Tintin 1/24 Model Car 29909 – L’Amilcar des Soviets – Tintin au Pays des Soviets

Author: Hergé & Editions Moulinsart
Manufacturer: Editions Moulinsart / Tintinimaginatio
Format: 1/24 scale model car on display plinth with illustrated diorama and clear acetate case
Condition: Near fine. Ex-display model in near fine condition. Complete with original grey and white outer box and explanatory booklet. Very minor wear to the acetate display case.

Description:

From the official Les Voitures de Tintin collection, this substantial 1/24 scale model of L’Amilcar des Soviets, reference 29909, recreates the little blue sports car driven by Tintin in Tintin au pays des Soviets (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets).

The model depicts Tintin at the wheel with Snowy beside him, the pale blue open sports car presented on its original display plinth beneath a clear acetate case. A monochrome woodland backdrop derived from Hergé’s artwork completes the presentation and gives the model the appearance of a three-dimensional comic-strip scene.

Produced by Editions Moulinsart as number 9 in the 1/24 scale Tintin vehicle collection, the model represents the Amilcar seen in Tintin’s first adventure. The official Tintin archive specifically identifies number 9 in the collection as L’Amilcar des Soviets and notes Hergé’s fascination, at the age of twenty-two in 1929, with the racing cars illustrated in contemporary sporting newspapers, singling out the Amilcar and its characteristic radiator grille.

The Amilcar has particular significance within the Tintin story. The official Tintin site notes that cars appear throughout the series and that Tintin himself was rarely the owner of the vehicles he drove; the Amilcar in Tintin in the Land of the Soviets is one of the exceptions.

This example has previously been displayed but remains in near fine condition. It retains the original grey and white outer cardboard box and accompanying explanatory booklet. There is very minor wear to the acetate display case, but the model itself presents very well.

Reference: 29909
Scale: 1/24
Model: L’Amilcar des Soviets
Album: Tintin au pays des Soviets
Vehicle: Amilcar
Colour: Pale blue
Presentation: Display plinth with illustrated diorama and clear acetate case
Packaging: Original grey and white outer box
Documentation: Original explanatory booklet
Condition: Near fine; ex-display, with very minor wear to the acetate case
EAN: 2990900000003

L’Amilcar des Soviets: A Brief Account

The Amilcar belongs to Tintin’s very first adventure, making it one of the earliest cars associated with Hergé’s young reporter.

Tintin au pays des Soviets began publication in Le Petit Vingtième in January 1929. The official Tintin archive records Tintin’s departure from Brussels for Moscow on 10 January 1929, accompanied by Snowy, and notes that the adventure was subsequently published as a book in 1930.

Travel and mechanical movement dominate the story. Tintin and Snowy race through the narrative using trains, aircraft, boats, motorcycles and motor cars, creating the fast visual rhythm that would remain characteristic of the series. The official Tintin account aptly describes the adventure as a journey through Russia at breakneck speed involving “boats, planes, trains and automobiles”.

The Amilcar is especially appropriate to this early period. Small, sporting and visually distinctive, it embodies the enthusiasm for speed and modern machinery which can already be seen in Hergé’s first Tintin drawings.

The official account of the Tintin vehicle collection explains that in 1929 Hergé was fascinated by illustrations and photographs of motor racing and by both the daring of racing drivers and the beauty of their cars. Among the marques specifically mentioned is Amilcar, whose prominent radiator grille gave the cars a particularly recognisable appearance.

The Amilcar and Inter-War Motoring

Amilcar was a French manufacturer closely associated with the light sporting cars and cyclecars of the 1920s. Its machines combined relatively modest dimensions with an energetic sporting character, making the marque a familiar sight in both competition and enthusiastic private motoring.

That character made the Amilcar particularly suitable for Tintin. Hergé needed vehicles capable of conveying speed immediately on the printed page, and the compact proportions, open body and distinctive grille of an Amilcar provided an ideal visual shorthand for sporting motoring.

The car represented in the Moulinsart model is sometimes identified in specialist literature as an Amilcar CGS or CGSS-type car. The official Tintin site itself refers more simply to the Amilcar CGS when discussing the motor cars of the series, while identifying the collection model as L’Amilcar des Soviets.

This slightly broader identification is appropriate because Hergé’s early drawings were not produced with the exhaustive documentary precision characteristic of his later work. What matters most is that the car is unmistakably an Amilcar and belongs to the first phase of Tintin’s long association with real-world motor vehicles.

Tintin au Pays des Soviets: A Brief Account

Tintin au pays des Soviets occupies a unique place in the history of twentieth-century comics. It introduced Tintin and Snowy, launched Hergé’s most important creation and established many of the narrative habits that would continue through the subsequent adventures.

The story began in 1929, when Hergé was still only twenty-two. Its political perspective reflects the strongly anti-communist editorial environment of Le Vingtième Siècle, for whose children’s supplement it was created. Artistically, however, its importance extends well beyond its immediate political context.

The drawing is noticeably freer and more spontaneous than in Hergé’s mature albums. Yet the foundations of his later technique are already visible: clear storytelling, rapid movement, expressive silhouettes and a fascination with machines and transport.

The official Tintin archive describes the work as the beginning both of Tintin’s adventures and of Hergé’s career, while also noting the extraordinary collector status later attained by the earliest editions.

The 2017 Colour Edition

For most of its publication history, Tintin au pays des Soviets remained a black-and-white work. That changed with the publication of a newly colourised edition in January 2017.

Moulinsart described the project as an attempt to present the early story to twenty-first-century readers while preserving Hergé’s original drawings. Each frame was newly coloured rather than redrawn, creating a distinctive visual interpretation of the 1929–30 artwork.

The pale blue finish of the Moulinsart model consequently provides an interesting bridge between the earliest period of Hergé’s work and the modern presentation of the story. The vehicle itself belongs to Tintin’s first adventure, while its colour treatment reflects a much later stage in the history of the work.

Hergé and the Motor Car

Motor cars became one of the defining visual elements of The Adventures of Tintin. The official Tintin archive notes that Hergé was genuinely fascinated by cars and treated them as integral elements of his imaginary world rather than incidental scenery. It also records at least 79 vehicle models across the 24 adventures.

In later albums Hergé’s cars became increasingly precise and documentary in appearance, but Tintin au pays des Soviets reveals where that interest began.

The Amilcar is therefore significant not merely as an attractive vehicle but as an early manifestation of one of Hergé’s enduring interests. It forms part of the visual vocabulary that would eventually encompass such famous Tintin cars as the Ford Model T, the blue Jeep from Objectif Lune, the 2CV of Thomson and Thompson and numerous European and American prestige cars.

The 1/24 Moulinsart model translates that early image particularly effectively into three dimensions. The relatively large scale gives the small sports car considerable presence, while Tintin and Snowy immediately identify the scene with the first chapter of Tintin’s publishing history.

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Cataloguer: Daniel Hornsey

Daniel Hornsey has specialised in fine and rare books, maps, ephemera, artworks and collectors’ items for over thirty years. Hornseys was established in 1976 and, in its fiftieth year, continues to research and catalogue every item individually from its gallery and bookshop in Ripon, North Yorkshire.