1959scudetto

Not necessarily a model car item, but nevertheless very helpful and : I've been waiting for almost 2 years for the release of this book which always seems to have been postponed a few months more (finally brought today by the postman):

Thanks, Carl !

Thanks, David !

Matt, this is another one to follow - I'm sure this is going to be a great model - in spite of its simplicity.

My favorite Ferrari ever...

Simple out-of-the-box build (about 40 yrs. ago) - 1983/84 built amt Mercury , bare metal foil added about 20 yrs. ago: My first time Auto-lacquer spray-paint:

A little bit of self-motivation in-between...

First class modeling, Rich - these sleek machines look so much better than today's F1 monsters. It's a shame, however, that a lot of these fine details disappear under the cowl.

Maybe that I've exaggerated a bit, but I didn't like the way the kit wheels were made (if you scroll up a bit, you may or may not see it). Moreover, they had no tread. Anyway, here is how they look now (some tread and different depth front and rear, not only diameter): Spinners are still missing, and a little drybrushing with Humbrol matt white enamel is still needed.

After a 10-day break, I finally found some time to return to the bench: first I carried on with the wheels (already tired of puttying and sanding and puttying and sanding...) First, I glued the 5-point-star centers into the narrowed amt-rims. Then they were primered and shot with red from the can - I decided to use Tamiya TS 49 bright red (will also beused for the body): Here is how the wheel inserts look now (they will get silver spinners and inserted into the aluminium wheels) - before painting I masked the outer diameter and glued them with reversed painters tape onto a piece of cardboard:

Very nice build and a fine collection of WRC rally cars -hard to believe that this is about 25 years ago....

Motobitz' E-type wheels look great - but unfortunately wheels and tires are printed as ONE piece:

Jason, these seats are superb looking !

Very nice and clean build as usual, Anders - showroom quality !

Mighty impressive model, Matt - especially considering the fact that the basis was a 60-year old white-metal kit !!!

Charles, this is unbelievable - I don't know what I should say without repeating myself over and over again. But each time I think Charles cannot top this one, you raise the bar a little bit higher with your incredibly real-looking dioramas!

Pierre, I knew that you would not leave that body untouched! To me, it first looked like it had undergone a top-chop. But now - with your roof alterations - it looks quite ok to me. Are you going to you use again Jason's outlaced spoke wheels?

Superb model, Marcos - as good as it gets. Highly detailed kit done with even more (aftermarket) details - wow! (Professional photography, too)

Simply fantastic - this is one of the most beautiful racecars ever, driven by my favorite, the great Jim Clark. Though deadly dangerous unfortunately, the racing cars of the 60's are the best looking ever (in my opinion) and required a special, highly skilled generation of drivers.

Great looking Toyota - the decal issues go unnoticed if you hadn't told us about. Those Hasegawa group C racers are impressive curbside models!

Excellent build - very impressive !

On to the next problem: the wheels: after finding out that they must have 5 spokes, I decided to do something with the original kit rims and the aluminium slotcar wheels. First step was punching out the spokes with sharp wood-carving tools of my father-in-law: result: 2 successes - two failures. So I cut out 5-point-stars from thin styrene sheet and glued the "spoke puzzle" roughly back on them. after bringing them into the right shape, they will be glued to plastic rim inserts as their diameter is too small to put them directly into the aluminium rims. I found some old amt leftover parts that were of a too large diameter to be put into the rims. As I have no lathe (that would not have been of use anyway, because neither material was thick enough) I simply cut about 2 mm off the circumference of the plastic rim, glued the ends together with liquid glue and inserted them into the metal rims to keep them in position - voilà, worked perfectly. You will hardly notice the cut - at least not after filling and painting. Here is a quick mock-up : 2 spinners could be saved, the others will be taken from a Fujimi GT40 kit.

Interesting cars to look at, Rich: the main object here is looking very tail-heavy - no wonder that is has not been raced at all: the (Tamiya) Nissan R 380 looks much more purposeful (kind of "Japanese Chaparral"), the R380 6 cyl. looks like a 906 clone, whereas the R383 Grp.7 racer shares resemblance with Ferrari 312 P, the 713 P CanAm or partially the McLaren M8A (at least from the front up to the roll-bar) - nice collection!

This was my favorite Matchbox model, together with the Ferrari Berlinetta Lusso - I had both in 1966 as a kid.

Sorry, Pierre - about 30 years ago I cut up this LM - wanted to turn it into a 250/275 P, but then Monogram reissued their old 275 P kit, so it was obsolete and I used several parts for other kits (have two further 250 LM in my stash, though), most remaining parts will find its way into Tamiya's 275 P2 slotbody kit (with wheels from Jason). I definitely will build something OOB next time !