Matt Bacon

So, that was one of the more nerve-wracking episodes of putting the body on the chassis. Talk about "tight fit"... Now all I have to do is figure out how to dislodge the small flakes of yellow paint that have pinged off the body or chassis and static-electricity-ed themselves to the windscreen and side windows. I need a feather! bestest, M

Thanks, chaps... slow but steady progress... A couple of hours masking, ten minutes spraying, and 30 minutes clean up! And what's this interloper on the bench? One I'm saving for later... bestest, M.

Thanks, all... This has taken a while, but now I'm back where I started! Stripped, sanded, coated with sealer (the greeny-yellow stuff), primed again in white, shut lines washed in black with Citadel wash, and finally repainted in the Zero yellow base coat. It is rougher than it would have been if I'd got it right first time, here and there, but it's a balancing act between getting it completely smooth and sanding away the surface detail you want in some places... ...and just in case anyone was wondering why I like the Zero 2K system, despite the fact that it's poisonous and a real faff to clean up after, this is it. I've done no polishing at all on the roof or bonnet here. Not even had to take out the odd dust mark... Bearing in mind that there's satin black trim to go all over the place, but especially around the windows, I'm pretty happy how this has turned out straight out of the spray booth. There's no red bleed anywhere, except for one small and inexplicable circular spot on the rear bumper... bestest, M.

I know what it is, too... .... it is truly, spectacularly, irredeemably AWFUL. Now I just need to give it a name. bestest, M.

The i8 and 918 "Weissach" look fantastic. They took the easy way out with the i8 colour scheme... I'll be building mine more like this: ...but the 918's easy. Just swap the black for gloss white, and I'm done... bestest, M.

In what way? I don't have a real one, either, but I do have a 1/24 scale four-view drawing of a 300SL, and the Heller one matches the plan very accurately... bestest, M.

... I see Revell Germany is listing this beastie in 1/25, origin "Monogram", for release in August this year. Is it out in the US yet? Has anyone seen one? bestest, M.

This was a lucky one for me. I'd literally just seen a picture of one in a book I picked up in a charity shop a couple of weekends ago: "Great Cars: Veteran and Vintage." I was sure I'd seen that radiator before, and it took me about 5 minutes to find. The weird ?shocks/light supports? are also pretty distinctive -- if you've seen them before... ;-P bestest, M.

OK, I guess anyone who's interested has heard that those nice chaps at Aston Martin have agreed to create a dedicated supercar for Her Majesty's world famous "secret" agent, in the DB10: What I didn't know until the latest Evo hit the doormat, is that those equally nice folks at Jaguar have done a wee bit of engineering themselves to make sure that the bad guy is not totally outclassed, and dropped the 542BHP V8 from the top of the range F-Type into one of these: Now, if the C-X75 had kept its two little gas turbines, it would have been a FANTASTIC evil super-villain car, but even with "only" the V8, I think I'd still rather have the Jag than the Aston... Does that make me a megalomaniac with world domination on his mind? Seriously, I think Jaguar has made a very shrewd marketing move there, probably worth what it costs to get the V8 quart into the C-X75 pint pot. How many people are going to be knocking on their door asking for one, now they've proved that it can be done? It's like developing the XJ220, except someone else is paying for it! bestest, M.

Well, that's the running gear all done. Not so many parts, but I think it does the job -- it certainly looks like the pictures of the "ordinary" Integrales I've found, if not the "550BHP Sprint car" which has been more than a bit "fettled..." I think this is about as far as this goes until the body is fully cooked, sealed, primed, base coated and clear coated... again ;-P bestest, M.

Thanks, guys. If the IPA doesn't take the primer off, I shall leave it as it is. I think the issue is that both the primer and the base coat are slightly porous, and allow the solvent in the clear coat to reach through to the red plastic and "suck" the dye out of it, bringing it to the surface and into the clear coat as the solvent evaporates. If that's the problem, it really shouldn't matter whether the oxide sealant goes directly on to the plastic or over the primer layer, as long as it blocks the porosity in the primer. Actually, since it's (as far as I can see) a regular Zero Paint, I probably wouldn't want to spray it onto bare plastic anyway, since I'd then worry about the solvent in the SEALER etching the plastic! bestest, M.

A bit more progress... Finishing touch for the cabin: seat belts. The belts themselves are etched brass, and nicely textured, though you can't see it. The idea is that they are "sprung" slightly outwards, and will slide up the inside B pillar and look as if they are attached as the body goes on over the chassis. That's the plan, anyway... ...and I think we can safely conclude that IPA does indeed strip Zero 2K clear and base coat! It's tenaciously hanging on in the seams where the coloured clearcoat gathered and is thicker, but I hope that if this is where we are after 24 hours, by Thursday evening when I'm back home it will have even stripped those last corners. It doesn't seem to be having any effect on the Tamiya Fine Surface Primer, mind, so my sealer may have to go on top of that! bestest, M.

Thanks, guys. It's been in the IPA since this morning, and the clear coat is starting to wrinkle in various places. I'm away for a couple of days, so by the time I get back... I've got some Zero "Yellow Oxide Isolator/Sealer" to go on to the red plastic under the primer if I manage to get it stripped back that far... bestest, M.

...this was supposed to be a quicky! Very nice Hasegawa curbside kit of a car I nearly bought back when I was 25. The complete lack of service history, registration document and cracked windscreen put me off.... I don't know why ;-P. But I wish I had (it was only £2500 in 1990...) if it was throwaway money! Interior is simple, and easy... Primer, German Grey, then drybrushed with Citadel Shadow Gray and Necronomicon Grey. Neat dashboard with a bit of detail painting: Nice, a bit simplified, chassis goes together well with basic painting... now this to deal with: The clear coat has leached the red dye out of the plastic, through the primer and yellow base coat,. So I have to see whether isopropyl alcohol will fetch the clear-coat and base yellow coat off. I'm reliably assured that it will, so we'll see what happens next week while I soak the plastic in IPA for several days... Annoyingly, I think this would have been finished in a weekend if it hadn't been for the body screw-up! Anyway, good to have a "quicky" there or thereabouts... bestest, M.

I've never had this happen before, but somehow the Zero 2K Clear coat on my Delta Integrale has managed to "pull" the red colour from the plastic body through a coat of Tamiya Fine Surface Primer AND the yellow base coat, so there are uneven areas of orange-ish tint where the clear coat is dyed slightly red. It's NOT burned through to the base plastic, it's actually pigment in the clear. This means I need to strip the body, and start again, this time with a "sealer" under the primer (I didn't know this stuff existed until this happened!). Does anyone know of a method that definitely works to strip Zero 2K Clear? I've read lots of "generic" suggestions, like "Try IPA" or "Try Oven Cleaner", but ideally I'd like to hear from someone who has actually used a specific product themselves to remove this specific 2K clear coat. And preferably a product I can get hold of in the UK, unlike, say "Purple Power", whatever that is... Many thanks for any suggestions! All the best, M.

Has anyone used this stuff? How black is it? Does it have a metallic sheen, or is it appropriate for the black anodised/painted trim on '80s/90s cars? bestest, M.

They're not in the chart, but you can find the mixes for them described on the instructions (IIRC two are on the body painting and decalling three-view, and the other on the first stage where you use it), which you then have to decode by looking at the components of the mix on the chart. Usually one's a semi-gloss black made by mixing black and gloss clear, and one's their "carbon" mix, which is half and half black and steel grey. I don't mix them according to the recipe -- I just figure out what they're meant to be and use appropriate paint I have on hand to achieve the effect they are after... bestest, M.

Sign me up! Not for the pistachio green, mind... bestest, M.

Who's not trying? Me personally, for sure, but I think you'll find that ALL the major car manufacturers have research and significant investment into designing lighter weight structures using advanced materials and production technologies... http://www.compositesworld.com/blog/post/leichtbau-ist-hybridbau for example. Take a look at the attendees at the "Global Automotive Lightweight Materials" conferences: http://www.global-automotive-lightweight-materials.com/15/history/83/global-automotive-lightweight-materials-series-history/ Or buy a ticket to Shanghai in March and you could meet quite a few of them and tell them that they aren't working hard enough... ;-P http://www.global-automotive-lightweight-materials-asia-2015.com bestest, M.

Well, this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0760346445 just arrived. Plenty of inspiration between THOSE covers... bestest, M.

Technically, of course, Henry Ford II didn't "build a Ferrari killer", though he did pay for it. He wanted to win Le Mans, and thought that the best way to do it would be to buy Ferrari. When that didn't work, he came to visit some plucky Brit "garagistes" instead: Lotus, Cooper and Lola. The GT40 (Mk1 at least) is pretty much a Lola Mk6 with a Ford engine, built in the UK, and overseen by Roy Lunn, the only Ford engineer with experience of mid-engined cars, and John Wyer, who'd made his name racing Astons. To begin with, Ford had no idea how to make an engine that would run reliably for the 24H, or indeed a car that wouldn't fall apart. After the first, failed, season, they gave the project to Carroll Shelby, who had "form" with big Ford engines, to make it work with a new engine and a new gearbox... And this: http://www.amazon.com/Go-Like-Hell-Ferrari-Battle/dp/0547336055 Is a really fantastic book on it. Written like a thriller, but all true... bestest, M.

True, but an SR22 does run $500K -- $800K ;-P GE Plastics, in particular, spent a lot of hours and dollars in the 90s looking at how large structural automotive components like spaceframes could be mass-produced out of three-dimensionally woven fibre reinforcement with plastic resin injected into and around it, and getting not very far. Nobody has really figured out how to mass produce reliable composite structures to the standards needed for today's cars. McLaren knows how to do it for supercars, but to get the cost down for THEIR new "entry-level" 911-beater at a mere £130K they've switched to aluminium body panels rather than the composite ones on a 650S. Lamborghini is supposedly the "testbed" for VAG, pioneering carbon fibre moulding techniques, but the Huracan isn't mass-market by some way. I think it's probably crash-testing rather than excess electronics that's really driving up the weight of cars (though, while the CIrrus may have the same level of electronics as a modern car, I bet it doesn't have six electric motors in each seat to move them in 3 axes, firm up or relax the lumbar support, and even give you a massage!). To get survivability to the current levels, you either need weight (simple momentum reduces acceleration) carefully deployed into collapsable crash structures, or if you have less weight (with aluminium or composites) you need even cleverer energy absorption methods built into the structure, which are harder to engineer, and harder to build (with composites, for example, you have to align the reinforcing fibres precisely through the structure, and build in zones that will absorb energy as the fibres come apart. It's amazing to see some of those modern Le Mans crashes where the driver walks away, but the reason why the car is flying apart around the driver in his tub is that those parts are sapping energy and carrying it away from the driver. If the car was so strong that it retained its structural integrity in a crash like that, you'd be able to pour the driver out of the tub afterwards... Weight, crash resistance and cost are three points of a triangle. You can get lighter weight and the same crash resistance, these days, using aluminium, and a lot of mainstream manufacturers are going that way. But to do it without massively increasing cost per vehicle is requiring miracles of production engineering, and a lot of investment in new manufacturing technology plant. Cars are by far the most complex mass produced (no airplane is made in the millions) thing that mankind makes. They are already amazingly cheap for what they are. To try and reduce weight, while keeping the crash resistance and cost the same is really, really hard... bestest, M.

Thanks, so much, guys. It really is a brilliantly engineered kit, but it pays to read and understand the instructions -- sometimes the diagrams are not so clear! The only thing I'd do differently if I was doing another one would be to fit the door interiors to the outers, and fill and sort out the join before doing any painting, priming the whole lot and then masking the interior structure before painting the skins. That might mean having to use acetate for the windows to fit them after painting, but that's not such a bad idea anyway. I might thin down the door edges a bit as well, at least on the three visible sides... Skip -- this one's a bit of an embarrassment -- I started back in May, but only got the body painted before we moved house (I was distracted by the lovely little Alfa GTA and focused on finishing that instead). I came back to it at the end of November, so there's about two months elapsed time in there, but I really didn't get much modelling done over the holiday season... Now to decide what to do next... a model car that's the closest I'm likely to get to building one I've really bought in my lifetime (no, it's NOT a Ferrari ;-P); one of several bargain 1/48 aircraft that'll take me back to my modelling roots; or a quirky Classic British Kit that presents something we all make all the time in an unusual way and at a much larger (and almost functional) scale...? bestest, M.

Available in any UK household goods/ironmongers/hardware store as "Caustic Soda", used for unblocking drains, serious cleaning of greasy surfaces etc. It's a nasty chemical so gloves, a ventilated room and great care are a must in using it. But whenever I see discussions about how many hours or days you need to soak chromed parts in XXX to get the chrome off, I find myself wondering why people don't just use this common household chemical, which takes literally seconds to achieve the same effect... See the intake manifold and induction tubing here? I did that by carefully dipping the chromed part into caustic soda solution and watching the chrome dissolve away in seconds. You need to fill a jam jar 3/4 with cold water and stand it in an empty sink, and wearing gloves, and safety glasses if you need/have them, stir in about 2 teaspoons of soda crystals, stirring carefully all the time. It will get hot, and steam away some eye-watering vapour, so don't lean over it. When it's cooled down in the sink, drop in the chromed parts and watch the metal disappear in front of your eyes. Once it's all gone, I carefully pour out the liquid down the sink, still wearing gloves, and then run fresh cold water gently into the jar for a minute or two to flush the soda solution off the parts, then fish them out with stainless steel tweezers and leave on a paper kitchen towel to dry. If your parts have a brown "varnish" layer under the chrome but over the plastic, it'll take that off as well, but it'll take a few minutes longer. If I'm planning to repaint with, say, chrome paint then I leave the varnish on; if I'm going to paint some wheels matt black instead of chrome, I take it off before priming. People get very nervous around caustic soda, but it just requires the kind of basic safety precautions I was taught in chemistry lessons three decades ago -- you don't need a fume cupboard, and it's not going to kill you if you inhale a sniff, unlike some of the things we used in organic chemistry practicals... Use it if you feel comfortable doing so, but if you do, you'll never strip chrome with oven cleaner or bleach (or Coke) again... bestest, M.

It also turns off half the cylinders when they aren't needed, has direct fuel injection to allow higher compression ratios, variable valve timing, and a combustion path and chamber design that took 6 MILLION HOURS of computational fluid dynamics analysis to fine tune. It's an amazing piece of engineering, but your dad's 'vette V8 it ain't... ..and besides which, all of that achieves EPA figures of 17/29 mpg. And you wonder why large-capacity V8s aren't the solution to 21st-century gas mileage requirements? bestest, M.