas zu wachsen (GA 2010)

On November 23, 2010, exactly 15 years ago, we went live with the first 60 or so beta users, and we now have over 140,000. After one month, we had around 270 visitors, and today we have many millions every year.

In April 2011, we had just under 100 "friends" on Facebook, today we have 43,000. A few thousand photos at the start have grown to over 394,000 to date, and the small repertoire of a few initial editorial contributions has grown to around 16,300 articles/blogs/news ( we have compiled some of the best, most unusual or most memorable contributions in a special channel to mark our 15th birthday).

Almost 7,000,000 facsimiles (magazines, brochures, etc.) have been published to date, and over 80,000 auction transactions have been documented.

Our readers have also played their part, for example with over 20,000 comments, 207,000 bookmarks and the media library, which now contains over 5100 issues.

If you wanted to print everything out, the racks and cupboards in our editorial office would hardly be big enough to store the results. And just imagine this jumble of paper, you would hardly be able to find anything. Not so on Zwischengas, where everything is searchable, right down to the last facsimile and image. That was our vision for Zwischengas right from the start.

Fotoshooting VW K70 L von 1970 im Jahr 2015

When we started back then, we had a time horizon of about two years. We didn't look much further than that, which turned out to be the case in one place or another. Some things simply came about, and larger initiatives needed to be driven forward over several years.

Im Jahr 2014 wurde die SwissClassics Revue integriert

In 2014, we were able to take over and integrate the magazine SwissClassics Revue, and a year later we printed our first 260-page Zwischengas annual magazine, which has since established itself as a popular and eagerly awaited annual review every year-end.

Fotoshooting Alfa Romeo 2000 Berlina im Jahr 2016

Our starting team (Dani Reinhard, Balz Schreier and myself) was joined by an intern for the first time in August 2014.

We moved twice in 2011 and 2016, with the premises getting bigger each time. And we were able to steadily expand our capacity.

Traffic reached new record highs every year, and we were soon serving many thousands of readers every day. Even outside of Zwischengas, we provided classic car enthusiasts with reading material and thus increased our popularity.

We constantly adapted our technical infrastructure to our growth. The demands on the support side also increased. Initially, one or two readers a week reported problems, but today we answer tens of user queries every day.

Of course, the sales and marketing side also had to adapt to the growth, and soon the little bit of part-time sales alongside editing and support was a thing of the past; this side of our business was also professionalized.

Today we have over ten people working for and with Zwischengas to provide our many readers, more and more of whom are based in the USA, the UK or Thailand, with useful information, exciting stories and attractive images.

We have become a small company, still lean, but much larger than 15 years ago when we started our journey. Quite a few people doubted at the time that we would succeed in realizing the "Zwischengas" vision, but today reader feedback confirms that we have succeeded on a daily basis.

Making of Bugatti 59 im Jahr 2025

However, this is no reason to slow down now. On the contrary. The new cars from 2010 are almost youngtimers today, the youngtimers from back then are now seasoned oldtimers. We will not run out of material, we will stay on the ball as long as you, our readers, remain loyal to us. Thank you very much!

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What's fifteen years? (Car connoisseur quiz)

Paul Krüger
11/22/2025

Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider – Der Wagen von Fritz B. Busch

It's not just zwischengas.com that has been around this long - Fritz B. Busch also had to wait this long for his dream of owning an Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider to come true . Ever since he saw the open-top Italian on vacation in Italy in 1961, he had fallen in love with it. Or rather: the impression she gave. The way it scurried cheekily and exuberantly along promenades and coastal roads, singing with its engine, tires and fanfare - that sounded like joie de vivre.

For us at zwischengas.com, old cars generally mean joie de vivre. And to all our readers too, I'm sure. How else could our site have survived for 15 years? Like almost everything else this week, our latest quiz also revolves around this anniversary. But if you think that the answer to all ten questions is always "15", we have to disappoint you. Despite the celebratory mood, it is still supposed to be a "real" quiz.

However, we have reduced the number of answers from five to three. On the one hand as a small "birthday present" - on the other hand because the sum of all possible answers can be divided by 15. The only thing that didn't quite work out was the consecutive numbering. We're already a bit further along. Would you like to give it a try?

Click here for the car connoisseur quiz 181

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Why is there actually no E15 from BMW?

Bruno von Rotz
11/21/2025

BMW Spicup von 1969

We know the E3, the E21 or the E30 from BMW, i.e. the big sedan, the first and the second three. And many other E-numbers are also known. In fact, BMW has hardly left out a low number.

But hardly anyone can remember an E15. It's not entirely clear whether there really was a car that BMW called "E15". Wikipedia mentions a plastic coupé under "E15", which was derived as a prototype from the E3 saloon. We have not found a picture.

BMW 2800 (E3) von 1970

In any case, the E15 cannot be the better-known BMW Spicup (pictured above), which Bertone presented at the 1969 Geneva Motor Show. Although the Spicup was also based on the 2800 six-cylinder E3 saloon, it was not a classic coupé and the body was not made of plastic. Perhaps a reader knows more?

Incidentally, the number 15 later found its way into the BMW model series nomenclature. After all, the third generation of the X5 SUV is called the F15.

P.S. And why does it have to be "15"? Well, we're celebrating the 15th birthday of Zwischengas on November 23, 2025, so we thought about articles with "15" in them. We have already published articles on the Lotus 15 and the Jaguar XJR-15 this week to mark the same occasion. An article on the Renault 15 will follow shortly ...

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