All of us have a few Ferrari model cars in our lives. It might be one on your office desk, one or two in your garage or a couple dotted around the house.
Some of us have larger collections, I personally have about 2000 1:18 scale Ferrari models in my garage and I know people who have 4 or 5 times that. But here’s a piece about a guy called Milan Paulus from the Czech Republic,
who has so far amassed a collection of 57 models, and his goal is to reach 107 (the number of F1 cars made by Ferrari).
Not very impressive you might think, until you hear that each one is made by hand …………… OUT OF PAPER!!
Yep, you read correctly, paper, you know, the stuff we write on, wrap our fish and chips in, and when caught short, wipe our arses on ……. Paper!

The passion for Ferrari knows no boundaries and sometimes manifests itself in the most unusual forms.
Recreating models of Ferraris with paper is something frankly, hard to believe.
Milan Paulus is a Niki Lauda fan.
After the horrific accident of the Austrian at the Nurburgring, he decided to celebrate the qualities of Ferrari, the car that, due to its construction, likely saved the life of his beloved champion.
Malan decided to channel his passion for the Red into making paper models, all in 1:6 scale, whose perfection of detail and correspondence to the originals are truly amazing.

The dream of this wonderful craftsman is to sell his collection to Ferrari. Milan has specialised in Ferrari F1 paper models since 2008.
As of now, 57 are completed. His goal is to make all Ferrari F1 cars made. He is one of those Formula 1 enthusiasts who create amazing things without receiving broad recognition.

Paper models start with cut-out prints and building them is all about being precise and having sharp edges, clean seams, well defined shapes and coloring.
Malan says, “After a while, classic paper modeling became unfulfilling for me, not challenging enough. Without intending to offend paper model-makers, no matter how good you are, assembling cut-outs only means taking another step in a process that was already started by someone else.”
He adds, “There is no responsibility or humility in that, and it does not require much time. I need to spend hours in front of the computer, looking for resources, documents, photographs… then I need to draw the blueprints, take exact measurements… it requires a lot more effort. Much different from classic paper modelling.”

Q. So the only material you use is paper… including the spiked wheels and tyres?
M.P. It is 90% paper. The rest is other materials like cables, wires, toothpicks. The wheels are paper but the spikes I make from fishing line.

Q. How do you make the really sharply curved parts and tyre treads… is it pressed into a mold?
M.P. Rounded shapes are definitely the hardest, but there is no moulding. Everything is folded paper, glue, putty, scraping, grating, more fillers, rasp, sand, polish… over and over until I am satisfied. As for the treads, I first draw them on and then burn them out using a soldering iron.

Q. How do you determine the exact size of wings, cockpit, and so forth?
M.P. Well, I have plenty of resources in regard to that… more than I need. In addition, any specific dimension could be easily calculated from pictures that contain another component of known size.

Q. Why the 1:6 scale? It is not exactly traditional?
M.P. I started with classic scales, then experimented with 1:10, 1:8 and even 1:3… but that was way too big! Nine years ago I settled at 1:6, and worked with that ever since.

Q. Your goal is to build all the Ferrari F1 cars ever produced. Each model takes nearly 300 hours to complete, so that amounts to a pretty ambitious project!
M.P. There are going to be over a hundred and right now I am working on no 58. I spend at least 3-4 hours every day doing this… I don’t go out for a beer with my buddies, and vacations do not exist for me anymore either. Which makes me a fool, I suppose? I will sell the entire collection once it is complete.

MALAN PAULUS
A truly remarkable craftsman with an unrelenting passion for what he does.
If you’d like to see his video click HERE.

Read all about Formula 1 in 2022 here.