Minichamps - The Danhausen Legacy

The Danhausen Legacy

Danhausen was a trade company established in 1921 which sold a variety of products like bicycles and motorscooters. As time passed it focused more on toys and by the 1971 the company was owned by the Grandsons of Emma Danhausen, Hans Peter and Paul Gunter Lang (Danhausen webpage 2009). At this time the Langs moved into selling model cars both over-the-counter and by mail order (Minichamps 2011). The brothers distributed many different marques of mainly 1:43 scale models and began to publish the famous Danhausen World Model Car Book annually from 1971 to 1993, which was the last word in available 1:43 scale models worldwide. The last edition of the catalog in 1993 was 350 pages and listed 15,000 models.

During the mid-1970s, the Langs contracted with several companies, including Tin Wizard, Western Models and AMR (André Marie Ruf) as suppliers of the models they desired. These were almost exclusively white metal and the cars provided were given several different names; one was 'SD Modelle', another 'Metal 43', 'Plumbies' and 'Plumbies Inter' (Metal 87). Yet another was to go on to become the permanent name for the company - Minichamps by Danhausen, at first mainly a range of racing cars (Danhausen webpage 2009). Reportedly, the first model offered to Danhausen by Western Models was a Mercedes-Benz 540K (Minichamps webpage). Though using other companies' miniatures, Danhausen became a model name unto itself and as time passed the brothers tried to cement the relationship as Western Models had supplied Danhausen for about a decade (see Western Models website link). The Langs wanted to buy Western Models, but owner Mike Stephens declined. Eventually they purchased AMR and Danhausen was finally a defacto producer (Ward 2004).

During the 1980s, Danhausen moved into HO scale, producing many white metal models in either kit or fully finished form. These models were called 'Metal 87' and included at least 33 different vehicles (Metal 87 website).

In the late 1980s, the Lang brothers disputed the direction of the company and Hans Peter departed to found his own hobby shop (Meador 2008). From this time on, the Danhausen name was minimized (though you can still find the Danhausen website, similar to that of Minichamps - see website links below) as Paul Gunter and his wife, Romy, took over and formed Paul's Model Art in the late 1990s, which is a name still used alongside the main line of Minichamps (Minichamps webpage). Paul's Model Art started a trend of moving production to China - as labor costs made models too expensive to fabricate in Europe. Generally, diecast models were increasingly made for adult clientele - so the industry was entering a new era when models would not be played with by younger folk, so the question of cars holding their value (that is, with more surviving for longer periods of time) became a central question (Rixon 2005, p. 62).