Rebuilding a Ferrari Testarossa Spider

[The Creative Explorer]

Now the Granny T is done, I've got the appetite for big-scale's back and this car has been looking at me for a long time.

I bought this already built 1/8 Pocher Testarossa Spider back in 2009 at an modelshow in Portland, Oregon. It was in a very sorry state, but complete. I decided to purchase it, since it has been a dream to own and built a Pocher for a long time, but this one finally came within budget.

When I got home to my wife's appartment in Portland (in 2009 my GF, now my wife living with me), I got quite dissappointed at the Pocher-kit. It was virtually a large die-cast that one needs to assemble himself. It also was very dirty and I gave it a small clean up in her appartment.

After my time was up, I took it on the plane with me home. (cheapest way, but a bit oncomfortable haha)

The idea is to rebuild this kit, improve it with a small budget and also perfect the many imperfections. I will build it as close to #62897 as possible, but will also give my own twist to it, when it comes to colors.

This is how the Spider looked like when I purchased it.

When I came home to The Netherlands, I started to dissasemble the Ferrari

It is quite obvious that the car is quite simple for such a expensive kit.

Quickly my partsdrawer filled up with many parts

and the body starting to be cleared

A couple of picture's of the car's heart.

[The Creative Explorer]

Then it is time for the Ferrari to get stripped butt-naked

Which I had to do the hard way, no matter how many times I asked the car to undress politely, it only stared point blank back

So I used paintremover, which did the job, but still was a hassle, the paint had a very good adhesion

And basically all the parts were stripped down. This is where the work stopped for me in 2009, after that, the car got into the archive

But I started a few days back on body work, First thing I want to do is to Eurolise the car, I will get rid of the side-markers

But also get rid of the molded in recesses for the badges, I hope by time to make my own photo-etch badges.

another thing I will try is to remove the metal behind the intake, to give it a more natural look.

The moldlines are there too, so I have to work on those as well

[Foxer]

Very interesting. Will be good to see one of these get the treatment!

[KingSix]

hmmmmmmmmmmmm http://cgi.ebay.com/Pocher-Ferrari-Testarossa-Spider-/140509717893?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20b7082585

[Rob Z]

This will be interesting to watch, I have always wondered about these Pocher kits and thier level of detail. I will be interested to see how this one turns out...

[RodneyBad]

I thought it looked much worse when ya got it.

Engine doesn't look too bad.

body cleaned up perty good.

looks like another fun project.

[Kombi]

It's interesting that the original owner, having spent so much money on this kit, appears to have done little more than just assemble it. Although from what I can see it doesn't appear they were hamfisted in their assembly.

[The Creative Explorer]

Thanks guys,

In essence, the detail is there, it has just been done simple. With some elbow grease, it must be possible to make this into a show-worthy car. I am not being able to buy those aftermarket stuff, but I do get the hang of scratchbuilding better and better. So I hope to learn some new tricks and techniques along this ride.

@Rodney, I think you are right, it does look cleaner in the picture than I thought it was. maybe it is the flash or I might already swept some paper-towels over it, I don't know. But fact is; the car was just so darn dirty.

I will tear up the engine completely, since the previous owner must had a paint-allergy, since there is no paint to discover at all. Most important is to bring the sandmold-structure in the build.

@Aaron; My thoughts exaclty, if I had such a expensive kit, I would make sure that I wouldn't let the cats come close or get is just so dirty. Next to the fact that I would've tried to detail the car a bit more.

On the other hand; it is now a nice project for me to give the car a second chance.