Racing’s Unsung Heroes: Collecting the Transporters Behind the Cars

One of the great things about model vehicle collecting is how easily one interest can lead to another. You may start with race cars, then find yourself drawn to the trucks, buses, transporters, and service vehicles that made racing possible in the first place.

A new Italian partwork series, Racing Car Transporters, is opening up that side of motorsport history in a particularly appealing way. The collection launched on January 3, 2026, and is planned to run for 60 issues, covering racing transporters and support vehicles from different eras, manufacturers, and teams.

The announced subjects already include some fascinating machinery: Ferrari and Maserati Bartoletti transporters, Team Lotus support vehicles, Martini Racing Mercedes-Benz trucks, Matra-Simca and Tyrrell buses, Porsche and Abarth transporters, the wonderful Pegaso Bacalao, and much more.

What makes the series especially interesting to 1:43 collectors is that many of these vehicles are not entirely new to the scale. A surprising number have been modeled before, but usually as handbuilt, very low-production pieces. Those models can be exceptionally difficult to locate today, and when one does appear, the asking price can be substantial.

That makes this new series worth watching. It offers the possibility of adding some historically important racing transporters to a collection without having to pursue the rare and expensive alternatives produced in years past.

There is one catch for collectors outside Italy. Distribution may make them a bit more difficult to obtain directly. But if you have a friend, fellow collector, or other contact in Italy or elsewhere in Europe who can help, this could be an unusually affordable way to broaden a motorsport collection.

And that may be the real appeal. Race car collecting does not have to stop with the cars that took the checkered flag. The vehicles that carried them from circuit to circuit, and served as rolling workshops, team headquarters, and paddock landmarks, tell another important part of racing history.

Sometimes the most interesting collecting path is the one parked behind the pits.