Ancient history Lamborghini Diablo Speedster Flambé

[Russell C]

One more in the lineup of my 2 decade-old models. If I remember right, this AMT kit was a door prize which I was wondering what to do with. Since I'd had the flame image of the 1:1 prototype for a Pacer pickup rattling around in my mind at the same time as a Ferrari with sidepipes, that's what brought this about. I worked occasionally on it from '92 to March '94. It was pictured in the GSL coverage of that other magazine's '94 contest annual, and also again in that same magazine on page 42 for the Springerville AZ contest. Where'd 20 years go?

Whacked the roof, but not much else custom beyond the Fujimi wheels and Pirelli P-Zero tires. My dad lathe-turned the outer rims from aluminum. I was living in NM at the time, but I figured an Arizona plate would do good on this one - hot car for a hot place.





The main color is some kind of nail polish medium tone yellow, and the flames are a really nice nail polish pearl orange, airbrushed light at the front and heavier/darker at the ends, where I masked off the yellow with Bare Metal foil to eliminate paint bleed under the masks. The inner curves and flame ends are hand-painted black lines. The trick to getting a decal-flat finish was via the clear coat. What I did was lay on a ton of PPG Deltron clear, which simply built up the stairstep effect of the flames on top the yellow, but when the clear cured, I had so much of it over the flames that I could chisel that excess down to the level where it met the built-up clear between the flames. Deltron is really carveable, actually, sorta like chiseling clear wax, and it polishes really nicely. But I no longer have auto body shop contacts who could supply me with small quantities of that stuff.



To get the gauges to pop out of that otherwise dark hood, I put in model aircraft ones that looked like the Lambo's gauges, which were black reverse-printed on clear sheet (similar to these). With these, it makes you look like a super modeler when all you are doing is dropping a blob of yellow for the needles on the back and blobs of white for the numbers. What everyone sees are perfect needles and numbers through completely flat "glass".

As Richard Petty would say, I'd rather be lucky than good, and it turned out that my gamble on making the flames look flat against the background worked out well, as did the fading on the orange. I'm not actually all that good at airbrushing, but I get a kick out of the way that turned out to this day.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Russell C
fixed busted photo links

[unclescott58]

Very nice Lamborghini. Great job on the paint. I like it!

Scott

[bobthehobbyguy]

Very nice. It would drive the purists crazy though.

[Modelmartin]

Good color, too many wheels!

[slusher]

Great looking model. I really like it...

[Maxicoop]

what a great lookin' Lambo great color and fabulous flames ............. super build !!!!!!!

[DynoMight]

... different, but good. Very good.

[Danno]

Excellent model, Russell, that certainly withstood the tests of time! It looks as good and as contemporary today as it did 20 years ago.

Looks better topless, BTW.

[Tonioseven]

I dig that.

[Sixx]

I remember seeing that in the mag! Awesome build !

[TheCat]

very nice

[Russell C]

Thanks, guys.

On 8/18/2014 at 6:06 PM, Modelmartin said:

Good color, too many wheels!

Evil Andy taunts me with my running gag yellow three-wheelers for the GSL contest "Group" category. One of these days I'll have to do a thread on the whole line-up. Hollywood Jim got most of them in that 'photo essay' of his, but there were more.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Russell C
fixed busted photo link