Nitto Autobianchi A112 Abarth

[youpey]

I only recently learned of the A112 cars existance. When i first saw it, i immediately thought of the old Honda N360.

 

Anyway, after much research on the car, i fell in love with it and was overjoyed to learn that it was made as a model kit. This kit has metal axels and a gear to motorize it (motor not included in my kit), however I will not be motorizing it anyway.

The kit just arrived 5 minutes ago and loved even the details on the packaging. there is a little insert with color photo of the car and separate sections for the body and the sprues.

I dont normally do a WIP on models, but this kit is too cool not to.

I believe this is the same kit as the fujimi, which i have coming as well, but the fujimi is molded in red.

I will start working on this and post progress as i go

Since i have 2 of these kits coming, i might build one as showroom fresh and another as a rust bucket, with the same color, like before and after

Ps, on the corner of the picture with the real car, my cat needs to investigate. i thought it was worth keeping in since he is my best friend 

Edited April 15, 2021 by youpey

[youpey]

Unfortunately the paint i got is not the color i wanted. it is much too dark. I got the colormatch gm light blue metallic. i also dont like how it sprays on. I was able to run it without even going heavy on the spray. Thankfully my test was on a spoon. Im going to try the tamiya light blue pearl next with several different colors as a base coat to see what i can find

I have automotive paint coming too with the exact color i want.

The model itself is incredibly basic. No too much chassis details, but i think it can come out nice as a curbside. The plastic is quite firm and there isnt much work needed for clean up. 

I will post pics once i have something to look at. I basically prepped the body and cut the pieces off of the sprue for primer, but i didn't primer yet. I got distracted with the body color issues 

 

Because of the simplicity of the kit, i might not build the 2nd one as a matching junker. I might choose a different kit. I have the hasegawa n360 on order and i have built it once before and i like it. I might do that as the nice car/ junker car instead 

Edited April 16, 2021 by youpey

[Spottedlaurel]

Great to see an oddity like this being built, good luck with it.

I saw this Italian import for sale in France back in 2018:

1982 Autobianchi A112 Elite by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

4,500 Euros to you sir.

[youpey]

i have all the little bits and the chassis primed at this point. the body is fully prepped and ready for primer. i have just 1 piece that i need to glue once the primer on it dries.

i will start painting the bits and detailing them today. 

 

honestly, i am siked to start the next build, so i am worried i am going to rush this one. 

[youpey]

i have 90% of the bits painted and now need to be assembled and detailed. the kit is going to be 100% box stock. it doesnt have much detail. after i put the bits together and detail it a bit, i will take a picture to show. at this point, its just bits. 

the body paint i ordered hasnt shipped, so i am just going to paint the body one that i have at home already. i have another kit that can use the paint that is on order. 

i am stripping the chrome from the wheels because it looks like they should be painted silver. i suspect that is going to be my biggest delay at this point. i strip the chrome by keeping it in soda for a few days. so far its been 2 days and the chrome is only just starting to disappear.  I'm using sprite this time since its all i had, and its taking longer than when i use coke or pepsi. i dont have any coke or pepsi at home. 

 

i will also say i love how the tamiya paint dries so smooth. i made a mistake and had a paint drip on one piece because i got a little heavy on it. i just left it as is, assuming i would need to sand and respray that piece and when i checked on it, the drip flattened itself out and looked fine. it was slightly a different shade, so a quick blast of one more light coat of paint and its all squared away. no sanding needed. 

Edited April 19, 2021 by youpey

[Dann Tier]

These are cool little cars!! -really looking forward to following!!!

[Spottedlaurel]

1 hour ago, youpey said:

i am stripping the chrome from the wheels because it looks like they should be painted silver.

Have you tried leaving the chrome plating and going over them with a flat or semi-gloss clearcoat? I picked that tip up on here, it works very well.

[stitchdup]

Cool car, not something I expected to see as a kit. I find bleach strips the chrome in less than ten mins, and you can pour it down the sink after

[youpey]

2 hours ago, stitchdup said:

Cool car, not something I expected to see as a kit. I find bleach strips the chrome in less than ten mins, and you can pour it down the sink after

does bleach soften or mess with the plastic at all?

[stitchdup]

9 hours ago, youpey said:

does bleach soften or mess with the plastic at all?

Not at all sir,  I havent tried it on resin though so it may soften it

[youpey]

I had bought 2 of these kits with the plan of doing factory fresh and then rustbucket. However seeing the lack of detail on the kit, i decided to do just one for now. 

I started to build the kit and found immediate that the rims were needed for step 1. Essentially since my rims aren't ready, it holds up everything. however I found in kit 2 the rims are spectacular as they are. Not shiny or fake looking. I decided to just use those. 

In step 1 you have a metal bar that you are supposed to HAMMER the end pieces on. I say this again. HAMMER. 

I Tried and tried but i could not get the pieces onto the base enough without looking like the wheels are diagonal. however, i found that since im not motorizing this model, i actually dont need the bar. 30 minutes of trying to gently hammer the pieces was immediately squashed when i cut those pieces off with scissors. it felt good.

 

Anyway,  i will take pictures shortly and update with some chassis photos. Besides that first step with the bar the build is going ok. Its definitely not a detailed replica as an out of the box build, but i think it would look ok as something on the shelf

Edited April 20, 2021 by youpey

[youpey]

I got interior and chassis built. I had to tape the door panels while waiting foe glue to dry. Pics tomorrow in case anyone is interested. 

 

Its weird how this build goes. Some. Pieces are nice and fit together great. Others were very convoluted 

[Brizio]

Pretty cool fun car to drive! A friend had one and it is a lot of fun!  
Never saw this kit buid. Probably because of the lac of detail, or the year of the model. A friend built one years ago using this kit and a variety of parts from die case model.

[youpey]

here are the first pictures. not too much to look at, but i dont have the body painted yet. i will probably add carpeting to the back area, but i need to research how that looked exactly before i do.

 

the rims look pretty good. i need to put the decals on them. i found my original rims are starting to lose the chrome, so another 2 days. I will paint them and see which i like more. 

 

Edit; i added carpet to the trunk since its highly visible. i will see how it looks in a few hours once the glue dries. 

 

Edited April 21, 2021 by youpey

[youpey]

Here is the trunk with carpet.  

The body is washed and the trunk lid is glued in place, and ready for primer. Im going to try to primer it today

Edited April 21, 2021 by youpey

[youpey]

Here is the body. There is one dust spot, but otherwise it's perfect. I will try to compound out the spot.

I still need to detail the body and puton the bumpers, side pieces, etc, but i want to let the paint dry overnight before i touch it.  It feels dry, but i would rather be safe

 

 

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by youpey

[youpey]

Without the flash to avoid the over exposure 

[youpey]

oof. i dont know what my deal is.  i accidentally removed some paint with glue when gluing some of the bits onto the body. i glue fingerprinted the glass.

 

anyway, i fixed the glass nicely with sanding and polishing it, and i touched up the body that i messed up. the spot isnt perfect, but im not starting over. 

 

its weird, you have some kits that go together so easy and some that fight you every step of the way. this is one that i have been fighting with. 

 

i will say, i didnt think i would be able to fix the glass. it came out really nice with just sanding the glue out and polishing it on multiple levels