WATZIT?!
Model Engines of Unknown Origin
Last update: January, 2013
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It's not at all unusual for members of our little group to be asked to identify rare engines from time to time. Being blessed with an official historian, some genuine experts and a guy who claims his knowledge comes about by being "older than dirt", our collective wisdom can usually identify commercial products. But model engineers being what they are, there are one-of-a-kinds so good they look like mass produced engines, plus factory prototypes that can defy clear identification. In MECA parlance, these are termed "watzits" for "what in the pink blue blazes is that, where did you get it, and how much will you take for it?"
These pages contain pictures and information regarding some of the more obscure and intriguing examples of this sort. You can use the index below to go to individual entries, or click here to step through the pages themselves. If you can add to the information, please email us.
- The Truth Is Out There
- Euro Treasure
- Euro Treasure
- Inside the Square
- Outside The Box
- Double Barrel Sucker
- Twin Dalek
- Gatehouse of Fleet
- The Innovation Special
- We Should, But We Don't
- Cool Exhaust
- A Big Ozzie Watzit!
- Nice, but Complicated
- Not a Tempest and not a Hurricane
- An Ill Wind
- Itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie diesel
- Brass Ring Sparker
- Piston-valve rotary
- Le Moteur functionnanr en auto-allumange
- Home-built Sparker
- Asphyxiated Sparker
- Rising Sun Sparkie
- Cyrano de Sparkie
- Dutch Sparker
- Old Diesel
- Double Strength Blizzard
- Marinated 4-stroke
- G&G
- Nice repair, but what is it?
- Not-A-Pfeffer
- Whocastit?
- Novel Idea
- BH Cub
- Diesel Clacker
- Yet Another Cox Twin-hack
- Canadian Conundrum
- CI4S
- Sydney Sparkie
- Rare and Beware
- Vintage Glow Engine
- A Mills-ish Watzit
- Tiny Homebuilt Diesel
- Eldon Who?
- Whosit?!
- Vintage British Home-built
- The Buck Rogers Comp Screw
- A 40 Year Norwegian Mystery
- Big Scary Watzit
- German 10cc Sleeve-valve
- Unfinished Hungarian Watzit
- YAMS
- Who Made This RTF?
- An Embryonic Opposed Twin
- A Tough One
- A Good Little Socialist Diesel
- Quad Ball-Race .63
- Flowers/Robinson Tether Car Engine
- A Scotch-Yoke Flat Four
- A Tiny Diesel
- One hellova Whatzit
- Variation on the Hellovawatzit Theme
- A Diesel of Unknown Origin
- An ED Based In-line Twin
- A Czech Oddity
- Tim's Delima
- Froggy Topsy
- British Single Oddity
- British Twin Oddity
- M&M Radial
- Mystery Sparkie