Brumm

Veteran collector and U.S. importer David Sinclair reports that Brumm was started in 1972 by Reno Tattarletti of the family concern that started RIO Models (other sources say it was a brother-in-law of the Tattarlettis). Rio Models, in turn, had earlier begat Dugu Miniautotoys to produce models for the Turin auto museum.

The new company was formed with the help of a couple of associates who had already been making miniature horse-drawn carriages. Brumm thus started producing miniature vehicles in Oltrona di San Mamette about seven miles from where RIO was located in Cernobbio. Oddly, neither the RIO nor the Dugu connection is discussed in the company history on the official Brumm website.

The name Brumm was derived from the Italian for 'Brougham'. As quoted from Brumm's official 1995 catalog, with a silly dark drama partly arising from a sloppy translation of Italian into English – "It was a dark and stormy night...a dense fog screen wound the city of Milan. Nobody dared get out of the house, and in the desert[ed] streets you only heard the squeaking of a black carriage – the Brumm [of] Milan".