Peter Lombardo

Update as of March 12th. First, I am not building a stock representation of this car, but a modified vehicle with a turbo, body mods and a few "tricks" so I will be taking a few "liberty's" with it. The moonroof opening is finished and I have the beginnings of the enlarged wheel openings to allow for a more aggressive look.. Later I will add the lower side skirts between the wheel openings and the front air BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH. This car is a rear drive vehicle, the successor to the car in the 1990's had a transverse mounted engine and front-wheel drive, but this has a longitudinal mounted in-line 4 rear drive car. They also offered a All-wheel Drive version too, but I am doing the rear drive variant. I needed to fabricate an engine block since the only 4 cylinder engines I have laying around are the very old style 4 bangers from the 30's and 40's. As I mentioned before, my son picked up this kit at a garage sale. Along with this, and a few other complete kits (kits I never would buy for myself) he grabbed a few started kits that unfortunately did not have all the pieces. But actually, they have pieces that can be used on other builds, and this is a perfect example of this. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the chassis on this Testors kit is beyond "toy-like" and really is unsuitable. Upon digging through the boxes I came across a seriously molested Tamiya kit of a Mercedes-Benz AMG 500SL. The body was trashed, but the chassis was untouched and still on the spue-tree. I found that with a slight modification to the front and rear, it fits right under the Impulse, even the wheelbase is dead on. One of the great things about this casting is that front fender inner walls are complete and have a very nice representation of the strut housings and all of the paraphernalia commonly found on the inner side walls. It is not an exact copy of the Isuzu chassis, but it is a far cry better than the one in the kit. Next I needed to fabricate a 4 cylinder block, transmission and head. I have 3D printed turbos and intercooler which along with the new induction system will be added to it. In another of the kits I was given, a Mercedes-Benz 500SEC I found a nice V8 and transmission housing. I modified this into a 4 cylinder engine which will be further modified to represent the engine, with turbo and intercooler as seen in a number of the Impulse pictures I found on-line. Things are beginning to fall in line and come together. The "raw" chassis as it comes out of the box.The basic V8 MB engineengine converted into the basic 4 the chassis and engine under the body

I haven't posted anything to the "On the workbench" section because it is just too cumbersome for me to do it, and because I tend to write far too much about what, and why I did what I did, and I know the bulk of you guys don't really care about my thought process anyway. But having said that, I thought this one last time, I would indulge myself and document some of the work I will be doing to this rather "Oddball" subject. As much as I am a "Car Guy", I must admit, Isuzu vehicles were never really on my radar. At a couple of the dealer groups I worked at back in the 70's and 80's we sold Isuzu products, but it was primarily the Trooper (sold as a Honda also) that got the attention. I never paid any real attention to their "car" products. I was, I guess, a snub. Honda's, Toyota's and Nissan's were the Japanese "cars" I paid attention to back then basically dismissing the rest of their car lineup. The Isuzu Impulse was designed back in 1979 by one of Europe's most heralded auto designers of the day, Giorgio Giugiaro of Ital Design. Giorgio designed cars for countless manufactures. Ferrari, Audi, Alfa, Aston Martin, BMW (M1), Lotus (Esprit), VW, Eagle, Subaru (SVX), even the DeLorean of movie fame and hard drugs, to name just a few. He even designed the Nikon F4S camera. He was rather prolific and in high demand back in the day. Google him, if you want to see all the vehicles he designed. Looking at the Impulse, I see a number of other cars he did rather clearly. The Lotus Esprit, the Audi 80, and the Scirocco (especially) and Rabbit come immediately to mind. A few years ago, my son was at a garage sale and he saw, and picked up a few, what I would refer to as "Oddball" kits for pennies. One was a Nissan MID4 kit, and another one of the few kits was this Isuzu. The Nissan kit still has the original retail price sticker from the hobby shop of $21.00 on it. The Isuzu kit has the same sticker and price before I opened the box. As a side note, I went looking for the Isuzu kit on line the other day and found one on eBay with a starting price noted at $75.00. Seems excessive to me for a basic kit with no motor, a very spartan interior, and toy like chassis. But, I must admit, the body does appear very accurate based on the real car pictures I found while doing a bit of research. This kit is sold by Testors, but it was manufactured by Fujimi. And it really does show it's age. If you have built any of the original Tamiya 1/20 F1 cars or some of the 70's 1/24 sports cars, you will be familiar with gears, electric motor and battery box, and ratcheted steering so the front wheels could be set to hold the direction intended. These were designed to be toys to be played with, so attention to the inner details were nonexistent. These cars, for Tamiya, at least, were the fore-runners to their jump into the RC business. In the case of Fujimi, I think they were just "tagging along" with Tamiya. Anyway, the other night, as I am prone to do, I was going through my rather large collection of unbuilt kits, just to see if anything caught my eye that I had forgotten about, and I came across the Isuzu, and thought "Why not"? This is not a type of build I get into so it would be a rather nice change of pace for me. Right off the bat, it became clear to me that I would need to do a rather extensive modification to bring it up to the kind of build I like to attempt. If I don't challenge myself now and again, I get bored. First off, I wanted to open the doors. This being such an old kit, that posed a challenge as the plastic had become rather brittle from age. Because of that, I had to take great care not to "man-handle" the car too much as I was fearful it would crack in all the wrong places. One of the unique features of the styling was the use of what is referred to as "Aircraft Style Doors" Aircraft style doors are identified by the fact that the door has a ridged frame surrounding the window giving the entire door more strength and less wind noise by going up into the roof area. That design feature seriously complicated the task of opening the doors because it forced me to basically destroy the a-pillars. So, because of that, I had to reinforce the new a pillars on the inside with brass rod cemented in to tie the roof to the front cowling securely. I also had to build the inner structure of the B pillar since it was nonexistent once the door was removed because on the model, it is represented by the one piece glass unit that has all the windows on one modeling which will no longer work here. Next I had to open the hood because I wanted to add an engine to the model, especially since my son made me some great 3D printed turbos and intercoolers. The hood on this car is in the style of the old Saab's where the sides extend down the front fender to the accent indented line that runs the length of the car. I made one little exception from the real car here. One the actual car the back of the hood corners butt up to the leading edge of the front door. I am planning on removing that little section, mate it back up to the hood and build the substructure under where it now sits but this will may not happen as the section below the a pillar is necessary as it anchors the brass security rod under the a pillar, we will see.. Since the hood opens from the front, it will be easy enough. Next, I opened up the rear hatch. This also was a real doozy of a job because it forced me to to rip out the c pillars on the car. So I had to construct in inner c pillar structures to mate the roof back to the rear. The entire process of opening everything up forced me to do it in stages so I could get the roof, which was cut free three different times, to remain in the correct position. It was challenging, to say the least. Next, I have marked off the area where a moonroof will be installed. so of the cars I have seen have one, so why not? Also, the headlights have a rather unique little styling feature which I will complete. There are semi-half hoods over the headlights. When the lights are turned on, the hoods open up to allow the entire light to illuminate the road. Here are a few pictures

Beautiful, excellent build of the highest quality. Great job!

Good eye, it is an old Charger roof added. I never cared for the shape of the original roofline.

The custom 1957 Chrysler 300B was built in 1999. House of Kolor Candy Turquoise with ghosted flames. If I were to build this today, I would build it with opening doors and I would have sectioned the body. I have in the planning stages a 1959 Imperial (new box, but based on the old AMT casting without an engine. I have another '57 that is giving up its chassis and engine for the custom Imperial which definitely will be sectioned. I just finished the 1970 Dodge Daytona. Minor work done to it, just opened the doors. Front seats are from a Viper (and yes, I forgot to touch-up the floor of the interior doors below the door jam. Will fix that. Paint is Rust-Oleum 2X Gloss Seaside which is a solid Turquoise. Topped with Tamiya clear mixed with Jacquard Pearl Ex Interference gold pigment then topped that with Tamiya Pearl clear, and then that was topped with Tamiya clear gloss. Wheels and tires are Aoshima Enkel NT03 19' left unpainted as they came from the box.

No, i carved it out of a hard foam block and vacuum formed upper and lower sections, mated them. It is my own design. Powered by a twin turbo Mercedes V8 and it has a modified Mercedes interior and chassis.

Wonderful job of scratch building. Very impressive. I seriously doubt anyone else has it in 1/24th. Sweet.

Three versions of the Viper. The convertible is basically stock painted in Metallic Red with custom white pearl duel stripes. The second version is a custom painted Viper ACR (American Club Racer) version that appeared here a number of years ago. The car has a custom Viper logo on the rear window with the doors opened and hinged. The paint is a variation of custom mixed green and light yellow-green pearl with homemade “scale” decals over the paint to replicate a stylized snake skin. The white pearl duel stripe over the center has a different snakeskin decal over it. The race markings are from a variety of leftovers from other builds. The third version is brand new build. I, through a huge amount of scratch building, converted a Viper ACR into a very close to actual GT3 Viper. Huge changes to the wheel well openings and lower side skirt. The nose was completely rebuilt with a much larger air opening, lower road lights and side winglets, along with scratch build headlights (relocated) and new air outlet vents on the hood to vent upward the hot air exiting from the radiator. The hood was molded into the front clip which was cut “pancake” style. The rear end and rear window were completely redone (rear window skin panel is removable). The interior completely rebuilt with a roll cage and racing seat. New wheels and tires installed, doors opened and hinged. The paint is Krylon colormax in Matte Sea Glass and Gloss True Blue which are very, very close to the actual colors of the Falken race cars, once decaled, covered in Krylon Clear triple glaze clear coat. There is no Viper Falken race car, so this is a “what if” build. They run a Porsche GT3 and a BMW M6 GT3 which both utilize the distinctive blue and green livery’s. I picked up two kits of the BMW Falken car, one to build as the Falken version (in process build picture included here) and one to use aftermarket decals (ordered from Spot Model in Spain) to build a different version (I have 4 M6’s completed now, so soon will have two more). Three Vipers in increasingly more aggressive versions. That’s it.

Wow, very well done and very unique. Different take on a common build.

I have had this kit on the shelf, buried way in the back for many years. A few weeks ago, while moving “stuff” around, I stumbled upon it and figured, why not build it. First I opened up and hinged to two doors. I added minimal wheel opening flares and a ground effect lower side skirt to give the car a little more muscular look. I painted the wheel spokes with Tamiya gold leaf. The car is airbrushed Tamiya Metallic Blue then top coated with Tamiya clear blue, followed with multiple clear coat top layers of Krylon triple-thick clear glaze. The roof was airbrushed a with a couple of coats of Tamiya smoke. The interior is Krylon colormax matte sand dollar spray paint. I added a few of the kit supplied decals primarily of the Ferrari identification markings. That’s it. We are getting crushed with a snow storm here in the northeast today. The view from my workroom window,

Very well done for a kit that is extremely difficult to build I have a built "clone" of your build and I have the passenger door in the open position too. Mine has a mostly black interior with orange trim and I added a wing to the rear deck Great job.

I can't believe you built a Corvette, that's different, not. Looks great to me, wonderful job!

absolutely beautiful, perfect in every detail. The color combo is stunning. Really well executed. It looks like a diecast model.

Beautiful, looks like it could have rolled out of the factory like this.

What can I say? Beautiful? Stunning? magnificent? Perfect? Really very well done and super clean.

Nissan R390 GT1 Try this link https://photos.app.goo.gl/b221iy8Mebb3SsfY8 In 1995 Nissan decided to enter Le Mans with an entirely newly designed car. Nissan connected with TWR (Tom Walkinshaw Racing) from England, the same team that designed and successfully raced the Jaguar XJR-9 winning Le Mans cars. TWR also produced the Jaguar XJR-15 which was designed primarily as a street car. In fact, many of the chassis components were actually pilfered from the Jaguar chassis parts of this car and if you study the body shape you can clearly see the lineage. The new race car was completed and ready for the 1997 Le Mans race. Nissan sent three cars over to France to compete all with the distinctive Black and Red livery. All three cars performed great in pre-race qualifying but cars failed scrutineering at the 1997 event, so they had to be modified in order to be allowed to race. The necessary modifications damaged the cooling air flow around the transmissions so during the actual race two of the three cars began to struggle with gearbox problems and, around halfway through the race, two of the three cars (#21 & #22) finally succumbed to mechanical failure and were withdrawn. The third R390 was able to survive the rest of the race (albeit with two complete gearbox changes along the way) finishing 12th overall and 5th in class, although many laps down from the race winners. My model of this car. I built this car back when the Tamiya kit first came out, I guess about 10 or more years ago. This is basically a straight from the box build except I opened up the front clip section adding carbon fiber detail. The engine bay has relatively accurate plumbing added too. After this rather tepid showing in 1997, Nissan was back for 1998 with basically the same car design, but this time with four cars and all new liveries of various shades of blue and white checkerboard and a striking green and silver version. The cars were slightly upgraded, with more downforce able to be generated by a longer rear tail, a new rear diffuser, and on racing versions, a new rear wing placement for less drag. In 1998 all four cars were able to finish the race. With this new design, Nissan was able to finish 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 10th overall, being beaten only by the Porsche 911 GT1. Over the two years of the program, a total of eight R390 GT1 race chassis were built. My model of this car. This car required a fairly complex modification to the lower side air venting and the rear clip section in order to replicate the new extended rear design. The decals are aftermarket from Renaissance. The engine is as the kit represented it with the major plumbing added. In order for Nissan to race in the GT class at Le Mans, a homologated road version was required to be built. Therefore, the R390 was built originally as road car, then a racing version of the car was developed afterwards. Only one R390 road car was ever built and is stored at Nissan's Zama facility in Japan. This car was originally painted red, with a red interior and it had the same cooling vents and shorter rear end of the 1997 car. When the new design of the 1998 car was complete, this red car was converted into the blue car that is presented here with the longer tail and still no rear wing, but oddly, at least to me, is that they chose to leave the two openings for the rear wing struts in the rear body work. The one and only R390 road car was produced as a prototype for the development of the race-cars and was never intended for sale, although Nissan did offer to build further versions at a value of $1 million each, and as expected, found no takers. Just looking at how one would have to twist themselves into a pretzel just to enter the vehicle is reason enough to cause a buyer to shy away from one. The lone R390 GT1 is currently stored at Nismo's Zama facility in their Japanese warehouse, along with the #32 R390 GT1 race car from 1998. My model of this car. I could have built the red, early version, of this car without much headache because the body follows the Tamiya kit almost perfectly. Just a few changes and no rear wing and a coat of red paint and it is done. Even the wheels were the same, but I chose to do the newer blue version, since that is the configuration of the car today. This also started with the Tamiya 1997 R390 GT1 kit, but then it was substantially modified. The car is painted Tamiya Mica Blue topped with clear. The road lights at the bottom of the front clip were removed. The three slots above the front wheel wells were filled in. Two NACA air inlets were added to the front “hood” area. The lower side air intakes were completely changed to reflect the new design. The one windshield wiper was changed to two. The rearview mirrors were changed up and one was added to the interior. The doors were opened and hinged with all new scratch built inner door sides. In some reference material the car had the name “NISSAN” at the top of the front windshield, so I added it on the model, also, on the real car, the brake calipers are gunmetal, but I took some artistic license and made them red on the model, just because I wanted some contrast to the body color. The wheels are close to the actual cars wheels, but not exact since I was unable to find the same wheel in model form. Unlike the real car in the pictures I found, I added red Yokohama tire decals to the car since I only had 4 remaining and thought that red Japanese tire logos on a Japanese car would work. Two new “street style” seats were added to replace the single racecar seat. The interior was painted with Tamiya Flat Black and Dull Red (intended for the hull of warships). A rear window was opened up in the rear bulkhead. The two NACA air scoops alongside the rear window on the race car are not present on the road car version, so I filled them in. The double fuel intake behind the door on the right side was changed to a single one. The engine required some modification as the air plenums of the race car were replaced with a carbon fiber unit more appropriate for the de-tuned street engine. The exhaust was now routed to the rear to exit at the extreme outer edges of the rear quarter panels with a muffler added rather than just before the rear wheels. Substantial sound and heat “insulation paddings” were added to the engine bay and all around the rear wheel openings (I used that old standby, Duct Tape for this). The area behind the wheels required the most work. The rear was extended as it is on the real car. A new “duck tail” rear spoiler was built and added. The entire rear fascia was rebuilt with the new shape, angle, lights and openings with screens and license plate. I have to admit, this rear clip caused me huge problems forcing me to modify it countless times until I felt I had the proper proportions and look of it. Seriously, it was a real bear to get it to this point so I am glad it is finished. I am happy with the overall result and I am pleased to have all three versions of the evolution of the R390 side by side on my shelf.

Looks really nice. The half vinyl roof is very period correct. Nice!

It's a real winner. Very clean and well done.

Simply beautiful. I love it. Very authentic looking.

Well done, I like this a lot. Love the paint scheme and wheel choice. Nice!

I don't know else to say or do Rich, others are seeing them. I blame google, my photo's are hosted with them. sorry.

Google, I hate them. See if these work.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/EzMftnMCVzKrYyQG8 Try this link. If this does not work, well, it isn't meant to be. Chrysler Corporation had designed “aero wing cars” for both Dodge and Plymouth for the 1971 NASCAR Cup Series. At the last minute Bill France changed the rules which removed the advantage these cars had enjoyed in 1969 and 1970 and as a result Chrysler shelved the project. A number of years later, Gary and Pam Beineke, using the actual factory aero and engineering data constructed reproductions of the cars. I saw their Dodge Charger Daytona model which was for sale for $375,000 on the internet while searching for something else and thought to myself, Why not? And then I figured I could take the design a little further having just completed a fastback version of 1971 Charger. Here is the link to the website with the actual car as it was reconstructed. https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/cars-for-sale/dodge/charger-r-t/2362348.html I decided to convert a 1971 Dodge Charger R/T into my modified idea of what the aero car could look like with a few additional modifications to the body. This model starting from the front. · A parts box aero nose cone was modified to fit the front. The leading edge nose grill was opened and a photo etched screen was installed then I added a front air intake splitter below it. · The hood air-exit vents were opened and a large single NACA air intake scoop was added to bring air into the engine then four hood pins were added. · Large air exit scoops were installed over the two front fenders. · Doors opened and hinged. · The front and rear wheel openings were bulged out and at the front blended into the two side exhaust pipes. · Moon roof added. · Rear quarter windows reshaped · Fastback roof added and extended to the rear · Scratch built rear window louvers added over the rear fastback window. · Aero wing scratch built and molded into the rear quarter panel. (Since the actual car as reconstructed has a “Bi-wing” I figured why not and did it also). · Small, low rear deck spoiler added, just because I think it looks better than not. · Rear fascia molded in and painted body color with a “Black-out” center insert. · Primary body color is airbrushed Tamiya Copper with 10% Tamiya Gold added to lighten up the color just a little. · Black “Daytona” stripe at rear and on wing a combination of paint and decals. · Tamiya Gloss Black on hood bulge and over the aero wing and on the rear quarter panel. · Wheels are from the parts box with Goodyear decals added, I think they could be from a Viper, not really sure, and it matters not. · The chassis is basically stock with the wheels lowered. · The interior is basically stock with a two tone Black / Copper scheme and the addition of a rear cargo area from a Corvette, although it is well hidden under the louvers. For context, I included the 1971 Dodge Charger fastback I did a few weeks ago, and a Plymouth GTX phantom gentleman’s pick up I built many, many years ago.

Certainly not a usual subject to customize. I really like he paint job, very cool, very different. Nice!