PILOT was founded in 1932 by Henning Cortsen. In the pre WWII years they mainly produced lead ship models, airplanes, trams, trains and figures. Due to shortage of lead in the WWII era (needed for the weapons industry) PILOT switched to using zinc. In the early 1950's PILOT started to make plastic models (using WIKING molds and adapting them) in 1/87 scale. Henning Cortsen and WIKING founder Friedrich Peltzer were close friends and both companies interchanged molds regularly. In the early 1950's LEGO used to be the distributor for PILOT. The quality of the plastic used by PILOT was poor and often causes a distortion of the bodies. The early production cars had missing colored wheels and later silver colored wheels were applied. In the early years they produced a Split Window Beetle, marked PILOT as well as an unmarked version, In the mid 1950's, the Oval Window Beetle was introduced.
The production of these 1/87 scale plastic models stopped in the early 1960s, around that time both WIKING and LEGO had surpassed PILOT in terms of quality, detail and actuality. In 1974 the PILOT company was closed down after the death of Henning Cortsen.
The Oval Window VW features a plastic body with solid windows and good details of front and rear hood, door seams and rear oval window with air louvers. Chassis molded in silver plastic with bumpers, metal wheels and chassis marked PILOT. This is a copy and modification of the WIKING Oval VW model 1954.
