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Showing results for tags '1:25 scale.'.
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Hey Guys. This is a project that i have been wanting to kick off for a while now. The model I want to create is a muscle car called an LJ GTR XU1 Torana. These cars were made be a company called Holden back in the early seventies. In case anyone has not heard the name before, Holden is the Australian branch of General motors. This was not the first muscle car Holden had created that honour goes to the larger Monaro. What made the GTR XU1 Torana so unique was the combination of a lightweight car with a large engine. But the GTR XU1 did not run the usual V8 that other muscle cars were using. With a curb weight of only a thousand kilograms, this car did not need a V8 to race against the bigger V8s. The XU1 was, around the same size as the Ford Capri and like the Ford Capri this Torana ran a six cylinder engine. In this case a 202 cubic inch inline engine known as a Red Motor due to the colour of the block. This was the biggest six cylinder engine Holden made, so for such a lightweight car it made perfect sense. In case anyone is wondering how these little cars performed, there's a race over here called Bathurst and in 1972 a driver called Peter Brock went onto win the race in one of these cars. An important thing I should add that I was unaware of until one of my friends told me was that this was also the last year where drivers could race solo. This was the first of many victories Peter would have at Bathurst and the victory cemented his status and that of the little pocket rocket into Australian motor racing folklore. Over the years these cars were raced in every style imaginable, from touring cars, rally cars, speedway ( an Aussie version of stock car racing ) to the quarter mile. The Torana is to drag racing over here what the Willys is to Drag racing in the US. There have been countless models of the XU1 made over the years but almost all have been die cast. There was a guy producing these as resin kits, over here but he stopped trading years ago. Even though I have one of his kits, I decided I wanted to create my own. I actually own a 1:1 LJ Torana similar to the one in the images, although its just the standard version. The actual dimensions were identical between the base model and the performance models so I have been using mine as a reliable reference. I expect that most of this build will be scratch built. I will not be sourcing and modifying a chassis/floor pan to fit this project, so that will be scratch built as well. I am using 2mm thick sheet styrene as it will be more durable.