1959scudetto

Burago made the models for the "Le Grandi Ferrari" series - among them a 1961 SWB, painted dark mtallic blue, mislabelled as a 1959. For a short time they had it also in their normal range - in red. It was turned into 2845 GT, the 3rd place car in the 1961 Tour de France d'Automobile, driven by Maurice Trintignant - a logical choice: right color and driven with its bumpers front and rear : it looked very toylike, so I replaced the clumsy windshield wipers, spraypainted the chrome wheels and fuel filler cap silver and applied decals from Patto's Place and my spares (partially reworked). The interior was cpmpletely repainted. This car was the only one sporting 2 ventilation flaps in the front fenders, in front of the doors. I tried to rescribe these and marked them with a black pen.

Thanks, Larry !

I don't know yet - I have 3 resin bodies (330 LMB/250GTO from UMi, 1964 GTO from Mini Exotics, 250 SWB Sperimentale from Tecnomodel) and the Carrera slotcarbody for the 250 SWB Breadvan) - all of these will be built curbside, and with this California Spider I can save one of my 250 GTO's for another project.

Looks very good - what wipers did you use?

Thank you all for the kind words, guys - but I think I have started this topic in the wrong thread - it is a reworked die-cast and not a plastic kit...

Thank you all - it was a break from the (back then) permanent building of trucks and stock versions of street cars.

Very nice, Eric - the whitewalls give it a bit of luxurious look - I like the color and the inline 6.

You're welcome, Gary. You are right, the engine is completely behind the drive axle, which gives good traction, but possibly make handling a bit nervous. The Alpine A 110 has the engine also very far back, but the Abarth is the most extreme exemple.

Thank you Gary, in most cases you can achieve quick results, too.

Excellent model, Bill - which wheels did you use for this ? Tamiya Morgan or Jaguar Mk II? This is the definite "Bondmobile" !

I snapped a fine DM 1958 TR 250 - only missing its windshield (again) - on ebay for $ 9,99 + postage ! I turned it into the black one with the red nose (as my Hasegawa kit). As I want to build the Hasegawa kit in another version, I used its decals for this one. Unfortunately, it could not be disassembled, because of a defect base plate screw, so I masked the nose, the lights, the underside and the interior and sprayed semigloss black directly from the can onto the body. After drying, I polished the paint and achieved a used/abused, race-worn look with several imperfections - on some places even the red shines through - back in those days, race cars simply received an overspray in another color - high-gloss paints can only be seen in today's auctions of over-restored high-prized examples, but speed and durability won races, not paintwork. The windshield was replaced with clear sheet, the spoke wheels got my usual treatment: disassembling, directly overspray with aluminium silver from the can, a black wash afterwards. With a little dark gray dust from pastel chalks it was turned into an old warhorse showing its scars and dents – an ex-works car, painted over in black, a few years after its prime time: and together with its cousin, the works-car from Sebring 12 hrs. 1958:

Last additions to my stash: Revell Jaguar XKSS (2nd edition) from an Austrian ebayer (have the 1st edition for decades) and Italeri California Spider SWB (body missing) from a German ebayer - needed this to complete one of my resin bodies.

The same goes for the EM Lancia Stratos kit: box stock with rally decals (Chardonnet in my case) - I wanted to apply these decals onto a Hasegawa rally Stratos and found out, that Fujimi's body is much wider than Hasegawa's: I had to trim the decals and had big troubles placing them on the Hasegawa body.

Very nice build of an iconic car , Thomas !

Once again - excellent build, Mario ! the slightly curved side trim is not really an issue for me - I wouldn't have reworked it either - but your color combination is very tasteful and fitting for this one.

Beautiful build, Sonny - this color gives me an inspiration for my future build - I try to avoid the ever-present red on Ferraris as much as possible. I would be happy to have this in my collection!

Mario, this is the best looking Blitz that I have ever seen !

Very nice one, Gary - the first pic looks almost real - your wheel choice suits it well ! I have the same (?) kit from Tilt/Maruii with a shallow interior (battery case !).

Excellent model, Steven - this is the 1951 Alfetta tipo 159 (it has the double exhaust pipe and a still larger fuel tank behind the driver than the 158 from the year before)

Very impressive, Brian ! Looks much better than mine with those ugly fenders: I will omit them when reworking mine. Though more than 35 years ago, I remember fitting issues with the butterfly hood/fender combination, shortening the front axle is also a thing that I will do in the future.

Thank you all for the nice comments, guys - very appreciated !

Thank you all for the comments, guys - these 2 are my favorites of the newer Ferrari "Supercars" and I happened to find a red color that comes close to the originals. (I have Tamiya's F50 and the Enzo in my stash also, but don't like them)

Thanks, Patrick!

If you want to turn it into a more realistic model, here are some pics of the original (might be helpful with detailing) - the model represents the first version from 1968, in 1969 the works cars sported often full width rear spoilers, several cars were sold to privateers who mounted often various tabs and fins, for 1970 the nose was altered and the engine cover partially cut away to save more weight: Now some photos of restored cars from recent years:

Few years ago I acquired a Politoys Abarth 2000 prototype in a fair condition: roll-bar, side windows and windshield wiper missing, some severe paint-chips, persistent residue from ugly stickers. But the car looked good, it has indeed a very short wheelbase and therefore very successful in hillclimbs on twisty mountain roads (2 ltr- 4 cyl. engine, 250 hp, gross eight ca. 575 kgs = about 1300 lbs.). This is how it looked initially: First, the model was cleaned, then the stickers were removed (hard work !) and finally the remaining glue residue was removed by using mineral spirits/petrol. Then it looked like this: As I wanted it to look like a typical period racer, I fabricated 2 headlight bezels with 4 lenses from the spare box (the model is missing front lights - this was supposed to be a toy), made 2 side windows from clear acetate, bent a rollbar from insulated wire, applied a wiper from my '64 GTO and several decals after repainting the whole body as well as some detail painting on the engine/exhaust and interior - here it is as it looks now: Of course, the license plate had to be altered - Abarth was situated in Torino and not in Milano, side indicators came from the truck spares. Even if some details are wrong (side windows too short, rollbar too thick, wip0er should be of the parallelogram type) it was a rewarding work - I recommend this model to all fans of '60s sports racers !