TEN: Silk Cut Jaguar XJR8, Le Mans 1987 (1/43, Spark)

For the majority of the 1980s, group C was dominated by Porsche's 956/962 series. Towards the end of the decade, and unfortunate end of group C however, Sauber X Mercedes and Jaguar would challenge Porsche's reign as top dog. In 1988, after Porsche pulled factory support for the 962, the Silk Cut Jaguar team would have victory at Le Mans, with the XJR9 iteration of the car you see above. In 1989, it would be the Factory team Sauber Mercedes C9 which took the victory at Le Mans.

This model from Spark is very nice. Spark models are not die cast, but are rather built resin kits. Being resin, they are of very limited production runs, and happen to be hand crafted rather than mass assembled. I am a big fan of Spark's 1/43 models, the details are very fine and delicate. The only thing bad about Spark models is that they cost quite a bit...but compared with some of the other resin models you could call Spark cars a "bargain".

Oh yea, tobacco adverts rule...not because I endorse smoking, but because I appreciate accurate depictions of race cars in my model collection. It bothers me when "Rothmans" is replaced with "Racing", "Camel" is replaced with "Team", or "Marlboro" is replaced by...wait for it...barcode slashes!