If you love vintage cars and want to collect them without harming the environment, you should definitely visit “die blechlawine“. The garage owner of this website, Patrick Gutenberg, has been staging and photographing toy cars since 2013. The more battered, the better. The patina adds to their charm, is a sign of their adoration. He has already immortalised more than 1000 vehicles. The pictures not only delight the photographer, but also his fan community.
He has neatly arranged his collection according to type, brand, colour, damage, decade, manufacturer (of the toy car) and the collection from which the model originates.
Example from “die blechlawine”; Photo: © Patrick Gutenberg
The garage owner and collector
Patrick Gutenberg, the “garage owner”, loves cars. Unlike many others, however, not the newest, biggest, fastest ones. His heart belongs to the small, old ones. Those that have neither great tyres nor leather seats, neither much horsepower nor airbags. Patrick Gutenberg collects and photographs toy cars.
Corners and edges, missing wheels and chipped paint are what make them so appealing. They are traces of all the stories with which children in the 60s and 70s dreamed themselves into heroes. They make the bygone era visible.
Example from “die blechlawine”; Photo: © Patrick Gutenberg
He stages his photos meticulously: always the same white background, a fine shadow under the car, shallow depth of field. Two or three times a year he takes a day for a new series, photographs the models from both sides and now also from the front. Usually individually, sometimes in pairs. In this way, he makes the car, which has been reduced to a toy, big again.
The “garage owner” and his offer
Example from “die blechlawine”; Photo: © Patrick Gutenberg
But Gutenberg does not limit himself to collecting miniature vintage cars that are as scratched as possible. He also photographs each specimen strictly in the same form. He markets his pictures, for example, as a poster with 96 selected toy cars on matt paper as a colour print, as a set of 5 postcards in the format 14.8 x 10.5 cm or, if you order 50 or more, postcards with the car of your choice (in boxes of 50, 100 or 250 copies). And for very special lovers of the mini cars, there are original prints on matt handmade paper with certificate with detailed information about the vehicle as a sheet or mounted on aluminium.
Example from “die blechlawine”; Photo: © Patrick Gutenberg
All vehicles from Patrick Gutenberg’s own collection can also be purchased, together with a high-quality print. After the sale of the vehicle, Gutenberg guarantees that no further prints or postcards with this subject will be produced.
Example from “die blechlawine”; Photo: © Patrick Gutenberg
