Rally Cars Help

[Aaronw]

I'm not really into racing but I've always found rally cars to be interesting, I guess its the off road sports car thing.

I've had a thing for the Lancia Stratos since I was in high school and finally got myself one. Actually I kind of went off the deep end and bought the Tamiya Alpine 1600SC, Hasegawa Lancia Stratos ('75 and '77 versions) and the Hasegawa Datsun 240Z. I really know nothing about these cars except they look neat, any suggestions, websites, things to watch for on the kits etc would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Nick F40]

Well, WRC website helps and YouTube!

The Alpine was a success back in the early 70's even taking the 1973 FIA championship. The Lancia Stratos HF was a car that some would say set the standrads of rally cars. It competed against the best, Mini Coopers, Escorts, Alpines, Abarths etc. It has won many championships in the 70's, taking 3 championships back to back from 1974 to 1976 but it's less power and the abnoxious but satisfying tone it gave out was a bit too much for the regulations and with the 037 and the S4, Lancia had better plans. Of course Audi in 1980 also changed the rally world with their 2.1L five cylinder and the Quattro system and the Stratos was a thing of the past. Here's a video that shows the Statos

I always loved the Nissan rally cars, the sound, the look and I've always wanted to build one of those kits, I can't wait for you to start yours.

Hope that helped.

[Brendan]

Aaron,

The kits you purchased are excellent kits. You shouldn't have any problems with the parts fitting together. The only areas I had problems with was the Stratos decals. Mine were poorly printed. You'll definitely have fun building these cars.

[Aaronw]

You might have to wait a bit on the 240Z, I'm currently building a stock 240Z from the Revell kit as a warm up, so the rally version is down a bit on the list. My brother has had a couple of 1-1 240Z's so I'm kind of partial to them myself. He still has one parked over at my Dad's, I'm tempted to buy it from him but that might look like a midlife crisis car now (I just turned 40 a couple months back).

I had a look in the boxes, the decals look very nice so hopefully that won't be a problem. I hadn't realized the Stratos would be such a simple paint job, its all white. The decals provide almost all the color, but they do look like a bit of a challenge since there are a lot of them. Guess I better stock up on the Microsol and Microset.

I can see these being a bit addictive though, I spent about an hour watching you tube videos and kept thinking ohh, that would be a neat one to do. Has Jaguar ever been into rally racing, I could have sworn I saw a Jag XJ coupe in one of the videos, BMW 2002 would be neat too, but I haven't seen that as a kit.

I'll be priming the bodies later today since I have nice weather for it.

Edited March 23, 2008 by Aaronw

[Nick F40]

I love BMW 2002's! You might see more Jag's at a Historic hillclimb event not really a rally.

Have any pics of the 240Z?

[Aaronw]

I love BMW 2002's! You might see more Jag's at a Historic hillclimb event not really a rally.

Have any pics of the 240Z?

Well the Revell one should be done pretty soon so I'll have some pics of it. If you mean my brothers 1-1 no, its under a tarp, he got tired of it getting stolen so the last time it happened he parked in my Dad's backyard and its been there since. He can't drive it because the jerks stole the steering wheel when they ditched it and he hasn't tried to track another one down. That is one of the reasons I was thinking about buying it from him. Almost all my neighbors are cops so car theft isn't really a problem here.

I saw what I thought was a Jag in a historic rally video from 2007 so it was probably all show and not neccessarily just rally cars, there were a bunch of Porsche 911's as well that looked more like road racers and didn't really look like they'd be too happy bouncing across Africa.

It was funny, because as I was watching some of these videos it kept making me think of Speed Racer. A lot of the races in that cartoon were like really wild rally races, crossing piranna infested rivers and such.

Edited March 24, 2008 by Aaronw