My first article will be about scale. Grand Champions come in four different sizes: classic, mini, micro mini, and the larger Sound 'n' Action horses. This is in keeping with the sizing Breyer created for their line of models, however, as we will see, GC's tended to make theirs larger and sturdier. This may be due to marketing to younger age groups, or decisions made during the molding phase. Grand Champions also never made any models at the intermediate "Paddock Pal" size.
They did like to reuse their molds at different scales, as you can see in the above picture. The "show stance" stallion was seen in the micro mini, mini and classic sizes. The Sound 'n' Action set were all of the same mold (even though prototypes with a curved foreleg were shown in catalog photos), and were unique to their scale. Other molds that traversed the scales were the original stallion, trotting mare, and gaited mare. It was a shame that the original foal and running foal molds didn't make it into the mini scale (instead we got the horrific Polly Pocket-type horse as shown in the photo below), because they would have been very collectable!
The smallest scale of Grand Champions are the micro minis. They are slightly bigger than Breyer's Mini Whinnies at 1/64 scale, as seen below.
Maybe because of this, they were slightly less likely to get lost!
The next largest scale was the Minis, comparable to Breyer's Stablemates. The size difference is even more noticeable at this scale. Maybe they were going for bigger is better?
The next largest scale was the Minis, comparable to Breyer's Stablemates. The size difference is even more noticeable at this scale. Maybe they were going for bigger is better?
Our next article, Scale Part 2, will take a look at the classic and SNA scales, so check back soon!