Pico

Eric - ask Andy M.

Heller should have, but why not? I suspect they made models of cars that were close and they could easily measure. Why the Delage that they modeled? A nice car but why not the Blanche Montel D8? Or the Aerosport? And the Talbot Lago? Why not the "teardrop" ? The Delahaye 135 they made was was nice but were others that are more interesting. They did hit a home run with the Bugatti T50, however. That one is near the top. BTW, a resin caster is making the T50 Superprofilee with the correct wheels as a transkit for that model.

Sorta what I thought. Work continues....

Here's a frontal photo of the model, see what you think... It's not easy carving these things out, and looking at photos of different cars from different angles can be confusing. They are all hand made and so there are differences between them, also. I was able to measure the 2000 Pebble Beach best of show car ( the maroon and white car, admittedly not this one) when it was in a showroom in St. Louis; so I feel it's dimensions are reasonably correct. When putting the louvers on the side of the hood, they were tight the the valley of the fender-hood junction, so it should be a bit deeper. Too later to correct now, not a big issue, besides. I'm now on my second cup of hi-octane coffee and will soon be burning up the keyboard designing the seat to be 3d printed by Shapeways.

Most louvers are now on, so it's time for the interior. Because of the difficulty of making the tuck and roll upholstery, I decided to design it in Sketchup and have it 3d printed. I'm pleased with the door panels and now am working on the seats.

Side spear on; it's time for the louvers, made from Evergreen lap siding.

I've found the Acu Stion website but the nearest thing to that honeycomb radiator p/e is something called "radiator panel plate". It does not enlarge enough so that I can see if that is the same product. Is that it? Do they have a US distributor?

It is time to think about decals and the raised areas the decals go on. I put an image of the car in Sketchup, sized it to 1/24th, and using the circle, arc and bezier curve tools, drew the decal shapes. Next I will print these, cut them out and fit them on the model, seeing if they need to be adjusted. The rear fender decoration is different from the front and has yet to be drawn.

After a break due to other projects and a short vacation, I'm back on refining the shape. Shooting black over white primer and then sanding reveals ridges and valleys that need to be filled or sanded down.

Very nice!

Creativity is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

After a considerable amount of eyeball engineering and head scratching, I've decided the rear trunk area is too high, top of the doors are too low, Front fenders are too tall and not long enough. It seems fairly late in the project for this much rework but it wasn't close enough.

Ramfins- Me too, but I try not to repeat myself too often.

This beginning to shape up...

Sinking the headlight housing into position.

This is looking better. Also making the headlight housing.

At PhilX's request -

Not based on the Heller kit, on my Talbot Lago "teardrop".

Since starting this project I've been bedeviled by the feeling that the front fenders are too thin. I'm following the plans but they just don't look right. It's putty time.

misterNNL, certainly.

Time to start refining the curves.

1/24th

Templates help shape the fenders using wood rasps and files.

I've scratchbuilt several Figoni & Falaschi designed cars - a Talbot Lago "Teardrop" and a Delahaye 165 - and I've always wanted to produce this one, a Delahaye 135 cabriolet with a body style know as the Paris Show Car series. The series is a dozen cars built from 1936 to 1946, all along roughly the same design, following the original car, shown at the 1936 Paris Auto Show. That car is the same one that won best of show at Pebble Beach in 2000, when ZoomZoom and I attended. As the design is similiar to the TL "Teardrop", I made a cast of it and chopped to top off and filled the wheel openings with Aves Studio Apoxie Sculpt. Looks rough with much work to be done but I'm in no hurry. Deadline is November 3, 2018, the Southern Nationals NNL, in Smyrna, Ga. I hope to see everyone there. Here's a video:

Hope you are feeling better. I'd feel better if you weren't soldering on a plank of balsawood.