The late Miguel de Rancougne, a French businessman, had a thing about model cars and planes, and the miniature engines that powered them.

He ranged well off the beaten track in the US and Australia to talk to model makers and designers, and to buy, sell and swap.

The era has largely passed when fathers and sons fashioned lightweight model aircraft by covering a balsa wood skeleton with stretched tissue paper, painting on lacquer and coloured roundels, fitting a tiny diesel or jet engine, and launching their fragile handiwork into the sky.

De Rancougne, born in 1940, grew up in that era and was educated in Paris, New York and London. Perhaps he and his father sat up late, arguing companionably about struts and blueprints.

De Rancougne went on to achieve great success in the business world with the glass group Saint-Gobain. In his 40-year career, much of it as managing director, he travelled extensively through the US, Europe and Asia.

He even visited an Australian acquaintance, Wollongong engineer David Owen, for a chat. Naturally Owen put in a few bids on de Rancougne's collection of models and engines when it came up at Christie's in London on January 20.

De Rancougne and a friend built a 1/4 scale radio-controlled model car, an AC Cobra, in the 1990s that won a trophy at London's Olympia, but he soon ran out of space for large models and switched to vintage "tethered" cars. These are powered models that race at high speed on a circular track, tethered to a central pivot.

But his biggest passion was engines - ingenious little power plants used to drive model planes, cars or boats. Invariably he travelled with a briefcase filled with cloth-wrapped engines - a practice that might not please today's airport security.

A few of de Rancougne's engines are simply static models, with no working parts; others are diesels - usually commercial single-cylinder engines burning a volatile blend of ether, kerosene and castor oil and ranging up to 5 cubic centimetres in capacity.

The engines stole the day at Christie's.

Top scorer was a finely engineered quarter-scale working model, 45cm long, of a De Havilland Gypsy Major Series 1 aero engine, complete with finned cylinders, pushrod valves, twin plugs per cylinder and updraught carburettor, set on a steel stand, which sold for the equivalent of $37,570.

Even more spectacular was a 14-cylinder two-row radial aero engine which sold for $34,680 - almost 10 times the estimate.

Many other engines were notable, from the neatly engineered Schillings double overhead camshaft four-cylinder from Germany to an unattributed modern V12 double overhead cam example.

Among the tethered cars was a British Racing Green Frazer-Nash Le Mans TT replica, 37cm long, which was sold for $6940 and an original American Dooling all-aluminium Mercury deluxe racer circa 1939 at $4910.

Radio-controlled models included a Riva-style two-cockpit mahogany speedboat Century Sea Maid from the 1940s fitted with a neat V6 overhead camshaft engine marked R. Luther, which brought $11,560, and a scale model Nieuport single-seat fighter plane with a 15cc OS four-stroke engine, which sold for $2000.

My collection - David Owen
David Owen has been interested in model engines for 50 years, and is still building them today. A retired engineer, he describes himself as a historian and author. He's regional director of the Model Engine Collectors' Association, and does a lot of writing about engines as well as making and trading them.

Owen's own engines are respected worldwide, according to reports on various modeller websites.

He says there once were a number of Australian makers, the largest being the firm of Gordon Burford in Adelaide, which marketed world-class engines under the names of Sabre and Taipan. These were manufactured between 1948 and 1977, many being exported.

As for the visit to his Wollongong home by French businessman Miguel de Rancougne, Owen says that after an earlier meeting de Rancougne had "wanted to look at things I had collected and made".

Owen says de Rancougne set out to assemble the finest collection in Europe, obtaining a wealth of rare engines.

Owen bid on a few items, but was disappointed with the way the catalogue was presented, with many multiple lots and some inadequate descriptions. However, the size of the collection would have made it difficult for the auctioneers.

His picks from the sale included an imposing nine-cylinder German Seidel radial aero engine - "one of the best of its type".

He also fancied a rare Carl Zeiss Jena "Pioneer" diesel from the 1950s with airship-shaped fuel tank/crankcase, and a collection of engines by the renowned French builder Marc Bosmorin.

He was also impressed with the Riva style mahogany two-cockpit speedboat with its miniature V6 engine.

To contact Owen, email owendc@1earth.net and please insert the word "Herald" in the subject line.

Starter guide
$2000 Radio-controlled flying scale model of a Nieuport single-seat fighter, 117cm long, with fabric-covered wooden airframe and 15cc four-stroke engine marked OS.

$3000
A Schillings four-cylinder engine with toothed belt-driven overhead camshafts, twin carburettors and fine exhaust manifold, 26.5cm long, sold by Christie's.

$5800
Detail of finely engineered Seidel 9-cylinder air-cooled radial engine with push-rod operated overhead valves, 26cm high, with propeller and stand.

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