1959scudetto

Now to the last one of the trio that is represented on the decal sheet: not a works car, but a private entrant from Guatemala: David Cerezo, who plunged off a bridge and totaled his car: My model will show of course the car at the start of the race. As there are no color photos to be found, I will try to mimick approximately the color drawing from a Alfa Romeo club mag from the Netherlands: Some decals will get a paint treatment, and the body will be sprayed with Tamiya's gun metal, clear blue and smoke - stay tuned !

As this is one of my all-time favorite cars, I will definitely follow this WIP (I have 5 in my stash, and also the Scale Production transkit)

Steve, I think you are your worst own critic about your work - I've just looked over your WIP (I seldom do this on trucks), but your paint work is as good as it gets. These few tiny blemishes come along with almost every masking job and you will (have) certainly correct it. The finished model will be awesome !

Despite all the obstacles: Keep on thinking positive, Mark - You've almost done it.

So we will see it within the next days in the Under Glass section ?

As I am a rather lazy guy, I tried painting the next one without totally disassembling and removing the paint. Because of the fixation of the clear plastic windows with 6 rivets on the underside of the roof, it was necessary to drill them up which resulted in partially breaking the brittle plastic. The windows had to be reglued with 5 min. epoxy on the first model. This time I cautiously removed the door handles, the hood and trunk ornaments and covered the remaining chrome parts (grille, lights) with bare-metal foil. The windows were also sealed on the outside with electrical duct tape which leaves no residue. Everything worked well - I sprayed Tamiya royal light grey directly from the can onto the painted body (no primer, no preparation of any sort) - voilà: Bruno Bonini's works car which DNFed after a flat tire damaged the suspension - here in pre-race condition. I also had to modify the exhaust pipes and the wheel hubs to look more realistic (this will also be executed with the brown Alfa). A little bit of dust was only applied onto the tire treads this time.

Looks good - which color did you use (I have the 1971 Pink Pig in my stash...)

Very nice model of this brutal machine, Thomas !

Dashboard looks excellent !

Will follow your WIP with interest - I built mine 35 years ago simply out of the box - had to restore it last year.

Now the next one on your starting grid, Rich - again well built and painted as we are used from you.

You seem to be on a roll with your McLarens, Rich. Looks great, too. Would you say the Tamiya or the Meng is the better kit in direct comparison?

Thanks, Pierre. I see what you mean: Rear door lines are a bit shallow, espoecially on the left side (see the pictures of the original model on the very beginning). Right now I noticed that the drip rail (rain guard ?) above and around the side windows is totally absent. Maybe I will order some very fine Evergreen strips and try to replicate that afterwards - we will see.

Will be a great model - color tone looks perfect to me.

Looks like a lot of work to prepare alone the wheels... By the way, I have the very same books in my library - good reference material as far as original racing pictures go (on the web you find more easily pics of the refurbished cars like they look today - as I have seen at the Porsche museum: cars look splendid, but there are some deviations in details to the cars as raced back in the day)

There is a die-cast in 1/24 made by Ixo (released in newsstand series in France and Italy, also reboxed by whitebox in Germany) - it can be found in BRG, red and light blue metallic. It is called 1961 Jaguar E, but it is a 1969 series II 2+2 Coupé 4,2. I have the green one:

After the class winner, now on to the 2nd works car on the decal sheet: Bruno Bonini's # 268 light grey car (DNF): It is the right one in the color shot: should be ready till the weekend...

Paint is looking good, Mark - I would leave it like that.

Chris, this is absolute museum quality ! Can't wait to see the next steps.

Thanks, Niko - I applied some dust from pastel chalks onto it in trying to achieve kind of a post-race look.

Looks much better with the lighter orange color, Peter. The other looks like it has darkened over time. The fauxpas could be: the decals on the front lights are upside down...

Thanks, Trevor - the same here: I was also thinking of buying it or not because of its high price back then. But I'm glad I did (a month ago I saw one for sale for € 150,00 + shipping and that is a good price nowadays). Work carefully and with patience, and it will come out fine - no doubt about that!

Well done, Rich - the first picture let me believe to see the 1:1 car.

The first one is done .... The next one will follow soon...

The old Janis Joplin song comes to mind: "Get it while you can" . Unfortunately, we have seen many aftermarket suppliers going out of business - some after a relatively short time. I'm glad that I ordered their "London-Mexico world cup rally 1970" transkit with excellent decals last year ...