absmiami

The 29 monocoque was slightly bigger - wider and taller and longer - than the 25 - to allow for Indy wheelbase and fuel tank size rules - but not much bigger - by removing/ sanding some width and some height - and by sanding the side/bottom contour - I’ll have a scale accurate Lotus 25 monococque …

This will be mine - Resin casting Hall of Famer Norman Veber cast this in dark gray resin - my master was made fr strips and sheets of Evergreen plastic - this is actually the casting for my Lotus 29 project …

So - this is what a Lotus 25 monocoque looked like …. And merry holidays one and all …

JB weld should work well …

https://www.flickr.com/photos/all_stood_still/S/72157633538102876/ this is one of Flickr's stars - goes by All Stood Still Its a great old post of the Jim Clark 50th anniversary ... features two restored late spec 25's great stuff

Now - about the monocoque - …

And the cowl was changed too - the later spec 25s and the 33’s had the mail slot opening at the base of the windscreen -

Comparing the body top castings of the Lotus 25 And Lotus 33 kits - the abbreviated tail was also used on 25s later in the ‘62 season …

Older white metal castings always required alot of work - lots of flash and mold lines to remove …

The parts count and engineering is the same as the Sharknose kit - i started by removing the sections of the upper body casting that should be seperate - and i removed the nose and cowling fr the eng cover … ill use the nose section and trans cover fr the lower body casting but not much else …

It's amazing that nobody ever produced a really good 24th scale Lotus 25. Christian Ghoul [sp] made one but sold very few. Tamiya of course did the later spec 25 in 20th scale - but I'm a scale snob - so its the Wills Finecast 25 kit or bust. No effort was made to reproduce the monocoque chassis - and there is no engine - but you gotta start somewhere ...

So the Lotus 25 - after some early challenges - carried Jim Clark to his first world championship - and is - to my mind - the first modern Grand Prix car. Wills Finecast produced this kit - 002 - and then the Lotus 33 kit. The 25 went through many changes - the kit builds the early 25 - with the full length engine cover - and the engine for most of 1962 was Weber carbed - fuel injection came later - The MotorSports Images on line site has wonderful black and white photos of the 25 exposed chassis at Zandvort - which is great - because the two or three surviving 25s have been restored to 1963 spec with fuel injection and abbreviated tails - and I've decided to make the early spec 25 ...

Team Lotus had its 8 cyl Climax bolted to two metal chassis extensions in what became known as the first monocoque grand prix car - the future had arrived ...

In the winter months of 1961/2 Lotus sold brand new tube framed Lotus 24s to privateers looking to run the new Climax and BRM engines under the new 1 1/2 litre GP formula. All was well until these privateers showed up for practice in the early spring Zandvort Grand Prix - and this is what they saw in the Team Lotus paddock...

Shocks will look good cause RC used wire that will give the shock coils scale thickness - well played …

Betting Mr Bacon knows where i took the head-on shot of the Lotus 25 …

You can run But you can’t hide …

RC - head on over to the WIP threads - i’ve opened ours …

Gurney fan - me too - Rev’s has the BRM on display - let me know if you need pix ….

The bodies of both kits are - top and bottom - with no real effort to conform to the actual panel lines of the cars - so there is a lot of work to do here …

Rich Chernosky and I tend to like the same subjects - he usually posts in the Under Glass - A long while back we made a trade of 2 old Will's Finecast white metal kits - he wanted a Ferrari 156 "Sharknose" kit and he offered me his 1963 Lotus 25 kit - both are curbside - in production for many years but now becoming somewhat collectible - both 24th scale - and both featuring scale accurate white metal bodies... Rich has just started to build the Sharknose and has agreed to post his build on this thread - whilst I wack away at the Lotus 25 ... So here it goes ... Guessing you are all familiar with the 25 - I've had the rare chance to photograph two of the survivors ...

For the main frame members- i’m using .047 Evergreen and .040 for the secondary members - that’s just a little over-scale - but it wil make assembly just a little easier - the bulkhead sheet is .012 Evergreen …