Ted Friend

W.A. and C.H. Friend, known as Bill and Ted, founded a company known as Graphic Designers, at 4, Holly Park, Finchley in 1951. It was a business involved in both designing and marketing many diverse items, all of which were automobile-related. These items included motor books, paintings, prints, scarves, place mats, coasters and motoring accessories.

They also designed and produced specialised Christmas cards as well as the race programmes for the Silverstone Race Track. Bill was the graphic artist and Ted was the engineer and sculptor. The company operated from its registered address and through various retail outlets, as well as having a mail order service for its products. Graphic Designers Limited ceased trading in 1994, upon the retirement of the surviving brother, Bill Friend.

During that 43 year period, the brothers produced quite a number of models, mainly cars, through ranges known as Replicars and Investment models.

The Replicars range was a small range of white metal kits manufactured between 1955 and 1960, consisting of four Edwardian cars and three racing cars. Although a little basic by today’s standards of white metal casting, these pioneering models were undoubtedly the first white metal car kits ever to be marketed commercially in the UK, if not the world! They pre-date Bob Wills’ Auto-Kits range by eight years, and the Wills Finecast series by 10 years.

They decided to branch out into the model car manufacturing business in 1954 following the success of the classic film “Genevieve”. This Rank Organisation film was a romantic comedy set around the annual London to Brighton run. Despite not being the first choice of the producer, a Darracq was the motoring star of the film, and models of the Darracq were produced by several companies, including Graphic Designers. Bill and Ted teamed up with Cyril Lewis, who ran a jewellery making business called the Exakta Casting Company Limited. Exakta specialised in the manufacture of high quality jewellery metalware by the lost wax and re-usable vulcanised rubber moulding and casting techniques.

The 1904 Darracq was destined to be the first in a range of four veteran car models and the late John Niblett was commissioned to design and create the brass masters. John was a freelance sculptor whose background was in fashioning scale model soldiers. At the time, John was particularly noted for his finely detailed 20mm and 54mm high medieval figure masterpieces sold at Hummel’s model shop in Burlington Arcade, Piccadilly. John also made patterns of trackside figures and railway accessories for various manufacturers. The components were gravity cast into vulcanised rubber moulds by Exakta, using an alloy of tin, and some were lost wax cast.

The Darracq was initially publicised in the July 1985 issue of Model Maker magazine. H.A. Blunt & sons Ltd of London advertised it for 65 shillings (£3.25), assembled, painted and mounted on a plinth. The kit version was 21 shillings (£1.05). The scale was not referred to, nor was there any mention of the movie. However, at that time Genevieve, as both car and film, was a household name. In the same issue of model maker, Mersey Marine Models of Liverpool reported the Darracq available from stock at the same price as Blunts. The second model in the range was the 1907 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost.

Both models were advertised in the September 1955 Meccano Magazine. This time it was a Graphic Designers advert, and stated that they were 1:36 scale. This was very odd, since all the range was designed to 1:24.

The range was packages in boxes with a picture frame design, inside which were pasted the illustration of each car. Bill Friend was responsible for design and artwork on the boxes, and the box sides illustrated methods of displaying the models, including mounting the cars on bookends, boxes, or lamps, some years before Lesney did with their Yesteryear plated range.   Inside, each component was displayed separately, secured by a rubber band. A tube of special glue was supplied, and several pieces could be soldered. BA nuts and screws were also used. These models were a joint venture between Graphic Designers and Elektra Casting, and both names appeared on the boxes from time to time.

Airfix launched a Darracq around a year later than Graphic Designers, and it appears likely that theirs is a copy of the white metal design. The price differential was such that the damage to the sales of the Replicars Darracq must have been significant. Airfix was subsequently sued by Graphic Designers for breach of copyright for both the model and the artwork.

A 1906 Rover, and a 1902 Peugeot followed the silver Ghost, and all the cars were personal preferences of the brothers. Patterns continued to be designed and mastered by John Niblett.

By June 1956, the brothers had introduced a Bugatti, also in 1:24 scale, and a 47 piece kit selling for 61 shillings. John Niblett again produced the master, but the white metal used was of a harder consistency, and therefore less prone to collapse as previous models. A removable bonnet provided access to under bonnet detail. November 1956 saw the launch of a Lotus XI, this time with its master sculpted by Ted Friend, followed by an Alfa Romeo P3 in December 1958, both in 1:24 scale.

Graphic Designers had by this time entered the lineside accessories and locomotive kit market, in a range of scales, all in white metal. The 1:24 car range appeared to decline, until in 1974, Bill joined Cyril Lewis to form Investment models based in Hatton Garden, creating prestige models, from sterling silver. The first was developed from the Replicars patterns for the Silver Ghost. A second car, a Bentley, was patterned by a Hatton Garden silversmith, but Max Tomlinson suspects it was the work of Ray Watson, who mastered many of Bob Wills’ range of Wills Finecast.

And so it was Genevieve that prompted Graphic Designers to go into white metal model car production, and there is little doubt that they were the first. Their process, however, was not economically viable to sustain further development. However, it was whilst they were enjoying success that Bob Wills was experimenting with new alloy mixes and centrifugal casting in rubber moulds for his railway accessories. His innovations enabled greater precision, and the Autokits and Wills Finecast ranges were born.

Subject ID: 81627