jaymcminn

I built my Trumpeter GT40 before 3d printing was really a thing , but I adapted a 1/12 Corvette distributor (heresy!). I modified the kit seats since the KA aftermarket ones look worse somehow. I did splash out on Icon Automotive Miniatures tires and the KA spare tire, as well as decals from Best Balsa Kits. It's a nice kit but it takes a lot of fettling, some of it pretty aggressive, to get it to look "right".

Yup, looks right to me...

Thanks Pierre! The next trick will be trying to replicate a bare fiberglass airbox using paint effects. I have some ideas... That's the challenge with 1/12. They actually take up the same amount of space as about four 1/24 models. I've got a spot picked out for it if it comes out as I'm hoping it will! Fortunately most of this work is visible with the rear clamshell open, I don't think my wallet could take the hit of another one of these monsters!

Absolutely phenomenal. It's great fun watching you beat this old Lindberg lump into an amazing replica of one of the all time classics!

I started with the engine. I should have gotten pics during construction but it honestly went together so well I got into a rhythm with it. Metallics are all Vallejo Metal Air... Duralumin for the block, flat aluminum for the ancillaries, and exhaust manifold for the, umm, exhaust manifolds. The heat stains on the manifolds as well as the grunge on the valve covers was Tamiya Weathering Master pastels. ALL of the detail on the engine came right out of the box, and the fit is excellent. All of the lines and wires connect up in the engine bay with many more to be added. It's going to be properly busy in there! Impressions so far are very good. Fit is excellent, but Italeri's mold quality isn't quite up to Tamiya standards and some of the decisions to allow multiple variants on the same tool are a bit frustrating. The detail is first rate, however, and I'm really enjoying this build so far. Next up is the chassis, which is ready for primer and paint. More to come soon!

Super excited to be working on this kit at long last. The plan is to get away from the Alitalia livery and go for something a bit different. I saw this online and decided that this was the way... Color is going to be Tamiya French Blue. Probably going to stick with the yellow wheels but Italian Red isn't out of the running yet. Interior will be black but the seat inserts and upholstery inserts on the firewall and roof will probably be burnt orange. I am going to use a few of the decals (HF with Italian flags for the sides, Lancia logos, maybe a sponsor decal or two) to add visual interest. There will be mild weathering and light grunge... My idea for this build is of a millionaire's toy in the 70s that was used for bombing around the shores of Lake Como.

Fantastic build of one of the all-time great kits. Beautiful!

Yes, it could stand to come down by a scale 2" or so. In test fitting it sat a bit lower but the interior/glass interface pushed the ride height up in final assembly. The little rake it has out of the box is nice, though. The suspension is the same between the stock and Lorinser versions so this is how the stock 500 SEC will sit. I did narrow the track a bit by cutting down the hub assemblies to get the wheels to tuck in a bit more, otherwise they would have sat a bit proud of the wheel arches. The offset is different on the stock wheels so it wouldn't be necessary on the stock kit.

I don't have an unbuilt one... ...anymore.

I've ordered a few things from C1. The quality is first rate and they do have some really great stuff.

As a child of the 80s who was hyper-aware of cars, especially weird foreign ones, I loved the DMC-12 well before the movies came out. I still do, even knowing everything about them that I know now (Adam left out the screwy deal with the British government that resulted in the cars being built in Northern Ireland as an attempt to quell rebellion through economic investment; it, umm, didn't go well). Honestly, the BTTF movies probably saved the DMC-12 from total automotive obscurity. The reason so many of them haven't been turned into refrigerators and dishwashers is because the movie moved what would have been a minor, if especially pretty, footnote in automotive history into broader popular culture. Discussing the DeLorean without discussing BTTF is like discussing Lincoln without mentioning the Civil War. They're inextricably linked.

From a retail standpoint, I think it could be a challenge to shift. $380 is a lot of money when you can get it shipped from European retailers for about $270 total, and the (probably limited) market for this kit has been drooling and chomping at the bit for two years waiting for it to come out. I know I put my order in the day I saw it was available! It's a big chunk of change to potentially leave sitting on the shelf. I can't speak to the market in your area but I don't know how many walk-in customers would impulse buy a $380 kit of a 50-year-old Italian rally car. It's a shame that the US MSRP is so high on this kit, as Italeri's MSRP on their site is €210, about $220. $300 would seem more reasonable.

Working on mine now. So far it's pretty typical modern Italeri... It's no Tamiya "shake and bake" kit and it needs some fettling in places but it's true to its subject and I think it will be a brilliant model.

Beautiful build of one of Tamiya's best. I love that color combination.

I'm fine with getting the Fulvia in 1/24. As much as I love 1/12 they do eat up a lot of display space. It does sadly look like the 1/12 scale historic line is coming to an end, hopefully that doesn't include the more modern subjects like the Stratos and Integrale. There's a big 037-shaped hole in between those two!

This is the Pearl Green over Tamiya grey primer. It's very translucent... the color doesn't start building up until the third coat or so. Even light grey primer tones the color down quite a bit.

My Stratos finally arrived from Italy today, I'm enormously impressed by the look of this kit so far. Italeri really swung for the fences with this one!

Justin Porter used the Ammo Cobra paint on his Alfa GTA. Looks like it came out nicely for him. I think he has more on the application in the WIP thread.

Amazing Pierre. It takes real skill to get that lump up to the standard you produced. Have you come up with a good source for wheels and tires?

Surrealism at its finest.

I'm eagerly following this build. Can't wait to get started on mine when it arrives!

Italeri doesn't seem to have any interest in tooling up new 1/24 these days. The Fiat and Escort are both old ESCI tools. I think Italeri has found their sweet spot in 1/12 scale, which must be doing pretty well for them given the number of releases over the last several years.

The Imperial "Mobile Director" package was available for Imperial Coupes in 1967 and 1968. The center console folded out into a desk and the passenger seat could swivel 180 degrees. The theory was that it would be an office on wheels, perfect for the modern executive on the go. In practice they only built 80 or so. The idea would possibly have been more successful if they could have applied it to the sedan but the swivel seat couldn't have been made to work on the sedan platform.

After a few hours on I-75 last week, I've decided that a lot of Ram owners tend to treat it less like a name than an instruction.

Hi Francisco, welcome to the forum! An admin will probably move this post to the Q&A section where you'll get more responses. All I can say is that Tamiya Pearl White absolutely needs to be applied over a white substrate. That can be Tamiya white primer or the new TS-101 Base White. Tamiya's whites in general offer pretty lousy coverage and no matter how much you apply you'll never get a true white when applying over grey primer. On the plus side the pearl effect on the Pearl White is particularly nice when you get the hang of applying it, so it's definitely worth the effort! I would recommend stripping and starting over with white primer. Hope this helps!