A moving passion
October 12, 2002 | 12:00am
Martin Lopez is one busy man. He is an operations manager for C-Cubed, one of the nation‘s largest customer call centers located in eastwood Libis. He is also the director for SinagTala, an arts management company that promotes the best of Filipino artistry.
When he is not juggling work with arts promotion, the 27-year-old devotes his time to one of his other passions  collecting scaled cars!
Martin is a scaled collector of cars and other wheeled vehicles. Static models are scaled versions of cars, planes, jeeps, motorcycles and other forms of transportation ranging in size from six inches to one foot. In addition to a growing collection of nearly a hundred scaled models of commercial aircraft, he also owns no less than 550 pieces of sleek, shiny and miniaturized cars which include just about every automobile manufacturer since the industry began over a hundred years ago. His cars are further classified by genre: vintage, luxury, sports, race, recreational, military, service vehicles and prototypes.
"The first half of my collection came as gifts from relatives and their friends. I cannot remember when I made the conscious effort to collect. I do remember that early in my childhood I was already taught the value of money and that I could not have everything I wanted. I had to save whatever money was given to me and then make choices as to how to spend it. Of course I wanted to buy cars but would have to choose which ones as I could not afford to have them all. Slowly, my collection started to grow. Since then, I haven’t stopped collecting," Martin shares.
On a recent trip to Singapore, he purchased at least dozen new cars under the premise of giving them as gifts. Martin ended up keeping half! The other half he gave to his eight-year-old cousin Michael who is also a car aficionado and who has probably the same number of vehicles in his collection. Clearly, the two Lopez cousins haven’t had enough of their collection which includes among others Mercedes Benz, BMW, Bentley, Cadillac, Detomaso, Rolls Royce, Ford, Porsche, Fiat, Jaguar, Volkswagen and Audi.
Martin’s scaled car collection is on exhibit at the Motorshow International 2002 until Oct. 6 at the World Trade Center along Roxas Blvd., Pasay City. Motorshow, organized by the Philippine Exhibits and Themeparks Corp. (PETCO), is the country’s biggest and longest-running auto and cycle show that will gather major car manufacturers, dealers, automotive parts and car care accessories producers.
"It’s the thrill and enjoyment of seeing my collection grow. Every particular piece has its own memory. Hence they are all special," he ends.
When he is not juggling work with arts promotion, the 27-year-old devotes his time to one of his other passions  collecting scaled cars!
Martin is a scaled collector of cars and other wheeled vehicles. Static models are scaled versions of cars, planes, jeeps, motorcycles and other forms of transportation ranging in size from six inches to one foot. In addition to a growing collection of nearly a hundred scaled models of commercial aircraft, he also owns no less than 550 pieces of sleek, shiny and miniaturized cars which include just about every automobile manufacturer since the industry began over a hundred years ago. His cars are further classified by genre: vintage, luxury, sports, race, recreational, military, service vehicles and prototypes.
"The first half of my collection came as gifts from relatives and their friends. I cannot remember when I made the conscious effort to collect. I do remember that early in my childhood I was already taught the value of money and that I could not have everything I wanted. I had to save whatever money was given to me and then make choices as to how to spend it. Of course I wanted to buy cars but would have to choose which ones as I could not afford to have them all. Slowly, my collection started to grow. Since then, I haven’t stopped collecting," Martin shares.
On a recent trip to Singapore, he purchased at least dozen new cars under the premise of giving them as gifts. Martin ended up keeping half! The other half he gave to his eight-year-old cousin Michael who is also a car aficionado and who has probably the same number of vehicles in his collection. Clearly, the two Lopez cousins haven’t had enough of their collection which includes among others Mercedes Benz, BMW, Bentley, Cadillac, Detomaso, Rolls Royce, Ford, Porsche, Fiat, Jaguar, Volkswagen and Audi.
Martin’s scaled car collection is on exhibit at the Motorshow International 2002 until Oct. 6 at the World Trade Center along Roxas Blvd., Pasay City. Motorshow, organized by the Philippine Exhibits and Themeparks Corp. (PETCO), is the country’s biggest and longest-running auto and cycle show that will gather major car manufacturers, dealers, automotive parts and car care accessories producers.
"It’s the thrill and enjoyment of seeing my collection grow. Every particular piece has its own memory. Hence they are all special," he ends.
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