Starter 1/43rd resin kit with brass parts.
After the basic clean-up of the body I bent and attached the brass front spoilers.
The mold was worn so a lot of work was required to clean out little chunks of resin from the recesses and all the panel lines needed to be scribed in. As it turns out, the body is very thin around the cockpit area so that is probably why the panel lines were so light. I went all the way through in several places and had to patch them up.
The rear wing is built up from brass PE.
I went with TS-26 Pure White as the base color straight from the can.
The wheel outers are brass, but they were tarnished and pitted a little bit so I hit them with some steel wool on the lathe. The fronts might have had some sort of blackening treatment on them and did not clean up as well as the rears. (The one in the foreground is the way they came in the kit.)
Not a big issue since they should be aluminum colored. I primed them and then shot them with Tamiya Sparkling Silver.
The brass PE spokes were shot with a black/gray.
The interior is two pieces with two decals; none of which actually fit properly. But then it’s barely visible when the car is done…
Looks like a really nice kit Mark.
Thanks John. These often aren’t the most accurate kits, but they capture the cars pretty well.
I did a little detail painting before applying the main graphic decals.
When it came to the smaller decals I noticed they were severely out of register. As much as 50% of their size out of registration, or 1/8th of an inch. Not hitting the white with the colors wasn’t too big of a deal on a white car, but the colors being off that much made them unrecognizable. The black numbers and sponsors missed the clear by as much as 20% so they’d disintegrate as soon as they got wet. They were sloppily printed with rough edges so it’s just as well.
I drew and printed new ones along with the other unusable sponsor decals. I made new driver names for the same reasons and that they were way too big to fit where they should.
I was able to use the Toyota’s, the bold iconic side graphics, the two decals above the headlights and the Goodyear’s on the wing from the kit; the rest are mine.
I thought the kit was missing two of the four headlights based on the way the body is molded. Of course it was easy to find a matching pair in my spare parts because it turns out the real car only had two head lights despite the depressions for four lights.
The clear coat is on and the windows have been installed. For a detailed look at how the windows were fitted and installed check out this article:
https://finescale.com/how-to/2023/01/how-to-fit-vacuum-formed-clear-parts-to-a-model-car
Looking really nice mark. Great article - I like the scale look of vacuformed glass and canopys but its been hit or miss for me. Good tips in your article.
Thanks John! A lot of the end result depends on the parts. And yes, that can be hit or miss for sure.
Finished
