About SMTS

Sadly, this isn’t the view from our office. But Hastings has been our home for 30 years.

Sadly, this isn’t the view from our office. But Hastings has been our home for 30 years.

Founded in 1983, SMTS has been hand building high quality, White Metal automotive replicas for over 25 years.

Based in the historic town of Hastings on the south coast, the company employs a team of more than a dozen highly experienced and talented model engineers and fabricators.

All of SMTS’s models are designed from scratch, often by reference to the manufacturer’s original drawings.

Many of our replicas are created by reference to the manufacturers’ original plans.

Many of our replicas are created by reference to the manufacturers’ original plans.

The replicas we create are made from White Metal, a process not dissimilar to die-cast model making but, with White Metal, the moulds are made from rubber, which allows much smaller production runs to be tackled.

Our models are nearly all made in what is known as White Metal. Using rubber moulds rather than die-cast tools means we can work on low volume production runs.

Our models are nearly all made in what is known as White Metal. Using rubber moulds rather than die-cast tools means we can work on low volume production runs.

Whilst the bodies are always made of metal, resin and rubber are also used for ancillary parts and, of course, the tyres. The fine detail, such as window surrounds and badging, is usually photo-etched in steel.
For the more intricate shiny parts on a model, such as the window surrounds and

For the more intricate shiny parts on a model, such as the window surrounds and number plates, we use high quality photo-etching.for the highest levels of detail.

SMTS is particularly well known for

SMTS is particularly well known for its classic 1:43 road and racing replicas, but if you look at our back catalogue, you’ll see that there’s almost no car genre we haven’t tackled.

As a company, we are perhaps best known for our 1:43 classic road and race car replicas. These models measure between 10cm and 12.5cm in length.

But over the years, SMTS has modelled many hundreds of different 1:43 subjects. Most of these are still listed in the Back Catalogue section (click here to visit), although, at any given time, we are only able to offer a limited selection of models in our shop.

If you’re looking to create a low production run of anything from a helicopter to a lawn-mower, we have probably produced something similar in the past..

If you’re looking to create a low production run of anything from a helicopter to a lawn-mower, we have probably produced something similar in the past..

We are, it should be noted, also able to produce models in other scales, and are experienced in creating replicas of everything from cruise ships and WWII aircraft, to agricultural machinery and construction equipment. For details of our other work click here, or visit our Special Projects area.