1977 Japan GP Imperial Lotus 78 MkIII

[Scale-Master]

I have been intending to build this car for decades and decided to just do it after agreeing to build this kit at the same time as a friend who is building the Tamiya kit (as the JPS).

The decals and templates are from an IPMS Convention magazine (1994 at Omaha).

The first thing I did was replace the rear wing end plates since they are slightly larger and a different shape from the Andretti JPS car. They were scratched from sheet plastic. The black one is the kit JPS part. I made the mounting tabs longer for ease of holding them for painting.

The front wings were molded to the tub and were unevenly warped on my kit; (think lots of dihedral). I cut them off and set them up with pins for reassembly. This will be an added benefit for executing the two tone scheme too.

The skirts molded to the side pod outer panels were also modified for this version. You can see the difference between the virgin bagged part and the modified one. The skirt is shorter and the pod has a radius on the front bottom.

The roll bar was modified to be taller since Nilsson was taller than Andretti.

Those should be the only parts modifications needed and the rest of the building, except for the body color and decal changes, should be essentially the same as the JPS version…

[Scale-Master]

Yes it is 1/20th, but not the Tamiya, is it's the Academy copy.

[Scale-Master]

The engine parts were painted prior to assembly. The FORD lettering on the cam covers was molded pretty weakly on this Academy knock off of the Tamiya kit, but I tried to do what I could with it... The kit provides spark plug wires, I added a wire for the coil (not sure why they don’t include that) and I added the injector lines made from monofilament line.

[Scale-Master]

The trans and engine are almost done. It has a few fit/alignment issues that I suspect are not present in the Tamiya counterpart this kit was copied from.

The body has its base color coats, TS-8 Italian Red and TS-11 Maroon.

[Scale-Master]

Thoughts?

I don't know how close to the real car the color is, I don’t know anyone who has seen the real car in person, or can provide substantive proof of what the color truly was. I have seen photos of the car in sun and overcast lighting. Two completely different looks to both colors. The guide I am using was made before we had the Tamiya paints, it specifies to use Testors 1104 red over Testors MM Guards Red. I have been looking at everything I could find and decided the actual color is now subjective since there is so little info about the real car. I did shoot the Maroon over the red to warm it up a bit. Written descriptions describe the darker color as Maroon too, but again, how subjective is that? I am comfortable with the way it is, but build yours to your comfort level.

They copied some of the motorized “features†on the Academy version like the single AA battery box and part of the power switch in the chassis. It says it can be motorized on the box, but there is no motor, gears or provisions to make it motorized.

Another note, the plastic is very brittle. Many parts break trimming them from the sprue, more break during clean up, and a couple were broken on the sprue. The slightest bend and the plastic snaps.

[Scale-Master]

The decals have been applied; BMF was used for the fillers. The detail engraving is very weak so I decided to foil them prior to clear coating.

The wheels and tires are done… The tire lettering was “soft†so I opted to make decals instead of hand painting them.

The bottom of the chassis/body…

[Scale-Master]

Making steady progress…

[Helipilot16]

Magnificent!! I love these kits. You build is very impressive.