Nissan Cima / Infiniti Q45 Y33 coupe UPDATED 7 5 2015

[Peter Lombardo]

As a young teenager, 1961 thru 1967, I was always blown away by the "big" coupes of the day.......the big Pontiac's, Chevy"s, Ford's, Chrysler, Dodge.....etc..... I just loved the long sweeping lines of the bodies and the sleek two door roofs. Today, with the exception of some BMW's, Mercedes and Audi models, you just don't see "big" coupes any more.

A number of years ago I dropped a Ferrari 612 roof onto the Chrysler 300, making, if you will, a poor mans Bentley Continental coupe looking car......I loved the look of that car and thought Chrysler could have done well actually building a 2 door coupe based on that look.......but not to be......anyway,

Many months ago, HLJ was running a sale on some stale inventory and I picked up a Aoshima curbside model of the Nissan Cima ( in Japan) and one time Infiniti Q45 in the US, Y33. This is a customized, of sorts, kit of the Super VIP car ( custom wheels, lower body cladding rear spoiler, along with a few additional touches.) The other day I came across the kit stashed away in my closet and pulled it out. Looking at it, I thought maybe I could do a mindless, simple build of the car since lately, my head is more wrapped up with the new business........but the thought of a simple build just didn't appeal to me.

Then I remembered that while cleaning up my modeling room a bit the other day, I stumbled across a complete untouched body of the Revell 612 Scaglietti in an old parts box. I have a sealed untouched kit of that car which I always intended to build straight up as the 612 ( I saw one a few years ago in dark metallic blue as it slipped past me on the highway, which looked great, so that is how I wanted to do the model) but the spare body was unaccounted for, so I was free to do as I wished with it. The same light that went on in my head many years ago with the Chrysler 300, lite up again.............why not take the larger Infiniti Q45 model, cut off the 4 door roof and replace it with the Ferrari sleek 2 door roof? I can modify the lower body cladding into a 2 door version, drop the car down a bit and give it a nice two tone finish. Why not, indeed.

So, here are the two cars prior to the surgery

The Infiniti without the body cladding and custom bumpers

And the Ferrari body unmolested. And below is the roof of the Ferrari cut out

Here the roof is being test fit onto the Infiniti body.

I used some styrene strips and Tamiya two part putty ( the light green stuff) to fill the gaps and permanently attach the top to the body. The Studebaker in the background is a Jimmy Flintstone resin salt flat car that I picked up at an NNL east a number of years ago.....I am scratch making the hood, and then the chassis and interior for it for a build down the road a bit.

After a little rough sanding, here is the car with its new top. The red line is where the new door will end.

front side view

And lastly, here is the old 4 door roof over the top of the new 2 door roof, just for comparison.

Since the Infiniti is a curbside kit, I think the spare Ferrari V12 engine, just might find its way under the hood of this car.....if it fits, why not?

Edited July 5, 2015 by Peter Lombardo

[disabled modeler]

I am not a big fan of these kind of cars but I like where its going...cool...

[Brizio]

Looks good!

[Foxer]

This does look interesting. All it needs now is to replace the ugly old Infiniti lower body with one from an Infiniti G. Infinity never got it until the G's were introduced and those they got the roof right .. along with everything else! That Ferarri roof is not far off from the G35 below.

I hope you'll do some mild customizing on the body .. or that might be against your whole premise with this build ..

Edited June 28, 2015 by Foxer

[Peter Lombardo]

This does look interesting. All it needs now is to replace the ugly old Infiniti lower body with one from an Infiniti G. Infinity never got it until the G's were introduced and those they got the roof right .. along with everything else! That Ferarri roof is not far off from the G35 below.

I hope you'll do some mild customizing on the body .. or that might be against your whole premise with this build ..

Yes Mike......I own a g35 coupe and agree with you completely.....the Q45a was a pretty good looking car and a blast to drive, but you are right, the g series was, and still is the best Infiniti lineup...... I also agree that the roofline from the Ferrari is almost the same as the G coupe roof......I built a G coupe as a GT3 racer, which I will get around to posting......I have 3 more kits, one will be stock, one a NISMO version and one as a drift version........when time allows, that is. and yes, the body gets some customizing as well

[Foxer]

Oh yes, post the G35! Not a one I've ever seen posted here and I can't get enough of them ... I had a G35 and G37. Guess I should get on to finish my build.. eheh

[Peter Lombardo]

Okay, you asked for them........this started as a G35 stock.......I did major rework on the nose, hood, wheel wells and rear end. The decals are Studio 27 designed for a 350Z race car, so I did some modification to them also.

I was able to use some panels from a Tamiya Lexus GT3 car......but this was a major redesign to the stock G35.

Another "What if" car.

[xbazzarex]

great idea, i wish companies would go back to offering 2-door versions of cars. i miss my grand prix gtp coupe, nobody made a 2 -door like pontiac did.

following with interest!

[Foxer]

Okay, you asked for them........this started as a G35 stock.......I did major rework on the nose, hood, wheel wells and rear end. The decals are Studio 27 designed for a 350Z race car, so I did some modification to them also.

I was able to use some panels from a Tamiya Lexus GT3 car......but this was a major redesign to the stock G35.

Another "What if" car.

That certainly did lump up the G35 .. but exactly what some Japanese speed shop might do .. looks perfect for that .. including the paint job!

[Peter Lombardo]

I made some headway on the Cima. I opened the doors, which was rather difficult because of the joint where the top connected to the body, plus, the car was a four door and I had to redesign the cut for a large door two door coupe. And to compound the issue, I added the kit supplied lower body cladding which also was designed for a four door sedan so the cladding needed to be cut and reshaped for a two door coupe.

You can see the front and rear cladding here along with the side cladding. There is a rather sharp line where the cladding meets the body, which really doesn't bother me, but I did not care for the way the cladding is lower than the top of the wheel opening. I thought that looked odd, so I have added wheel arch extenders and filled the space above the extender with putty. I cut out the excess extender and sanded down the putty so there is a nice flair to the top of the wheel well that sticks out as far as the cladding. I think this gives the car a more uniform boldness.

Obviously, the sanding is not complete yet on the wheel wells, but it is getting close.

I have to sand out the doors yet and redo the hinges as I used a different style on this and I am not happy with it. I still haven't decided whether I will open the hood or not....but there is time before I have to make the decision on that.

[RAMBENNA]

nice work

[DrKerry]

Looks good!!!

[superbike-shaun]

C'mon,you know that Rumbling,Roaring v12 wants to get in there!!!!,Better open that hood!!! Shaun

[crazyrichard]

very very cool

[Foxer]

I like the look of the body at these lower angles

[Peter Lombardo]

After thinking about whether to open the hood on this or not for about 3 seconds, I realized that if I took the time and effort to open the doors, it would be incomplete to not open the hood......so last night after we got home from a beautiful fireworks display, I set about opening the hood.

If was actually a difficult task. One, the plastic used in the Nissan Cima is rather tough and brittle. The styrene used by Revell on the Ferrari ( the roof ) is much softer and easier to work with. So because of the toughness of the styrene, cutting out the hood was a slow and arduous task, especially at 11 pm after a tall Bourbon and soda. And because I wanted to leave some of the hood on the car just in front of the windshield, creating the curved line where the back of the hood ends was very tedious.

I had to build up under the cowling an "under support" shelf for the top of the future firewall and to make a seamless lower edge for the windshield to butt up against. The radius of the Nissan rear hood did not match up with the radius of the Ferrari windshield so the outer edges need to be we-worked. You can see all of the putty necessary to fill in the side rear edges. Also the lip on the rear edge needs to be cut and sanded down to the height of the hood.

To complicate this a little more, I changed the side edge and opening of the hood. On the Nissan, the hood open line is out near the edge of the front fenders, but on this model, I wanted to mimic the size opening that the Ferrari has, so I cut the hood open along the strong hood contour lines, very similar to the hood on the Ferrari. I may, or may not have the grille open with the hood......just not sure how this will work and where the hinges are going.....If the hood opens to the forward, then the grille is on the body, if the hood opens to the rear, then the grille can be attached to the hood.

You can see the doors are taped in place, and still need a fair amount of shimming to get all the seams to line up correctly......note the huge gap below the A pillar and the front top of the door here, that needs to be corrected, as do most sides, but not to difficult to do.

Once the putty dries, I can sand everything smooth and get the hood and doors hinged and set about dropping the engine in place.