Ensis Ferrae

I love everything about this. . . from the chop shop job, the creativity of making it a MR hill climb looking beast, to even painting it up in Gulf livery. This is great.

How is the overall quality of the kit?? I'll be honest, I'm tempted because who doesn't like the look of those jags? But. . . my experience with Heller has been less than stellar. So far, I've done their old, 1980s release Bentley Blower, and their Peugeot 205 Group B rally car. The bentley was a pretty good kit, the Peugeot. . .well, the less said the better.

Had to look it up again, the decals were made by Reji Model, and I purchased them through spotmodel.com

Recently completed this old girl. . . Started life as the Tamiya "New Man's Racing" Porsche 956 with rotting decals. Aftermarket decal set and PE add-ons round out the build. Body panels done with Tamiya TS paints (TS-26 for the white, lower tray done in semi-gloss black) with brushed on everything else.

Been working on the Beemax Audi Quattro, but as it was a curbside kit, and I'm not the biggest fan of curbside, I had been putting the build off. . . Then, almost entirely by accident I found a resin aftermarket engine by USCP. Personal "review" of the USCP kit is that I do wish it were a tad more clear on the instructions as this so nearly became a major disaster (at one point, I had to unglue the driveline from the chassis, and carefully pry the top half of the trans off of the bottom half in order to trim back more of the trans/front diff area, so that I could get the engine assembly to fit within the bay.

Pardon the terrible photo, but today I got the final pieces to my Beemax Audi quattro kit. UCSP resin engine/engine bay detail upgrade kit. On visual inspection, looks like a good quality casting, much better resin than I'm used to from previous hobbies (looking at you, Games Workshop). Once I finish up my current Porsche project, it'll be on to surgical enhancements of the Audi. Can't wait.

Lol. . . I happen to drive a Toyota, and called over for some rando non-essential stuff for the wife's car. Apparently I got the parts manager on the phone, who told me the same thing (only he just filled the jobs 2 weeks ago). . . . But really, when I change jobs it will be out of industry, into something more in line with my MBA skills than slinging parts. The job I'm at now, I'm there because I was in a spot after school where GI bill had run out, so I needed one of those "anything will pay the bills" kinds of jobs, and the service/parts managers were willing to work with me.

One of many things that irks me almost daily, at least at work is just how terrible GM is. I know the above statement is likely to draw fire from the life-long GM vehicle owners, but its true. . . Since I've worked at a GM dealership, I've been astounded on an almost routine basis for how terrible the company is once you've signed your name on a contract to purchase a vehicle. Constant parade of parts on back order, many of which, in my view (and with my education) should never, ever in a million years EVER be back-ordered. I mean, we're talking about air filters, transmission filters, fuel filters, at various points have all become unavailable to us. . . Things that are fairly routine, like fuel injectors, regularly out and unavailable. The supply chain issue leads me to another routine "irk" : certain customers that get all pissy with us in the parts department, as if its our fault that they made the mistake of buying the vehicle they did. . . The worst are Denali owners. . . Number 1 issue, they don't drive a Sierra, Tahoe, Canyon, or Acadia, which is moderately useful in looking things up, no, they drive a Denali. . . which is BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH well useless. It would be like me walking in to a Ford dealership and saying, "I need X for my Limited". . . Number 2 issue, is these idiots who think the statement "I bought an $80,000 truck, blah blah blah". . . Yeah, I'm not sorry you overpaid for a pile of junk vehicle that is constantly in my shop. You don't want to be complaining to me all the time? Buy a Toyota. And, with the Denali owners, holy mother of god are they some of the CHEAPEST a-holes on the planet. . . A clip which costs 10 bucks at my parts counter to do solve a problem they can fix themselves, and they want to negotiate prices!! Sorry, if you want to haggle, the sales floor is upstairs. My prices are set. Sorry. . . . its just that in this business, and in this company, its a nonstop barrage of BS, and it kinda builds up overtime.

Scrolling through the OP, I just now figured out what "Canam" stood for ? Looks like it should be a fun build, I cant wait to see more.

To answer the question in my OP. . . my last project finished up and so I've started on one of the 956s. . . . Turns out the Tamiya kit is a "Langeheck" or Long tail version, while the Italeri is a short/standard tail (honestly, no idea what Porsche called this version of the car, as I've only ever seen the denotation for the LH version). As such, the Tamiya kit, formerly of the Newman's Porsche team, will now be built as a Team Brun Motorsport Warsteiner 956, and the Italeri will get the OOB decals.

Hello all, Not sure if this thread goes here (so mods, please move at your discretion), but I have a question to have answered to help guide a decision. . . Using the box art as a guide here, I have an Italeri "Rothmans" Porsche 956, which is curbside, and a Tamiya "Newman's" 956 that is full detail. . . Now, I have some aftermarket decals, but as Stefan Bellof is one of my favorite historical drivers, I am inclined to use the Rothman decals on the Tamiya kit, and the aftermarket ones on the Italeri. I know that sometimes we can run into issues of the same subject made by different companies being slightly "off" from each other, so, anyone here happen to know, or have done what I am contemplating? Are these kits close enough that any variances in decal shape won't make much of a difference (or any at all)? Thanks in advance

Love the build, and love the Haribo decals (I have a set sitting somewhere in some customs bin somewhere. . . lol, Royal Mail in UK says it was scanned in San Fransisco, USPS says its sitting in Chicago) Love the work with the PE stuff, especially the tiny bits that I still don't mess with.

I have the 500k "special sports roadster" (well, 2 of em, but thats a different story) and I have to say the fit and finish so far has been extremely good. Some of the directions may be a tad lackluster compared to say, Tamiya or Beemax kits of today, but they do get the job done well enough. They are some gorgeous cars in real life, and I'm hoping to capture even a tiny slice of that beauty with my model.

Wow, I really hope that W 196 kit has some good detail as I'm likely to snatch that up as soon as pre-orders are up

Yes, they make a PE upgrade set as well as a decal set.

Shame you couldn't do a "full" version instead of just curbside. . . Would be wicked cool to have a front-engined front wheel drive car AND a mid engine rear drive car, all in the same (I guess technically, it'd be an AWD??) That aside, this is certainly a unique build and looking pretty good so far.

I personally Use Microset/Microsol, and one thing I've found on super bendy/rounded shapes with multiple angles/curves is that it can take 3-4 applications of micro sol with lots of drying time in between. Love the car, love Porsche in general, and I can't wait to see what weathering pictures are to come.

Took this photo at the M-B museum in Stuttgart and I think that this may be one of my favorite street/road cars of all time. For racing cars, I've always had a (not so) soft spot for Porsche enduro cars, such as the 917, 956, and 962s. This picture was taken on likely the same day, at the Porsche museum right across the street in Stuttgart

I love DTM cars, and this is a great example of one. Love the work you did and how it came out.

No pics as of yet (as they aren't done yet) . . . but I think the oldest kits in my collection, by manufacturing date would have to be the Jo-Hann Mercedez-Benz 500k, or the Heller Bentley 4.5L "Blower" Le Mans racer (the Bentley has been redone, however my copy of the kit has the decal sheet for car #8 which raced at Le Mans, all the repops I've seen are car #18)

My wife bought this kit for me for father's day. . . I'm holding off on starting it till I can buy the photo-etch (which I will likely get the PE parts for the Audi Quattro S1 E1 as the same time). Will be watching this with interest.

I have more of a soft spot for Tamiya's Tom's JGTC Supra, but that kit looks great as well

I guess one would hope they get close to the level of accuracy/correctness that 'Rush' had when it came out. . . In terms of that, Niki Lauda, when asked about how accurate the movie was, said "about 80%" but in his usual fashion wouldn't really divulge much beyond that. My hope as a Le Mans fan is that this movie isn't "just" a film where Americans bash on Ferrari as some BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH car, the story of the GT40's birth and eventual dominance is remarkable enough without over the top silliness such as that.

Thanks all, I'll have to check for these armor forums and other resources.

Hello all, I'll try to be brief here so that there's more room/time for answering questions. On my "to-do" pile is a growing number of endurance racers, and for some of them I want to do that certain weathering that they all have at the end of a 24 hour race (those that survive). The noses of the Audi and 'Vette are what I'm on about. For the length of the race they are just getting pummeled, and collect up all those bugs and marbles and general grit. And that's what I'm asking y'all about today. I have a bunch of AK Interactive weathering stuff, and they have been great for things like dust/mud/smoke but I'm not sure what general techniques/products to use for the nose bits on the car.