Tamiya Ferrari F40 Competizione

[jaymcminn]

The Ferrari F40 isn't just my favorite car in the world... it's possibly my favorite thing in the world. It's just so mean-looking and beautiful at the same time. I recently bought the F40 Competizione kit from Tamiya and spent a lot of time trying to decide how I wanted to build it. The kit comes with excellent Cartograf decals for the MonteShell livery in white, yellow and red, but I've never been crazy about that livery. I was playing around with phantom Gulf livery but eventually decided to go with plain, bright white- as if the car was delivered from the factory ready for the customer to paint it.

The Tamiya kit, of course, is beautifully detailed- when it was reissued a few years back as the Competizione version they modified the body and added new wheels and tires as well as many racing-specific parts and a photoetched fret with the rear grille mesh and intercooler/oil cooler faces. One thing I decided to do was to open the side gills on the engine cover to install fine mesh. I drilled out the plastic and then finished the openings with riffler files.

One of the things I love about Tamiya is their tendency to mold complex assemblies as a single part- case in point is the rear driveshaft-spring-spindle unit. The plus of this philosophy is that the lower parts count tends to improve parts fit- the downside is that the paint detailing gets a bit tricky!

I painted the driver's seat with "Make It Suede" paint, then went over that with Tamiya flat red. I masked the rear portion of the seat off and used Matt Bacon's carbon-fiber technique to finish that. A Detail Master 5-point harness finished off the seat assembly.

[jaymcminn]

The engine was a really straightforward build- I used the same technique on the valve covers as the seat to represent the red crackle finish. Paint detailing in various metal finishes really made the engine pop. The heat shield and intercooler faces were on the kit PE fret.

for the engine bay heat-shield, I used a product called "Wilton Fancy Foil"- you can find it in the cake-decorating section at Michael's. It's thin textured paper-backed aluminum foil- kind of like cigarette foil, but you get a whole roll for about five bucks with your 40% off coupon!

Here's the rear subframe attached to the engine...

The wheels are beautiful Speedline wheels with separate hubs. I sprayed the hubs with Rustoleum chrome and coated them with clear red to represent anodized aluminum.

The brakes have photoetched faces and look amazing with a little detail paint...

[Miatatom]

Jason, that's beautiful work you are doing. I'm anxious to see the finished product. Maybe I'll be this skilled in time.

[jaymcminn]

The interior was given the carbon-fiber paint treatment, and the dash and center console painted flat grey. The dash decals really look great. I probably should have removed the rails for the passenger seat, though! The red steering wheel adds a little extra color and compliments the driver's seat really well.

Ready for the body...

And here's the finished product!

[jaymcminn]

Here are a few more...

I used carbon fiber decals for the front spoiler and rear wing. I limited the kit decals to the Ferrari decals and safety decals. I just noticed that I lost one of the Speedline decals from the wheels (aargh!).

[jaymcminn]

Aaand a few more... I couldn't resist a few shots with "big brother"...

This was a blast to build- it's been a while since I've tackled a Tamiya kit, and this just makes me want to tear into that CLK-GTR that I've had sitting around for a decade or so! The hardest part of this build was the photography- it's not easy to get good detail pictures of a white car.

[cobraman]

You did a great job with that kit.

[Jon Cole]

NICE! And while I love a red Ferrari, the change of pace is a plus!

[MyBradKeselowski]

Outstanding ! ! !

[Tonioseven]

This is one of my favorite cars of all-time! You've done a magnificent job on it!!

[Helix]

Have to agree, the F40 is the nicest looking Ferrari

Great job mate, well done!

[modelmike]

I like it.... mine is still waiting in the wings till i get all the custom parts in....

[phil-east]

superb build, it looks great in white, good work.

[jaymcminn]

Wonderful work Jay! I think you made the right choice, going with white, it make's everything else stand out that much more. I have the stock F40 kit & I'll get around to building it 1 day.... Soon hopefully ;-)

Cheers Dan

You could do a replica of Chris Evans' F40- white with a blue interior...

[stevehansen]

Great job, I like it in white

[baumi94]

Awesome build, i like the color and it is all about speed, it's not flashy it's a car for driving, i love the F40.

[sjordan2]

Beautiful, beautiful work on both Ferraris. That's the best example of Make It Suede that I've seen yet, and makes me think that's a better solution for making wool headliners, etc., than other approaches.

[jaymcminn]

Beautiful, beautiful work on both Ferraris. That's the best example of Make It Suede that I've seen yet, and makes me think that's a better solution for making wool headliners, etc., than other approaches.

It's my go-to for any sort of Alcantara/suede application these days. The trick is to overcoat it with a good dead-flat paint, such as the Tamiya. Thanks!