Agora Mercedes 1955 300 SL Gullwing 1/8

[Brudda]

Here we go, just received this today. Repainting the car black. Mark said black with the red interior will be cool looking. So it shall be black. 

[absmiami]

Assuming a high level of chassis detail - are you at all tempted to build / display sans body ??

[Brudda]

1 hour ago, absmiami said:

Assuming a high level of chassis detail - are you at all tempted to build / display sans body ??

The chassis is really something to look at. I’m going to put it all together. Unfortunately the chassis is buried in there . If I can talk the agora guys to give me a separate frame, it would make a great display . 

[absmiami]

Do you have friends in hi places ?        i could be tempted to purchase the kit sans the body ….  Havent built large scale in this century ….  But this would be tempting …

[Bugatti Fan]

Have you bought this as a complete kit Bruce? Should be an incredibly detailed showpiece model when built.

[jaftygas]

Oh man! Now this is something I wish I didn’t know existed!?

I love these gull wings! Where and how much?

 

never mind I just figured it out. Wheels are turning!?

Edited July 28, 2023 by jaftygas

[Bugatti Fan]

Best ask Agora Joe.

Unfortunately Bruce has not got back with my question about is it a full kit he bought just yet.

[MrObsessive]

You'll love this one Bruce! I built one a couple years ago, and I have a rather strange story about how I got mine, and what ultimately happened.

In early '20 when Eaglemoss announced they were coming out with the kit, I jumped on it almost IMMEDIATELY. I was very impressed with the prototype they showed, and I put in the order, and within a week or so parts showed up just like the ones you showed above. Things went well for about six months or so, as I was building up the chassis and engine-----then the Covid "stuff" hit, and my receiving parts came to a trickle. I didn't get parts at all for several months, and stopped getting them altogether around December '20/January '21.

On Eaglemoss's site, there was a page that showed the status of deliveries since everything was brought to a screeching halt due to Covid (don't get me started on that). They also said they were moving to a new warehouse, and that was also holding up deliveries for any ongoing subscriptions. Fast forward a number of months, and it's the same story-----no parts, no GOOD explanations as to when things would resume. Meanwhile, I see on other forums where guys were getting their parts, and getting the cars near completed, while others like myself were getting absolutely nothing, and getting no good explanation as to WHY things were held up so long.

Around June/July of '21, I decided I was no longer going to wait on Eaglemoss, and decided to see if I could find the ENTIRE kit on my own. I checked around on eBay, and a seller in France happened to have the whole kit, but it was a pricey $2000 for everything including shipping. I went and bought it, and near the end of assembly, I noticed that the rear fender "eyebrows" were missing. I looked high and low through all the parts that were sent in the box, and they were nowhere to be found. I suspect what happened was those parts were paint damaged (I had heard other complaints), and the original seller got tired of waiting for a replacement, and decided to throw in the towel and get rid of the kit.

I finished the car, and then it occurred to me with so many leftover parts, I could make a separate chassis, engine and wheels to display right next to the finished model.

Meanwhile over at Eaglemoss----they've since gone out of business as I would find out later on, and Agora now has the tooling to make this really super car. I'm typing this from my laptop, and I don't have pics of the car on my hard disc..............they're all on my phone. I don't want to hijack your thread, but I can send you pics of the finished car. There are some pitfalls to the kit.........the doors I found to be especially troublesome since they didn't fit quite right out of the box. I had to do quite a bit of bending and twisting to get them to fit halfway reasonably. Also, the switches for the interior lights can be fussy also. They're supposed to trip the lights when you open the door and shut off when you close them.

Well, that's not always the case, and I just flipped the switch on the bottom of the car to turn everything off.

Sorry for the long post, but I thought I'd mention the strange issue behind the one I was trying to build, and ultimately ended up with a complete kit. I would like to ask Agora if they would eventually have spare parts such as those fender eyebrows. Why those bolt in from the inside is a mystery, but they are indeed separate pieces. The ones I scratchbuilt I was able to match the contours of the original exactly, but getting the silver paint to match was the challenge. The shading is a weeee bit off, but the folks at my club meeting who've seen it didn't know they were scratchbuilt and painted until I said something. ?

[Brudda]

On 7/22/2023 at 7:44 PM, absmiami said:

Do you have friends in hi places ?        i could be tempted to purchase the kit sans the body ….  Havent built large scale in this century ….  But this would be tempting …

My Friend Mark just might have an extra chassis. He is going out of town for a week or so, but when he gets back he said he will look . 

[Brudda]

On 7/24/2023 at 1:19 AM, Bugatti Fan said:

Have you bought this as a complete kit Bruce? Should be an incredibly detailed showpiece model when built.

Hello Noel, I do not buy these expensive kits. My friend Mark is part of Agora (Liam’s team here in the USA. )I build them, review them and sometimes get to go all out on them. Mark lets me know what I can do. But I get to keep them. I just did the Lamborghini Miura and had to build it out of the box. (This kit is a difficult build. ). The Gullwing, I get to change the color. Black was suggested so black it goes. If you need to know if they are a good kit, I can help or Bill( Mr Obsessive) is very knowledgeable on these kits. 

[Brudda]

5 hours ago, MrObsessive said:

You'll love this one Bruce! I built one a couple years ago, and I have a rather strange story about how I got mine, and what ultimately happened.

In early '20 when Eaglemoss announced they were coming out with the kit, I jumped on it almost IMMEDIATELY. I was very impressed with the prototype they showed, and I put in the order, and within a week or so parts showed up just like the ones you showed above. Things went well for about six months or so, as I was building up the chassis and engine-----then the Covid "stuff" hit, and my receiving parts came to a trickle. I didn't get parts at all for several months, and stopped getting them altogether around December '20/January '21.

On Eaglemoss's site, there was a page that showed the status of deliveries since everything was brought to a screeching halt due to Covid (don't get me started on that). They also said they were moving to a new warehouse, and that was also holding up deliveries for any ongoing subscriptions. Fast forward a number of months, and it's the same story-----no parts, no GOOD explanations as to when things would resume. Meanwhile, I see on other forums where guys were getting their parts, and getting the cars near completed, while others like myself were getting absolutely nothing, and getting no good explanation as to WHY things were held up so long.

Around June/July of '21, I decided I was no longer going to wait on Eaglemoss, and decided to see if I could find the ENTIRE kit on my own. I checked around on eBay, and a seller in France happened to have the whole kit, but it was a pricey $2000 for everything including shipping. I went and bought it, and near the end of assembly, I noticed that the rear fender "eyebrows" were missing. I looked high and low through all the parts that were sent in the box, and they were nowhere to be found. I suspect what happened was those parts were paint damaged (I had heard other complaints), and the original seller got tired of waiting for a replacement, and decided to throw in the towel and get rid of the kit.

I finished the car, and then it occurred to me with so many leftover parts, I could make a separate chassis, engine and wheels to display right next to the finished model.

Meanwhile over at Eaglemoss----they've since gone out of business as I would find out later on, and Agora now has the tooling to make this really super car. I'm typing this from my laptop, and I don't have pics of the car on my hard disc..............they're all on my phone. I don't want to hijack your thread, but I can send you pics of the finished car. There are some pitfalls to the kit.........the doors I found to be especially troublesome since they didn't fit quite right out of the box. I had to do quite a bit of bending and twisting to get them to fit halfway reasonably. Also, the switches for the interior lights can be fussy also. They're supposed to trip the lights when you open the door and shut off when you close them.

Well, that's not always the case, and I just flipped the switch on the bottom of the car to turn everything off.

Sorry for the long post, but I thought I'd mention the strange issue behind the one I was trying to build, and ultimately ended up with a complete kit. I would like to ask Agora if they would eventually have spare parts such as those fender eyebrows. Why those bolt in from the inside is a mystery, but they are indeed separate pieces. The ones I scratchbuilt I was able to match the contours of the original exactly, but getting the silver paint to match was the challenge. The shading is a weeee bit off, but the folks at my club meeting who've seen it didn't know they were scratchbuilt and painted until I said something. ?

Hello Bill, great to hear from you! I will be asking you questions on this one. Thanks for the input on this build. I’m waiting for the paint on this car. I ordered the paint from Wesco automotive products. This is a automotive paint supply. They are mixing the actual color code for a black 1955 Gullwing. Hopefully it will be here this week. As far as parts go, you can get the rest of the Eagle moss parts from agora. They will work. 

 

6 minutes ago, Brudda said:

Hello Noel, I do not buy these expensive kits. My friend Mark is part of Agora (Liam’s team here in the USA. )I build them, review them and sometimes get to go all out on them. Mark lets me know what I can do. But I get to keep them. I just did the Lamborghini Miura and had to build it out of the box. (This kit is a difficult build. ). The Gullwing, I get to change the color. Black was suggested so black it goes. If you need to know if they are a good kit, I can help or Bill( Mr Obsessive) is very knowledgeable on these kits. 

Here is what started the whole big scale build. A Toyota 2000 GT. It was featured in scale auto years ago. He gave it to me to see how far it would go. It also was the cover car for the NNL West in 2021 . I think it was 2021. So now I am building for DeAgostini and Agora. Kind of just lucked out. I custom paint some customer cars also when requested. The bendix yellow Toyota went to England I believe. 

[Bugatti Fan]

Thanks for the feedback Bruce.

You are in a very enviable position being able to build up company sample kits and get to keep them afterwards.

[Brudda]

Pack one is finished . Just need to paint the hood.  This car is going black, Dash, steering wheel, tire and wheel , grill and the side of the engine. I’m going to leave the dash and wheel cover silver. Supposed to be black but the contrast of the silver might make it pop. The chrome is fantastic. 

[Zippi]

That 55 Mercedes looks really nice but out of my pay grade.  The black will look really nice.  I'll be watching this one.  

[Brudda]

Painted hood. Starting pack 2. Mark A from agora has supplied me a complete body to paint black. Needs some body work going to disassemble the body and paint the body. Do not have to wait for each pack to arrive to paint her. Saves a lot of time. 

[Brudda]

[Bugatti Fan]

After Mr Obsessive's experience still a bit wary of buying by the part series method.

If I went for it I would certainly use a credit rather than a debit card as a safeguard to reclaim any money.

[Brudda]

On 8/28/2023 at 12:32 AM, Bugatti Fan said:

After Mr Obsessive's experience still a bit wary of buying by the part series method.

If I went for it I would certainly use a credit rather than a debit card as a safeguard to reclaim any money.

Yes sir I do understand. It’s a lot of money to invest. Ray(cobra man) did not buy until it was a complete kit. My personal opinion is that agora is not going anywhere. I have insights and cannot disclose them but from what I see ,  the company is investing in new tooling and buying out other companies . The Mercedes is a very cool and fits pretty good. So far , I’m impressed. I have built the cobra 427 and the supersnake. Those are great kits. The agora Muira is a handful. Needs a lot of modeling mods to get it to fit and look good. Just telling it like it is. Like all 1/8 kits they all could use some extra detail. I have detailed the cobra and detailed a ford GT from another company. Just added a little bit and sanded the seam lines, repainted a few things and they come out great. 

[Brudda]

Ok I am super glue with activator. Eyebrows over the wheel house. And a roof to quarter panel seam. Sanding the glue. It’s insurance for the bolted on eyebrow.  Next, Filling with evercoat automotive putty. This part of the build is the most exciting to me. I love to do the body and paint on models. Stance, paint job then details. For a  contest , I use this as commandments for building a model car. The stance and paint catch the eye, draws people in to look at the details. Actually I use this for all my car models. Fun or contest. I’m sanding the super glue with 180 grit. Apply the putty over the sanded area. I will use 320 to finish it off. Primer. Reblock as nessary, reprime as nessary. 

[Brudda]

15 minutes ago, Brudda said:

Ok I am super glue with activator. Eyebrows over the wheel house. And a roof to quarter panel seam. Sanding the glue. It’s insurance for the bolted on eyebrow.  Next, Filling with evercoat automotive putty. This part of the build is the most exciting to me. I love to do the body and paint on models. Stance, paint job then details. For a  contest , I use this as commandments for building a model car. The stance and paint catch the eye, draws people in to look at the details. Actually I use this for all my car models. Fun or contest. I’m sanding the super glue with 180 grit. Apply the putty over the sanded area. I will use 320 to finish it off. Primer. Reblock as nessary, reprime as nessary. 

 

[Brudda]

Filled with evercoat putty , sanded with 180, 320. Prime with self etching primer.             Let the primer dry, next step, resand with 400. Reprime. Do this over and over till it’s straight and right. 

[Brudda]

Engine starting to look good. Front bumper chrome is very nice. 

[Brudda]

The body panels fit real well. Getting ready for the black paint. 

[Brudda]

On 7/29/2023 at 8:22 AM, Brudda said:

My Friend Mark just might have an extra chassis. He is going out of town for a week or so, but when he gets back he said he will look . 

Sorry for the slow response but he has a extra chassis only for $300 if your interested.

[Brudda]

Sanding the body for the black paint. Hope to paint soon. Received another box and it looks like the chassis. This build will have to wait until I finish the GT500. Not much longer on that build so I can start building this beautiful car.