My Story

I had never assembled a scale model in my life.

I was nineteen years old when a simple 1/43 scale kit, purchased in a small model shop in Annecy, completely changed the course of my life.

I knew absolutely nothing about model cars.

The shop owner gave me a few tips on how to build it, I went home, and simply did the best I could.

A few days later, proud of my first attempt, I returned to the shop to show him what I had made.

To my surprise, he was impressed.

The shop happened to be looking for someone to assemble models for its customers.

I offered my services.

They explained that they did not employ staff and that, if I wanted to work with them, I would first have to start my own business.

One week later, I came back with my newly registered company.

Looking back today, I can't help smiling at the memory. At nineteen, I probably had no idea how bold—or perhaps how reckless—that decision really was. But that was the beginning of everything.

Over the following years, I learned my craft alongside remarkable artisans: pattern makers, mould makers, metal specialists, manufacturers of display cases, packaging and precision components. Each possessed unique skills, and each helped shape my own vision of what an exceptional scale model should be.

Very quickly, one thing became clear.

I didn't want to assemble other people's models.

I wanted to create my own.

In 1985, my first brand was born.

Naturally, my passion was drawn to Ferrari. But not the famous Ferraris.

What fascinated me were the rarest examples, often one-off creations, specially commissioned and bodied for a single client.

As the years passed, my curiosity gradually extended far beyond Ferrari.

Bugatti.

Delahaye.

Talbot-Lago.

Delage.

Hispano-Suiza.

Rolls-Royce.

Voisin.

Mercedes-Benz.

And many more.

What fascinated me was never a particular marque.

It was the creativity of the great coachbuilders.

Saoutchik.

Figoni.

Vanvooren.

Touring.

Ghia.

Pininfarina...

Artists who transformed a simple chassis into a unique work of automotive art.

For more than forty years, these extraordinary creations have continued to inspire me. They are the automobiles rarely encountered today, often unique, born in an era when a chassis could leave the manufacturer and be entrusted to a master coachbuilder, who would bring a client's vision to life while expressing his own artistic identity.

My models are my tribute to these masterpieces of automotive design.

Every Ilario miniature begins with a long period of research.

Photographs.

Archives.

Measurements.

Conversations with owners, journalists, historians, club members and passionate collectors.

Before the Internet, some projects required months of research.

Sometimes years.

On several occasions, I abandoned a project simply because one essential photograph or piece of information could not be found.

In my view, it is always better to leave a model unrealised than to invent details that history can no longer confirm.

My ambition has never been to produce more miniatures.

It has always been to bring forgotten automobiles back into the light, and to pay tribute to the remarkable creations that defined one of the most artistic periods in automotive history.

Most Ilario models had never before been reproduced as scale miniatures.

Not because I wanted to be different.

But because the rarest automobiles are often those whose stories deserve to be told.

Even today, every new model begins in exactly the same way.

An emotion.

A photograph.

A meeting.

An intuition.

The desire to bring it back to life.

Then come the hundreds of invisible decisions: proportions, curves, colours, materials, details and presentation... until the automobile regains, in miniature, all of its elegance and individuality.

Every detail receives the same care and attention once devoted by the master coachbuilders who created these extraordinary automobiles nearly a century ago.

Assembly is only the final stage.

The real work begins long before that.

What has driven me from the very beginning has never changed.

To discover a forgotten automobile.

To understand its history.

To rediscover its lines, its details and its character.

And finally, to give it a new life in 1/43 scale—and sometimes in 1/18.

Every Ilario miniature reflects my choices, my research and my personal vision. That is, perhaps, what makes an Ilario model unlike any other.

People sometimes ask me which model is my favourite.

My answer is always the same.

The next one.

Because after all these years, the passion remains exactly the same.

There are still extraordinary automobiles waiting to be discovered—or rediscovered.

And as long as I have the privilege of paying tribute to them through miniature, the Ilario journey will continue.

Deep down, I have never felt that I was simply making scale models.

I have merely tried, in my own way, to preserve a little of the elegance of an era when the automobile was a true work of art, born from the hands and passion of exceptional craftsmen.

My hope is that every Ilario miniature will preserve, in its own small way, a fragment of that timeless elegance, and pass it on to collectors who share the same passion.