#1033 DARDA - FERRARI F1, BMW-WILLIAMS F1 and TEAM DARDA (Around 2006)

These three cars by Darda are among the most modern in my collection. Darda is still selling and producing very good-looking cars and tracks, but they are not precisely cheap toys. Maybe that is why they are so hard to spot today. Two of these Formula ones represent the models driven by Michael Schumacher (RN5) in the 2006 season and one of the three drivers that ran for BMW-Williams in 2005, which we cannot identify since the toy does not carry any race number. It could be Mark Webber, Nick Heidfield or Antônio Pizzonia. 

The second red formula, with white stripes is more difficult to identify, I am not sure if it represents a real model or not, mostly when it carries number 1, it had to be a world champion driver, and with those colours, I cannot recall any racing team from the 2000s... Also it is decorated with "Team Darda" tampographies, unlike the other two which have logos of real companies and products. This is not definitive, as sometimes cigarretes and alcoholic beverages were not represented on toys at that time. 

I would conclude that this car is slightly more modern and just a way to reuse a cast that they kept.

Both cars are based in the same cast, only the colours and decorations are different. They look great, but, unlike older Dardas, they are completely made of plastic. I have seen other formula one teams represented with this same cast: some more decorations of a red cast (none of them seems to be a real team), a yellow model that seems to represent the Jordan from 2001 or before, and a white and black formula, which, with some imagination, could be a McLaren-Mercedes. As a matter of fact it carries RN9, which in the year 2005 corresponded to Kimmi Räikönnen. Of course, there are several variations of each model, with different tampographies or slight different colours. I'd love to have them all!

Here pictures of one car only, maybe you can see the cast details better this way.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: FERRARI F1, BMW WILLIAMS F1 and TEAM DARDA (1617-040 and 1631-001) (Numbering according to www.dardamania.de) (Team Darda cannot be numbered, as this website is gone private and I cannot check the references anymore)
  
• Scale: 1:64 (approx.)
• Year: Around 2006
• Company: Darda (Germany)
• Size: approx. 3’’ or 7 cm