Manuel Olivé Sans was born in Barcelona the 9th of November 1924. His professional life as a model-maker started at the beginning of the 40’s making trains, following his father tradition. He made his first automobile in 1945, while he was complying with his compulsory military service.

It was “a model born out of my imagination, as I didn’t think of copying from any existing model”, as the artist said. This was the first of a series which really started in 1948, when the president of the Royal Automobile Club of Catalunya at that time proposed him to make a complete collection of 40 automobiles at a 1/20 scale.

Between 1950 and 1964 he made approximately 300 pieces at a scale of 1/20, among then were automobiles, lorries and motorbikes for Spanish and foreign companies and collectors. During those years he also wrote a big number of articles for specialized magazines throughout the world.

From 1960 onwards he started to make models at a 1/12 scale, a lot of them were prize winning pieces at the most prestigious international exhibitions.

In 1986 he made his last qualitative step when he started to make his models at a 1/10 scale, with which he reached an absolute perfection. They are 8 outstanding models with more than 6000 pieces which reach an uncommon degree of detail. At the same time, the accuracy in the reproduction of pieces and forms is unrivalled.

He died the 27th of April 1995 after a long illness and leaves a legacy of more than 300 pieces. Manuel Olivé is considered the most perfect maker of automobile models in the world.