BDA Escort - Australian Rally Scene

[Davoski]

Hi,

This is a diorama showing a well known Australian car and Driver from the early 1980's. The Driver - Bruce Garland - is an Australian Motorsport icon and I have built this replica as a belated 60th birthday gift. 

    

I ordered the new Italeri kit knowing that I would have to change the wheels from the Minilites to the "Kidney Bean" design, but I did not realise how much additional work there would prove to be. I was a bit disappointed when the kit arrived and I found that it was Left Hand Drive and set with very low suspension height and that there were no Driving Light covers despite being shown on the box art. I then sourced and ordered wheels and lights from the US, tyres from Spain, harness belts from somewhere else and used some figures from my stock.

I began by converting the dashboard to RHD which was not as hard as I thought:

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2018 by Davoski

[Davoski]

For this project to have context I was determined that it include Driver and Co-driver figures and I had some Tamiya figures which I thought would be ideal:

But were way out of scale when compared to a Fujimi figure (more like 1/35 scale):

So, I decided to go with the Fujimi figures, luckily I had some in stock:

Lots of cutting and filling of arms and legs to get the right poses:

At this point I found that the drivers elbow would not fit in the car so I re-arranged his grip and got a more realistic result as well as a better fit:

I then dulled down the clothing, added the rollcage and 4 point harnesess. The cage has black heatshrink tubing to replicate padding. Assembling the seat belt hardware is not for the faint hearted.

 

[Davoski]

I was a bit intimidated by the paint and decals for this project but you have to have a crack at this stuff, don't you?

Paint was Tamiya TS-21 Gold and it went on perfectly:

However, it did show up some flaws in the casting. I have no concept of how to fix these so I will leave them and hope to disguise them with weathering effects later.

I then used a marker pen for the window surrounds:

Some Internet searching lead me to the logos for the sponsor stickers which I then redrew in CorelDRAW and laser printed onto waterslide decal paper:

 

[Davoski]

While I was wondering how to reset the suspension height of the car, I decided to start on the base of the diorama.

I wanted to show the BDA in it's natural environment: full throttle, 8000rpm, 3rd gear opposite lock powerslide in the forest!

First layout of the foam pieces:

A bit of reshaping and texturing:

First colours:

And some texture i.e. sand and stuff:

Sticks and stones:

Yep, seems to work fine:

I then worked out how to add grass using bristles cut from brushes, even better now:

 

 

Edited December 4, 2018 by Davoski

[Davoski]

OK, now the hard part. I need the Model car to have the same "stance" as the original car. BDA Escorts are known for there rear squat and tendency to lift an inside front wheel during hard cornering:

As mentioned previously the kit is of a tarmac spec car with very low suspension while gravel spec cars sit 4-5 inches higher (e.g.4-5 scale millimeters).

This how the parts look standard although I have lengthened the silly axle pin things to widen the track to suit the new wheels.

These things work against aligning the wheels correctly, so I used a jig to square them up:

You can see here that I have filed of the lowering blocks from the rear leaf springs. I have also added a sleeve to the front strut tops so I can raise the front.

The front ride height was a greater problem. I wanted the wheels turned for opposite lock but the model is only a model and has no Lower Control Arms and the stub axle length is way too long. The result is that as the wheel is turned it moves massively forward or backward in the wheel arch, looking very wrong. I needed to space the crossmember a few millimeters away from the body as well to set the ride height. I was therefore forced to commit the crime of twisting the crossmember to position the wheels correctly. Fortunately the sumpguard covers up the dastardly deed. But for the Court's consideration, here is the evidence:

And this is what I ended up with:

Edited December 4, 2018 by Davoski

[Davoski]

And so to the finished article. I hope you like it.

There is also a more detailed Work In Progress Post on my FaceBook page here

Thanks for looking, let me know what you think

 

Davoski

 

 

Edited December 4, 2018 by Davoski

[ChrisR]

Looks great!!

[Darbo]

Looks great!

[afx]

Very nice David.

[Anglia105E]

David from Australia....... Brilliant work going on here with this BDA Ford Escort, and I really like what you have achieved with the two figures and the seat belt harness setup. Also, the diorama base sets off your nicely done build of this kit. Your attention to detail is excellent and you must be well pleased with the overall result. Myself, I particularly like the position of the driver's hands on the steering wheel, and also the way the navigator (co-driver) is holding the pace notes and looking slightly to one side at the driver. Interesting choice of subject David, and the Italeri kit is a bit of a challenge in some areas..... well done indeed!

David from England

[olsbooks]

Great job.  Very resourceful, clever, and original.  Keep it up.

Peace

[Gramps46]

Very well done all the way around, car, figures, and scene.

[89AKurt]

Very cool, love the subject of rally, plus nice job on the diorama base!  If we could only simulate the dust rooster tail!

[Davoski]

On 12/6/2018 at 2:49 AM, 89AKurt said:

Very cool, love the subject of rally, plus nice job on the diorama base!  If we could only simulate the dust rooster tail!

Yeah, I was keen to do the dust but could not work it out. I tried different types of cotton wool and could possibly have gotten the shapes right but not the colour. I tried airbrushing but that only coloured the surface and not the interior of the cloud. I thought about dying the cotton but I reckon it would just turn into a felty mess. Maybe I will try some sort of synthetic wool sometime. After much searching these are the only examples I could find that looked realistic. Three in the whole internet?

So if anyone has the answer I would love to know what it is. 

[MeatMan]

Awesome build and display!

[NYLIBUD]

Looks great.

[Mattilacken]

Sorry to bring this old one up again but great work on everything there! Did you manage to find a way for the dust since you posted this?

[Paul Payne]

Go to a yarn shop and ask for roving- it's used for stuffing needle felting projects.

[Davoski]

Thanks for the comments. 🙂

There was no progress on the dust effect as the finished diorama was presented to the the subject for his private display, but thanks for the suggestion, Paul.