Stepping sideways....

[PR19_Kit]

After my enforced sabatical from modelling while Mrs_PR19 was recovering (she's getting on REALLY well BTW, almost back to her old self.  ) I had another census up in The Loft, but this time of my model car kits as I was aware that there were three HUGE boxes labelled 'Cars A', 'Cars B' and 'Cars C' up there that I hadn't looked at last February.

BIG mistake! 

I found LOADS of kits that I'd a) not even looked at but looked promising b) that I'd started and stopped for some reason or c) that I'd nicked some parts for another car project in class b). I also found a much smaller box labelled 'Slot cars', which is where my slot racing bus used to live, but the box also contained two more of my old 1960s vintage slot cars and my top-of-the-line controller. Most of the kits are 1/24 - 1/25 stuff, some stock and custom cars, some pure drag racing cars and some road racing cars. I also found a small collection of Airfix 1/32 scale kits, some wof which are apparently worth SERIOUS money judging from recent eBay prices. The slot cars are all 1/32 scale BTW.

So the 'Sideways Step' is me getting back into car modelling again, I've already started on the repair of one of my IPMS Class K winners from 1973, the middle one of my 5 year run of Class K winners back then, three of which I had in the 50 year display at Telford last year. I'll post pics of that one in a day or so once the major repairs have gained enough strength and when I've re-printed some decals for it.

Meanwhile on the slot racing front I'm refurbishing one of my 1960s cars, a Daytona Cobra, I've joined a club that's not too far away and bought three new slot cars! 

One of them was a kit so I built it as a Whiff, naturally.  It's a Jaguar XJR12, the real version of which won Le Mans in 1990, which was the last time Jaguar won there. In the real world they appeared in the glorious purple and white Silk Cut colours, but mine is in BART colours, which stands for  'British Airways Racing Team'.... 

I painted it up in a car version of BA's Landor scheme, by far the best BA scheme ever to my mind, and added the odd 'Speedmarque' from their curent scheme here and there. I used Xtracolor BA Pearl Grey as the main colour with a BL Dark Blue as the contrast and added a whole slew of scanned, re-scaled and re-printed BA decals. The car kit itself was by an Italian bunch called Slot.It and currently it's faster than my thumb can handle, but I'm getting there. Amazingly the kit came with loads more parts than you actually need and NO instructions at all! I solved the latter problem by 'throwing money at it' and bought another XJR12, but a Ready-to-Run version this time, and used it as a worked example to build the BA car. Apparently the extra parts are to build the earlier XJR9 which Slot.It also manufacture. That uses a totally different body shell, so why you get both lots of small parts I've no idea.

I'm not stopping building Whiffed aircraft at all, but not as many as I've been doing for the past few years, and I'll be posting some Whiffed cars on here as well in future.

[Go4fun]

That is one handsome vehicle sir. I can't wait to see more of your 'Older' builds as you get them into your desired level of ship shape.

[Hobbes]

That's a nice livery on the Jag, much better than having every surface jam-packed with clashing logos.

I've still got an old Carrera track in storage, with piles of secondhand track parts that I never could get to work reliably because all the connectors were rusty. My brother and I broke it out a couple of years ago, only to find that we had 3 cars but only one functional controller...
I've been eyeing a couple of slot cars (Rover SD1 and Jaguar XJ12C), but those would be for static display...

[Rheged]

I do like the Jag, a very restrained livery.     And more importantly, I'm delighted to hear that Mrs PR_19 is doing well!

[Captain Canada]

Good news !

And what a lovely car.....of course the BART acro just makes you think 'Simpsons' but she sure looks nice in those colours ! To fly....To race !

[Thorvic]

OK who was expecting to see the Jag with a rear spoiler twice the width of the car

Seriously though a nice avenue for you to rediscover and explore Kit 

[Dizzyfugu]

Cool. Like the BA advertising - is it authentic or whiffy?

[PR19_Kit]

OK who was expecting to see the Jag with a rear spoiler twice the width of the car

Hmmm, there's an idea. I could nerf the guys in the lanes BOTH sides of me off then! 

Cool. Like the BA advertising - is it authentic or whiffy?

Half and half Thomas. Most of it is a direct crib of the Landor scheme but as the car has no fin I just moved the fin graphics downward somewhat. Plus I've added the odd Speedmarque here and there, and put a BIG one on the wing. The 'To Fly, To race' logotext is a skit on BA's 'To Fly, To Serve' of course.

Almost NO-one in the slot racing community gets the jokes on the car, they're so single minded! 

[Dizzyfugu]

Love it. It's so simple, yet elegant - did not notice the subtle twists, but I just had a superficial look so far.

[PR19_Kit]

You can't see it in those pics but it has a huge 'To Fly, To Race'  decal on the underside of the wing. That's to encourage the guys trailing me in the race to fly BA of course...........