by Fedor Eliseev and Marco Nolasco
Regarding the history of Italian model brands, you can discover dozens and dozens of unfamiliar names. Of course, many workshops were working in resin, but in fact there was also a significant number of artisans who preferred white metal. In this short note, we try to tell the story of one of the forgotten names in the Italian white metal industry.
Carlo Villanova was a student at the University of Turin. Being a great fan of scale cars, and especially of the Lancia brand, which was not widely represented on the model market, he decided to organise a small workshop for the production of white metal kits and assembled miniatures to fill this gap.
In 1974, he introduced the 1938 Lancia Aprilia Cabriolet, made by Pininfarina, under the Carcast brand.
Without any doubt, the Aprilia is an important model in automobile history. This was the last car designed and built by Vincenzo Lancia, who unfortunately died before its series production started in February 1937.
The Aprilia was a very innovative car with excellent aerodynamics. Apart from the standard saloons, different versions were available, equipped with special bodies.
Carlo Villanova chose to model a special cabriolet version featuring shields closing the rear wheel arches.
The model seems to be typical of the pioneers of the white metal industry. It looks rather accurate, but does not have many separate parts. In Paolo Rampini’s book, we can see an excellently finished model painted in grey and completed with a red interior. This colour combination looks very attractive. The tilt is black and apparently made of plastic.
Unfortunately, we have no information about whether Carlo Villanova carried out the casting process himself or collaborated with English companies.
In issue 6 of Quattroruotine magazine, published in 1974, a photo appeared of the 1938 Lancia Aprilia Pininfarina Cabriolet, which had the option of being transformed into a closed version. The price was 9,000 lire for a kit and 13,500 lire for the built model.
Quattroruotine also announced, in issue 1 of 1975, future releases by Carcast: the Lancia D 24 Sport Spyder and the 1939 Lancia Astura Pininfarina Cabriolet. Alas, these models were never produced because Carlo Villanova was very busy with his university studies and had to stop his model business.
In 1980, he made an attempt to return to the model business by producing a superb Ferrari 250 GTO with opening parts. This is a topic for separate research, and I hope that in the future we will be able to tell more about this.
PITLANEITALIA 