Brumm

Brumm is a collectible model company that makes diecast metal automobiles and horse-drawn carriages. It is based in Oltrona di San Mamette, southwest of Lake Como, Italy - about 25 miles northwest of Milan (Johnson 1998, 32–33). Models are almost exclusively produced in 1:43 scale.

Veteran collector and U.S. importer David Sinclair reports that Brumm was started in 1972 by Reno Tattarletti of the family concern that started RIO Models (other sources say it was a brother-in-law of the Tattarlettis; see Levine 2009; Sinclair 1979, p. 389; Sinclair's 1975 and 1978). Rio Models, in turn, had earlier begat Dugu Miniautotoys to produce models for the Turin auto museum.

The new company was formed with the help of a couple of associates who had already been making miniature horse-drawn carriages (Force 1992, p. 106). Brumm thus started producing miniature vehicles in Oltrona di San Mamette about seven miles from where RIO was located in Cernobbio. Oddly, neither the RIO nor the Dugu connection is discussed in the company history on the official Brumm website.

The name Brumm was derived from the Italian for 'Brougham' (Force 1992, 106). As quoted from Brumm's official 1995 catalog, with a silly dark drama partly arising from a sloppy translation of Italian into English – "It was a dark and stormy night...a dense fog screen wound the city of Milan. Nobody dared get out of the house, and in the desert[ed] streets you only heard the squeaking of a black carriage – the Brumm [of] Milan" (Brumm, 1995).

Carriages then (with horses available), made up the first Brumm line. In 1976, the "Old Fire" series followed, and then the Revival series of motorcars. The Old Fire series at first focused on steam fire engines and other fairly well known pre-gas engine vehicles such as Richard Trevithick's 1803 steam carriage. Soon, the line was expanded into a unique set of steam-powered vehicles – something no toy manufacturer had ever done before. This included Cugnot's 1769 steam tractor from France, proposed for pulling military cannon, and later, two fantastical steam cars: one supposedly made by Ferdinand Verbiest in 1681, and another proposed by Newton in 1680 – neither confirmed to have ever been actually constructed. Such novel choices for steam propulsion did not stop with European concoctions; for example Oliver Evans' 'Oruktor Amphibolos' was a steam dredge demonstrated in Philadelphia in 1804 (Sinclair's 1981).

The Carriage and Old Fire series were produced in detailed plastic very similar to Minialuxe of France or some Cursor Models of Germany. The Revival series of more modern automobiles, however, were produced in zamac – the first of the series being the cute and classic Morgan Sport 3-wheeler with the V-Twin engine hanging off of the front, which no one had ever produced before in miniature.

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