Off the Shelf: John Roberts was built to be different (Part II)

The Models Behind the Models

One of the less visible aspects of John’s Brooklin involvement is the extent to which models collectors now recognize as established Brooklin and Lansdowne variations originated as one-off creations on his workbench.

John would build something different and take it to Nigel. Sometimes that idea would make its way into production. Variations mattered commercially. Creating an entirely new model required considerable investment. A thoughtfully developed derivative of an existing casting could give Brooklin something fresh to offer at a fraction of the cost.

John stresses here that he was never involved in Brooklin’s finances or in running the company. His world was the models themselves.

Among the derivatives and variations in which he had a hand, either by physically building them or providing the necessary information, were the Marmon coupe, several 1957 Oldsmobile versions developed after the station wagon, the 1954 Plymouth station wagon derived from the Dodge 500, and Brooklin’s various station wagon conversions.

Then there was the one that helped establish the formula — the Ford Mainline. It came right at the beginning of Nigel’s tenure, when Brooklin needed something new that could be created at relatively little cost and inject some energy into what had become a somewhat challenging period.

John looked at the existing BRK23 coupe and suggested turning it into a Mainline. The choice was almost deliberately ordinary. The Mainline was what its name suggested. It was a plain car. And that was precisely the point. Very few model manufacturers were making the basic automobiles ordinary people had actually driven. Model ranges naturally tended toward convertibles, luxury cars, top trim levels, and glamorous subjects.

The Mainline had little chrome, which suited Brooklin’s manufacturing methods at the time. The conversion was relatively straightforward, requiring principally a new roof and the removal of much of the original model’s trim. Nobody expected what happened next.

The models sold almost as quickly as Brooklin could make them. Collectors’ reaction, John remembers, amounted to something like, “At last, here’s a model of the cars Uncle Buck, Grandpa Joe, or another family member had actually driven!”

Without intending to, Brooklin had discovered an underserved market. People did not only want to collect dream cars. They wanted to collect memories.

The same idea later worked with models such as the Plymouth Plaza developed from the 1956 Fury, with the added advantage that such everyday cars naturally lent themselves to police, fleet, and other variations. Sometimes the most ordinary car carries the strongest memory.

A Blank Canvas

That philosophy also helps explain why describing John simply as a collector has never quite captured him. He does collect. He has been doing so, by his calculation, for nearly 75 years. But he has never approached models in quite the conventional manner.

“My obsession with altering, recreating, and building has always meant that I usually see models as a blank canvas,” he says.

(One of John’s absolute favorite custom projects)

For many collectors, the arrival of a pristine model in its box represents the conclusion of the process. The model is acquired, inspected, displayed, or stored and preserved as issued. For John, it can be the beginning.

(An array of woodies, including a Buick, Studebaker, and Nash)

He readily understands collectors who want untouched examples with perfect boxes, including those who pursue scarce colors and manufacturing variations much as stamp or coin collectors seek the finest examples. He respects that approach. It simply does not come naturally to him.

“If I buy a mint and boxed model I tend to look at it, think it’s nice, then put it back in the box and pack it away.”

The model that excites him is more likely to be one that suggests what it could become with another body style, a different trim level, a station wagon, a police car, a factory color Brooklin never offered, or an ordinary version of a car most manufacturers chose to portray only in glamorous form.

Making Models for a Living

In 1999, after 31 years in teaching, John left the profession and turned model making into his livelihood. The timing could hardly have been better.

White metal, the material that had captivated him decades earlier, was enjoying what John regards as its golden age. His growing involvement with Brooklin meant there was also a steady supply of castings available in return for the contributions he made to the company. And there were collectors willing to buy what he created.

John describes the situation with characteristic self-deprecation. “Luckily collectors wanted to buy my ruinations.”

They wanted quite a lot of them. He developed a regular group of customers who bought his Brooklin conversions, providing enough work for model making to become a living. He also built Lansdownes commercially as well as models from Somerville, K&R, Western Models, and other white metal manufacturers.

Ironically, as his professional involvement with Brooklin grew, his own collecting of standard Brooklin models diminished. The workload became too great. Instead, he concentrated increasingly on what had always been his first automotive love — British cars.

At one point he assembled a very comprehensive collection of British white metal models. Circumstances later led him to dispose of many of them, although one part was never negotiable. He kept the Rootes Group cars. The Hillman connection had survived all the way from his father and that story of the car hired in Auckland.

The Collector Who Doesn't Quite Collect

Today, John’s collection remains as individualistic as the path that created it. There are French cars, although these are inexpensive partwork models and, since a move, many have remained packed away and unseen. There are a small number of resin models. There is the Rootes collection, encompassing models from Lansdowne, Somerville, Spa Croft, and others. There are his pre-war Lansdownes and land speed record cars.

And then there are the kits. Many kits. Some are Lansdowne castings that were never offered commercially. Others reach back into the formative years of specialist white metal modeling, with names such as Superscale, SMTS, Auto Replicas, and Western Models. “I really must do something about them,” John says.

He is not currently building, but there is an important word in the way he describes that situation… “currently.” He hopes to return to the workbench. There are still models he would like to make for himself. After nearly 75 years, there is apparently still another model to build and another variation to investigate.

Built to Be Different

John Roberts readily admits that he does not fit the conventional model collector pattern. That may be precisely why his contribution to the hobby has been so distinctive.

A conventional collector might never have taken a hacksaw to a Hillman Minx at seven years old. A conventional collector might not have looked at a finished Brooklin and immediately envisioned a station wagon, a lower trim level, or an entirely different version. And a conventional collector might not have turned up at the Brooklin factory looking for wheels for two handmade wooden cars and begun a relationship that would last for decades.

John did.

Along the way, he helped shape Lansdowne, researched future Brooklin subjects, developed variants that reached production, and built models for collectors around the world. Yet his contribution to the hobby is perhaps best understood less through any single model than through the way he sees them.

Where others see a casting, John sees possibilities. Where others see an obscure old car, he sees a piece of automotive history worth preserving. Where others see an ordinary sedan, he understands that it might be precisely the car somebody remembers a relative driving. And where others might see a pristine collectible that should never be touched, John has occasionally seen something crying out for a hacksaw.

The little boy pushing worn Dinkys along a stone wall became the schoolboy scrutinizing their inaccuracies. The schoolboy became the teenager modifying Airfix kits. The teenager became the teacher making models and painting automobiles. The teacher became a professional model builder and a trusted presence in Brooklin’s history.

Through all of it, the essential John Roberts seems to have remained remarkably unchanged. He’s been curious, knowledgeable, creative, a little irreverent toward the idea that models must remain exactly as their makers intended, and still capable, after a lifetime in the hobby, of looking at a model car and wondering what else it might become.