Matt Bacon

Thanks, guys! Making good progress... The headlights require some complicated painting! I decided not to go for the recommended "silver" for the main light. I had a look at the Xenon's on my car, and several others in the local supermarket car park, and it's much more like a grey "eyeball", which is what I've tried to do here. The white "Y" really IS a white painted shape in the black housing, and the little lenses are silver tips on a black tube. This is an unforgiving close up... and it looks fine from a reasonable distance. And another major milestone: the chassis and body are now together... It snaps into place quite well. I'd attached the doors to the body before fitting the two together, but I think in retrospect that's better done afterwards. The photos exaggerate the "edge glint" on the windows. It's hard to know what to do about that. The windows do just stick out of the top of the doors -- no frame, no tint, just plain sheets of glass. Maybe a black edge would have toned down the reflection, but there isn't one in real life. Just detail work to do now, before I add the flames, and work on the base... bestest, M.

Slow but steady progress today. These rear lights are a pain! OK, I've made life more difficult for myself by needing to show the darn things actually on, while braking, but they are very complex even without that added wrinkle. I think that today's LED lights and Xenons will need a whole different approach from what we're used to. No longer is a transparent part that you can paint the back of silver and colour in lenses where needed enough. A large part of this light unit is black plastic, and as you can see the "indicator" and "stop light" elements have several parts. I've yet to see how it works in real life, but the "sideways-Y" parts appear to be both brake lights and indicators (with a rather cool > >> >>> effect). With the blades in place, my feeling that the engine is detailed enough was confirmed... YMMV, obviously! ...and this is where I'm at tonight. Home straight tomorrow, I reckon... bestest, M.

Even though it's a documentary, they want to tell a story, and it's better for a story to have heroes and villains. It's a great movie, and Senna comes across very well. But Prost is cast in the villain's role, so you kinda have to think he's a jerk. Real life is a tad more complicated than that. I think it's an excellent movie, and even though I knew what would happen before I started watching it, I still teared up at the end. We should feel lucky, movie-wise, though.. the success of Senna means that the studios have green-lit Rush, a James Hunt vs Nikki Lauda in 1976 movie (coming soon, with Chis Hemsworth as Hunt); "Go Like Hell", the Ford vs Ferrari le Mans battle (one of the best car racing books I've ever read); and "The Drivers", Ridley and Tony Scott's (Alien and Blade Runner for Ridley, Top Gun for Tony) 10-part high end TV series (think "From the Earth to the Moon") about sports car racing in the 50s-60s-70s.... I loved Senna... I'm really looking forward to the rest! bestest, M.

A good milestone tonight: The chassis pretty much snaps into place, supported on two pins at the back and tabs at the front. I wouldn't like to do it too often before finishing (the rear pins are slim), but you can see that it does all go together nicely. Moving along: I'd suggest removing the pins that hold the grilles in - they have flanges that locate them perfectly well, and the pins prevent them slipping in fully (the engineering on this kit is superb, but the tolerances are so tight that you can only just get away with painting it before assembly, and a clearcoat that has any thickness causes problems...) If you WANT to have the engine bay opening, you'll have to rework the cut lines (the part that is separate in the kit is the whole upper rear quarter panel... in real life the panel lines you can see around the window bay, with the T-shaped bit on the right in this image, mark the engine cover opening). I've fixed the separate part down, and I will delineate the opening part with the way I highlight the panel lines. If you DON'T open the engine bay, then as you can see, it looks OK, even without the window blades. The main assemblies. After the mock-up earlier, I'm confident that they will all fit together nicely. I've read good things about the fit of the window glass into the body, so I'm hoping that progress will be speedy... And finally... The two moments in the Top Gear supercar challenge segment filmed at Imola that put an "action build" of this kit in my mind were the glowing brake discs, and the "blue flames" spitting from the exhaust, which really emphasised what a barely-tamed fire-snorting beast the Aventador is. This car is all about presence, and even though it has all the tech (like the McLaren and the 458), it's somehow vastly more "dramatic". If I was buying one as a daily drive, it'd be the McLaren; if I was buying one as a weekend drive, it'd be the 458; but if I was buying one for pure, balls-out, in-your-face fun, it'd be the Aventador. So, this model isn't complete without blue flames. I've been thinking about this for a while, and then I spotted an abandoned soap bubble blowing kit that the kids had left lying around, which was contained in a cylinder of pale blue plastic, as you can see. After some experiments, I discovered you can melt it and mess with it with cocktail stick. A bit of Citadel white, and some yellow ink, later, and this is where we are. They are trimmed to fit into the exhausts, but I'll do that late in the build, so I don't knock them off! Next up, the lights. There's some complex detail painting to do there... bestest, M.

...it looks like modifying a $120,000 supercar into something lethally undriveable on anything but flat straight roads... ;-P bestest, M.

Thanks, Chris... the lights are indeed going to be interesting! I'm thinking chrome silver overpainted with transparent colours at the moment, but we'll see. It might be easier for me, because in my version, they are at least meant to be on! Not sure what you mean about the engine compartment. It is painted, in Vallejo "German Grey" aka Panzer Grey, which is very dark. It looks lighter than it is in the photos on the workbench. It's just a stylistic choice really... when I have something like the cockpit or engine bay which is basically lots of black made from different materials, I try to vary the "colours" between several dark shades to give it a little variety and visual "texture", especially if you are only going to see it through windows... bestest, M.

My driver's finally turned up for work... Not much else to see at present - I've been fitting the etched grilles everywhere, and masking and paint the glass. The clearcoat on the body is hard enough to polish out a few dust speckles now, which will be the next task, then there will be a flurry of assembly. I also need to finish painting the head and tail light interiors, which are HIDEOUSLY complex... bestest, M.

Thanks, Simon.... good to have you on board! And that's the clear coat on. This is Zero Paints two-pack clear, which is currently at the "tack-free" stage. By the weekend it should be thoroughly dry, and I can polish out the odd speck of dust. If anyone wants to offer advice on polishing Zero 2K, then please jump in - I have some Novus plastic polishes, which is what I was going to use, but if anyone has any better ideas, fire away! bestest, M.

Thanks, gents... Here's where we are tonight: Lots of orange... This is just the Zero base colour. I think they are superb paints, but I found it took a while to get the two-part colour to be even and the right colour depth. Make sure you spray the doors and engine panel and body all together to finish, so the colour is identical! I think this is ready for clear now, though... The close-up's a bit unforgiving, but Stig is nicely under way now. bestest, M.

Brakes finished: Once again, simple, but finely moulded, and the decals work very well... This is the Zero Paints two-part Arancio Argos going on. Top is the base coat completed, bottom is three coats of the top coat. Methinks it needs a bit more "blood red" topcoat to be the way I want it... Chassis is done. The parts fit superbly - ie you have to remove the paint layers from mating surfaces for them to fit! The polycaps are a dog to get into position, but do the job brilliantly. And this convinces me that we will be able to see the braking effect when it's done! bestest, M.

Jaydar... I'm pretty sure these are the tires - I bought them direct: http://pegasushobbies.net/catalog/p355/%231603-1/24-Tires-Pilots-245/45-18/product_info.html or they might have been these: http://pegasushobbies.net/catalog/p354/%231602-1/24-Tires-Pilots-225/45-18/product_info.html They used to do mixed sets of a pair of each for front and rear, but they don't any more... Anyway, at last... some progress worth reporting. There has been a lot of priming, polishing, coat after coat of orange etc, and it seems to have been going quite slowly until suddenly lots of bits started to come together. Body and panels primed with Halfords white plastic primer and polished with 4000 and 6000 micromesh. I've actually started the base coast today, but it's not ready to photograph yet. Did I mention the orange? Lots of coats of Vallejo Game Colour Fiery Orange to get this far. The cabin is very simple - only 9 parts - and only two colours, really. I tried to make it a little more interesting with varied shades of black (the majority is Vallejo German Grey) and some washes. The decals work well. The engine bay. I'm confident it'll look fine underneath the segmented rear window. It would be hugely complex to engineer the rear chassis and suspension and a full engine, and make it very hard to build and get all four wheels on the ground as well. Personally, I'm glad Fujimi took this route or I'd still be doing it next year! I need to see exactly how it fits into the body and decide whether I need to build some gizmology underneath the grilles... Stig -- "mostly 'armless". I need the driver to be turning left, so I knew some modification would be needed. I used some softish aluminium tube to pin arms, having first chamfered all the joints so they could move more freely. I firmly fixed the tube with superglue at one end, and let it slide in the hole at the other. When I was ready to set it up, I used "90-second" epoxy to give me time to adjust everything to fit. When he was fully set in the cockpit, I removed him (I'd left the dashboard press-fitted in place so as to be able to remove him easily) Good old Milliput is perfect for filling the gaps and re-sculpting the figure. Ready for painting the rest of him, now. And that darn visor! ...and finally for tonight... the front brake discs. As you can see, I'm going for the full Clarkson... more on this later! bestest, M.

Next up on the bench, the new Fujimi Aventador. Very crisp mouldings, and excellent fit so far. There have been a fair few complaints about the fact that it's "kerbside," but I'm going to treat it like the Hasegawa Miura, which I thought was absolutely fine. I've fitted together the "body in white" - the bits that will be orange, rather than black/grey/carbon, so that I can spray it in one piece after addressing the fine mould lines. The sills fit great below the doors, but actually don't need the moulded recesses for the tabs ahead of the rear wheel arches, and need to be shimmed out. I have a cunning plan relating to the kerbside nature of the kit, which the chap in the seat is part of. Who is he? Some say he drinks a pint of MEK for breakfast... It's going to be the deep orange, so, I shall be using the black wheels. The front tyres have been criticised, so these have a pair of Pegasus replacements for the fornts, which are lower profile, and stretched slightly to go over these rims. They look OK to me... And this is what's taken most of the time so far - chain drilling and opening up all the vents for fitting the photo-etch mesh parts. There are more in the engine bay and floor pan, which I've also done. Not much fun, and I'm now wondering how much they'll need to be blanked to avoid the "see though" look as well. Time to look more closely at my pictures of the real thing... bestest, M.

Thanks, Harry... yes, next time I'll mask the window seals... Mind you, applying and removing the tape is probably yet ANOTHER way to break the windscreen pillars! bestest, M.

Thanks, Chris... if you're going to build one, there's a few more comments in the build thread here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=52236 I'd say, given the choice, go for the 300SLR roadster, which they do in "722" Mille Miglia form. It has all the great engine and chassis detail and good fit of the interior to the body without the nightmare that is the doors... Maybe doesn't look _quite_ as cool, but YMMV. The 300SLR is Tamiya Gloss Aluminium; the SLS is my attempt at "Alubeam" silver, which is polished with SNJ Spray Metal polishing powder... bestest, M.

This is an older kit, with a lot of detail and a complete spaceframe chassis. The engine has had a bunch of wiring and plumbing added, but looks pretty good out of the box. Fit of the chassis and body is excellent; fit around the doors and bonnet is abysmal. Anyway, here she is... And a couple with its "grandson"... ... the Uhlenhaut seems like a big car until you put it next to the SLS... If I were doing another one, I'd fix all the parts of the doors together (inner, outer and window frame) very firmly, with plastic cement, before painting, and live with the masking that entails, because the door structure is very flexible and fragile. I'd also take a lot more care when fitting the glass to keep the glue where it needs to be and nowhere else, and be aware (and careful) of the thin and fragile A-pillars holding the roof. Rigging the spaceframe so that all the wheels are on the round is a challenge (which I didn't _quite_ meet). Follow the instructions strictly about which inner faces of the wheels are back and front. The four parts are NOT identical, though they look it at first glance - there are spacers on the back wheels and not the front. I found this out the hard way! So... if you strip the chrome, don't do it all in one batch - put the parts for each wheel in a separate bath of your chosen stripper... All in all, this was a challenging build, and I'm now looking forward to something more straightforward - a Fujimi Aventador, maybe ;-) bestest, M.

Slow progress, but progress nevertheless... a milestone today, anyway: Body and chassis ready to bring together. The glass is surrounded by a multilayered rubber and chrome seal, so I painted the edges black, then used a silver Gundam marker, and finally blackened the rim on the bodyshell. I was surprised by how well the glass fitted, generally, including the light fairings. Shame I couldn't say the same for the lights themselves. Added a few more tubes/cables to the engine to busy it up a little And finally... It looks a bit like a mummy - I wanted to leave the tape on until the chassis was set, to avoid popping things out as I flexed the body. It actually fits remarkably well! It'll be interesting to see if the bonnet and doors open properly now - they did when I test fitted, but only after a lot of paring down of the bonnet hinge... bestest, M.

The thing is, I've already done what I planned to with that colour: but the colour I was originally aiming at was this: ...and I found various online references claiming TS-22 as a good match for Lamborghini Verde Miura. It looks to me as though once upon a time it WAS a good match, but not so much nowadays... What I'm wondering is whether the paint changed colour, or whether the original recommendation was based on swatches which didn't reflect the paint colour accurately... bestest, M.

...sorry, guys, but I don't think it's as simple as that... If you do the Google Image search, but then look at the results, the "five or six" variations are often NOT TS-22. (eg one of the results is an NZ shop showing TS-52) There are clearly two different "hexagon with a tail" swatches, used by multiple different stores - the two I pasted are examples. These are provided by Tamiya, for stores to retail their paint. It's not a subjective matter of colour matching with a web palette - these stores have been provided with swatches by Tamiya as a marketing tool for their own product. So either the paint has actually changed colour, or Tamiya decided that the first swatch was an inaccurate representation of the colour that TS-22 has always been, and replaced it with a new one... bestest, M.

Hi, all... I was just looking at Jason's lovely Daytona, and his plan for a Verde Germoglio Dino, and that got me thinking about green paint... in particular Tamiya's TS-22 Light green, which I used on my Miura. I hadn't really thought about it, but now I do, it's not quite the colour I expected. This is the www.modelsforsale.com colour swatch for TS22 (the same at anticsonline, for example) Which I think is a pretty good match for verde germoglio, and is the colour I was expecting to paint the Miura... This: is the etamiya sample, and is the colour that I bought and used on the Miura. They are clearly not the same! Anyone know when Tamiya changed, and if they reissued the original TS-22 colour under a different number? bestest, M.

That's absolutely lovely, and you really can't tell where you started from! Personally, I think it's good to see a Ferrari in such an unusual colour! I hear what Skip's saying, but I think the Daytona, being from the decade that style forgot, is probably the one Ferrari you're allowed (perhaps even encouraged!) to have in metallic blue or bronze brown! I have an Italeri one waiting in the pile, but I love these Enthusiast kits as well. You have to do the Dino in yellow, obviously... and don't be tempted to put any Scuderia shields or Ferrari badges on it! ;-P bestest, M.

The chassis is finished, now, except for that fragile and easy to knock off mirror! Irritatingly, a managed to crack an A-pillar when I lost my grip on the thing while polishing, so that's setting. The air intake screen is the kit part, washed and drybrushed. I wasn't sanguine about getting the decal to settle down over it, and it's a very fine mesh - definitely not a hole with some coffee filter in it. If you wanted to scratch one, it'd be a #-shaped frame with some tights stretched over it and painted silver... Doors next... bestest, M.

Thanks, Joe... for anyone else who's interested, the paint arrived today: As you can see, it's a two part mix. The base coat ® is the same dark yellow as Arancio Borealis (the Gallardo Balboni colour) and Arancio Atlas (the lighter orange Aventador colour). The top coat (L) has a slight pearl/mica golden flake in it, which you can't really see in this pic (if you let it settle, you can see it at the bottom of the jar, but there's not a lot in there...) This, incidentally, is the colour of the Aventador that Jeremy drove in the first of the new series of Top Gear last Sunday. He managed to get it to spit blue flames from the exhausts AND heated up the carbon brakes to the point where they were glowing red hot. Now THAT would be a fun way to model it... bestest, M.

The "all clear" has sounded, and my usually Zen-like calm has descended ;-P Here's the state of the workbench tonight. The main assemblies are coming together: The cabin looks very bright and shiny, doesn't it..? It must have been eye-watering to cruise long distances in! I thought I'd experiment with the fit, and I'm impressed: It looks as though the three frame rods will need a minimum of fettling to get them into their sockets - this is just pressed together, with the floor of the tub clipped onto the locating studs on the chassis frame. The eagle-eyed will notice that I've given the engine a wash to pop the detail a bit more... thanks to MidMazar, on another forum, for the suggestion. With luck, I'll have the rolling chassis complete tomorrow, and can move on to finalising the bodywork -- there are some doors to build, and working hinges to, err... make work. bestest, M.

Thanks, Andre! First up, in unforgiving close-up, the dash. The raised detail in the dials is very finely engraved, so I gave up on trying to get the decals to settle down, and did them by painting Citadel Chaos Black over the Humbrol Chrome Silver sprayed dashboard. Once the black had dried, I lightly scraped over with a cocktail stick, and it came easily off the raised detail. Finally, several coats of Klear for glass. I added pull switches in the main binnacle, raising the moulded detail higher, turned the left hand "button" in the centre console into a twist-switch, and made an ignition key from flattened solder to fit into the right hand position, ...and now, if you're going to build one of these, pay close attention! I had a bit of a disaster, and what you see above is the rebuilt version... There is an upper frame piece, made up of the firewall, which sits on the cockpit tub in front of the dash, and three rods. Two go diagonally from the left to the crossbar just in front of the engine, and the third goes downward from the right side to the lower frame ahead of the exhausts, just behind the wishbones. If you want to get this piece to fit, you need to be very careful. There is a cut-out in the front corner of the engine which allows the middle rod to reach the central attachment. If you wire the engine as I did to start with, the rod won't fit. I had to move the two thicker black leads out of the way - one backwards, one much closer to the top of the engine. I'd suggest doing any wiring round here with either soft vinyl or solder, so you can move it easily! The second issue is the exhaust manifolds. For the right hand side rod to be able to attach the frame, they need to sit as low as possible - but how low is fixed by the lower chassis frame. Since the instructions would have you attach the manifolds very early, which building the block, and they don't have a very precise location, it's easy to end up with them too high - especially if you fit them as "square" to the mounting surface as you can. I'd suggest here that you either just press them into position, or tack them with a couple of small dabs of glue - no more. When the engine block is fitted in place (it's held well-aligned with a tab), flex the exhausts down as far as they will go onto the bottom frame, and fix them more firmly. If you try to flex them when they are more firmly fixed, the engine springs out, the front frame breaks, the brake drum falls off and one of your wheel bearings comes apart... I warn you! It wasn't irredeemable, but it was a horrible moment, and an unnecessary one... Normal service will be resumed tomorrow! bestest, M.

Another enthusiast spotted that I'd failed to paint the flexible hoses on the intake manifold, and that drew a couple of missed colour call-outs to my attention... I'd been working from photos, none of which have quite the right angle to show the bottom end, and I'd failed to notice the colours called out in the instructions. Anyway, a little bit of remedial work later... The "jubilee clips" are made from fine silver wire, folded into a U shape, the ends held in a pin vice, and then hooked over the intake tube and twirled so that it tightens up. It's the same technique I use for DIY turnbuckles. A dab of superglue fixes it in place, and then I trimmed off the long twisted tail. I also painted the "steel" bits on the intake. The seats are the kit decal, with lots of Micro Sol, and then a coat or two of Windsor and Newton Galleria matt varnish. Lots to do in the cockpit still, but it looks pretty striking! bestest, M.