Page 38 - TPM Issue2

NZG Celebrates

50 Years

On the 1st October 2018, NZG had their 50th

birthday and throughout 2019, they have been
celebrating their 50th anniversary. I was lucky
enough to sit down with Gerhard Schmid, one of the

two founders of NZG along with Betty Hauer, who
told me how the NZG story began.

G erhard was a mould maker for a toy company, where he
became production manager and was also responsible for
model development. It was O&K who first suggested that
production of 1:50th scale models would be a good idea,
with a marketing company asking about the production of O&K models,
so Gerhard had a lot to think about. Would 1:50th scale be popular? Is
there an opportunity for future 1:50th scale models.

At this point, Gerhard was not looking to start his own company, but to
look into what was possible at the company he worked for and Zeppelin
was the first potential customer for models. One request was to produce
a model in five different parts, where you were presented with one part at
a time, which would eventually become a complete model once all
5 parts were obtained and assembled. This was an interesting form of
promotion.

Mr Becker had an advertising company, and was responsible for Zeppelin
advertising. Mr Becker had a number of telephone conversations with
Gerhard, trying to convince him that setting up his own company was a
good idea, and that he wanting to wait until Gerhard was self employed
before they moved forward with a model project as Mr Becker had
already decided that he wanted Gerhard to produce the model for
Zeppelin, a CAT 941 track loader.

NZG founded on the First models Grove made their Formed a Moved to new
1st October by Betty produced were first order, the 1500 square premises on
t
Hauer and Gerhard the Weserhu:e TM800 in meter tooling Sigmundstrasse.
t
Schmid, moving into HW70 and 3000 pieces. section.
the third floor of a Cat 941.
furniture store in
Tafelfeldstrasse.

1968 1969 1970 1972 1973

JCB gave the order
for 15000 3C
MkII models.

38 TPMMW Magazine - Winter 2019