1991 McLaren MP4/6

[Steve Keck]

I just received the Tamiya 1/12th scale 1991 McLaren MP4/6.

I’ve been told the wing configuration that comes in the kit was that of the Japanese GP, but the decals were for the British (Silverstone) GP. I was also told the wing configuration was different between Britain and Japan. The wings could be correct for both versions for all I know.

I understand the Japanese GP car ran Marlboro logos, but licensing for the brand was not available for the model, so Tamiya included the "non-smoking" McLaren logos.

Does the kit build an accurate version of how it ran at Silverstone with McLaren decals as provided in the kit? Alternatively, would changing to Marlboro decals be all it takes to make it an accurate version for some other race?

Any help on understanding how accurate a model I can build out of the box is appreciated.

Steve

[Brendan]

I heard the same thing you did about the kit. Tamiya does this quite a bit with a lot of their Formula 1 kits. They make it a generic car so people can modify it to the right race they want. This is my kit that I did with after market decals with the Marlboro on it. Pretty much box stock except for the decals. I'll see if I have any other references on the car in my books.

[935k3]

The Marlboro lettering is pretty easy to make with a printer and decal paper because it is all black lettering. The "Marlboro" style lettering is available as a Windows TrueType font, just do a search for marlboro.ttf and copy it to your C:\Windows\fonts folder then just print and size it as needed. It's allot harder with the newer Marlboro cars because of the white letters. I would not worry about the wing so much.