Quartzo was part of the Vitesse-group, along with Onyx, Troféu and, of course, Vitesse. Onyx was mainly open-wheel racers, Troféu was the exclusive brand for models costing more than the others, Vitesse was... a bit of everything, really: modern street cars, classic Le Mans racers, vintage street cars, vintage vans. In this group, Quartzo's role was mainly closed-wheel racers: Le Mans (and other C Group racers), a few vintage NASCARs and a big series of (then) modern NASCARs.


This is about that big series, issued in 1994 and 1995. The funny thing is, that Vitesse/Quartzo was a Portuguese brand, and NASCAR never had much of a following in Europe, so what prompted them to issue this series? We'll probably never know, but I suspect it may have had something to do with Eurosport and/or another big sports channel at the time Super Sport having regular NASCAR coverage for a few years, and this series happened in the middle of that.


All the cars of the series cover a quite short time span: most were from the 1992-1994 seasons, with just a very few being older or newer (1995). The cars are all in scale 1/43 with reasonably detailed interiors, fine wheels, decaled tires. A few of the very last ones had opening bonnets, but otherwise there were no features. The cars came in display boxes with perspex covers and orange/black cardboard outer sleeves. The big weakness of the series is the decals... they're incredibly detailed and really look like the real thing, but they also get insanely fragile with age and because they often cover very large areas and go around corners, they tend to literally fall to pieces.


The series was assigned its own number-series, the 2000s, starting with #2001. The highest number known to exist is 2058, and 2052, 2053, 2055 and 2057 were probably never issued.


2017, 2020 and 2056 stand out from the rest. The two first being 'doubles': the regular 2017 (2017A) is Hut Stricklin's 1993 #27 "McDonald's" Thunderbird, but there's also a 'naughty' 2017B: Rick Mast's 1994 #1 "Skoal" Thunderbird. The regular 2020 is Terry Labonte's #14 "Kelloggs" Lumina, and the naughty version (2020B) is Ken Schrader's #25 "Kodiak" Lumina. The boxes for the two 'naughty' ones are different from the rest: shorter, wider and the cardboard sleeves are white with drawings of the cars, instead of the standard orange/black design. As for 2056, there doesn't seem to be a standard issue, only a 2056s (Neil Bonnett's #31 "Mom'n'Pops" Lumina) in a box that looks different from the others.


I started collecting this series in early 2011. It's been a little on and off, partly because availability is very limited here, so after a few weeks of searching you start to run into the same models again and again... better then to take a break and come back later to check for new ones. To sum it all up, I'm now well past 30 models, including 2001-2015, so I thought I'd present what I have, here in this thread.


It's going to take a while, so please bear with me.

This was one of the first ones I got, and it also seems to be one of the rarest. Maybe the decals have something to do with it: the paintwork is all green, but major parts of the car is black... ALL the black is decals and, as you can see, this wasn't a very good idea! The few other ones I've seen of this were as bad as, or worse than mine, and I barely even dared to take it out of the box for these photos.

Another fragile one, unfortunately. Here it's the red neon stripe causing problems, especially around the back of the car.

Great background story and beautiful cars. Thanks

Nice so far, looking forward to seeing the rest.  

Another one of the too-heavily decaled models, in this case all the white. Also notice on the 2nd photo, how Quartzo got the driver's name wrong and wrote "Strickland" instead of Stricklin. Oh, and by the way... I've just managed to win yet another model from the series, #2025, a Rusty Wallace Thunderbird. This leaves me with a list of 20 missing numbers, but because 4 of them probably don't exist, it means I'm just 16 short of a complete set.

These used to be pretty common in the US but not anymore - I can look around at the next toy shows if you need a certain one!  I had always assumed Vitesse had the NASCAR license for these (for the US market primarily).  Then they foumd out 'we' wanted larger scale: 1/24 = more value, of course!  (We in quotes, ie, not me!)

Oh, do you want an instant collection?  By the price you can tell the market is not very strong for NASCAR anymore...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LARGE-LOT-OF-QUARTZO-NASCAR-/290813246393?pt=Action_Figures_Diecast_US&hash=item43b5d1fbb9

The funny thing with this series is, that prices are all over the place. Some models do indeed seem to be rare, so higher prices on them are justified, but in other cases, some sellers sell on auction for as little as £0.99, while others may ask £30 for exactly the same car!


The ones I still miss are:


2016 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, #24 - Jeff Gordon, "Dupont"


2017A Ford Thunderbird, 1993, #27 - Hut Stricklin, ""McDonald's"


2019 Chevrolet Lumina, #29 - Joe Nemechek, "Meineke"


2026 Ford Thunderbird, 1994, #7 - Geoff Bodine, "Exide"


2034 Ford Thunderbird, #60 - Mark Martin, "Winn Dixie"


2035 Pontiac Grand Prix, #27 - Rusty Wallace, "Miller Genuine Draft"


2037 Ford Thunderbird, 1987, #7 - Alan Kulwicki, "Zerex"


2040 Ford Thunderbird, 1995, #94 - Bill Elliott, "McDonald's"


2041 Ford Thunderbird, 1988, #6 - Mark Martin, "Valvoline"


2042 Ford Thunderbird, 1995, #9 - Lake Speed, "Spam"


2044 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, #71 - Dave Marcis, "Olive Garden"


2046 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, #24 - Jeff Gordon, "Dupont"


2047 Pontiac Grand Prix, 1995, #22 - Ward Burton, "MBNA"


2049 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, #18 - Bobby Labonte, "Interstate Batteries"


2050 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, #25 - Ken Schrader, "Budweiser"


2052 doesn't exist?


2053 doesn't exist?


2055 doesn't exist?


2056 doesn't exist?


2056s Chevrolet Lumina, 1992, #31 - Neil Bonnett, "Mom'n'Pops"


2057 doesn't exist?


Plus if there's anything above 2058.


Two of the hardest ones to get seem to be 2035 and 2056. Most can be found at anytime on US eBay, but often prices are very high. Even for the moderately priced ones, there's the problem of import duty, I think it applies to any item valued £7 or higher, so until now I've only bought one or two from american sellers. The more I can get from EU-sellers, the better.

Better keep moving, there's a lot of models left... 

if anyone is looking for an instant collection, I have 41 of these listed, as a complete collection, on ebay now. I am based in UK - my ebay id is batik_jeff