[REVIEW] Rietze Fiat Tipo

Call this Surprise Saturday or something - it’s a rare out of sequence review from me. The other day a couple people went nuts over a Fiat Tipo model, and that made me recall I have some HO scale material I meant to display. Here’s one, a Fiat Tipo, made by relatively obscure Rietze of (West) Germany:

As typical for German HO scale models, it has stupendous detail. This is a tiny thing - a small scale (1:87) model of a smallish car. But you would never know it by the pics. Detail and proportion are excellent from all angles, and the metallic plastic (which must be made from some kind of die, so it fits) is eye catching. Even the plastic wheel covers are accurately represented:

Front and rear are just as well done. The lenses are an awesome touch - lenses push my buttons:

Fine detail underneath:

Original packaging:

Which is of the period, with the FRG address, 4 digit postcode, and lack of internet data:

When I was a kid back in the day, I couldn’t get enough of German HO scale material, as it is such high quality. Models of ordinary cars like this have always been attractive to me. I found this with some others at a flea market in Austria a couple years ago - for the $2 or so I paid for it, I am pleased:

And the real thing: