STILL building RW cars....

[PR19_Kit]

But this one's a bit different as it's for me. 

Some of you know I'm into slot racing in a small way, nowhere near as seriously as I was in the 60s, but I do a bit of club racing most months, and much prefer to build my own cars, or modify already manufactured ones.

These days many of the manufacturers produce what they call 'White Kits', which consist of the ready assembled chassis with the unpainted body parts un-assembled and all presented in a box for you to build up in your own colour scheme. I've already done a 'BA Racing Team' Jaguar XJR9 in the BA Landor scheme, with 'To Fly To Race' writ large in the rear spoiler. 

A recent release by Policar, an Italian company, has been their 1967 Ferrari P4 Le Mans entry, which was naturally supplied ready to race in red (what a surprise...)





Here it is in all its bright RED glory, a lovely looking machine as I think you'd agree.


A well known British driver, David Piper, has a number of sports racing Ferraris which are always painted in his own special green colour, and he wanted a P4, but Ferrari only ever made three of them. David, having lots of influence with the company presumably, asked if he could buy some plans and build his own P4, which amazingly actually happened!

David's P4, numbered out of sequence as '0900', was built as a spyder, open topped in Ferrari vernacular, and was green of course, and had some distinctly different features and I thought 0900 would make a great model, so I bought a White Kit P4.



0900 doing its thing with David Piper at the wheel at Goodwood.




My White Kit as supplied.


Obviously I had to cut  out the roof and chunks of the side windows, which was pretty nerve wracking as these kits are designed as racing machines and the mouldings are VERY thin, but I managed that with a fine razor saw and much patience.




0900's engine cover and rear deck are almost NOTHING like a stock P4 and needed mucho cutting, gluing, filing, puttying and sanding before it got anywhere near the right shape, but I'm getting there and it's not looking too bad.




Quite a way still to go yet, including building those crazy rear view mirror housings that David built into the car, but the biggest problem will be the paint. It's anything BUT a standard colour, although Ford Modena Green is close, but too 'appley' to my mind. Zero Paints sell the exact shade, but a) it's expensive and b) it's for airbrush use only, not one of my better talents, so I'm going to try my 'on-the-model-mix' technique, but alternately spraying on a coat of Grey Primer, then one of Modena Green, then another Grey Primer, while the coats are still wet. I've done it before with airliners, but not with tiny things like the P4.

Oh yes, it's 1/32 scale, the standard UK slot racing size, which means it's only about 5.25" long.

Watch this space for further developments.

[Weaver]

Yeah, that's a decidedly 'interesting' shade of green isn't it?

Pretty car - good luck with it.

[TallEng]

Reminds me an of Air Lingus green from the present colour scheme,
Maybe Xtracolor have it.
Checks Hannants; looks like it's Xtracolor X311 I'm thinking of https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/X311

Regards
Keith

[PR19_Kit]

Reminds me an of Air Lingus green from the present colour scheme,
Maybe Xtracolor have it.
Checks Hannants; looks like it's Xtracolor X311 I'm thinking of https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/X311

Blimey, you're right, that's pretty darn close! 

And I certainly have that colour at home as I've got all of the Xtracolor airline shades. 

[PR19_Kit]

I haven't done much on this model for well over a year, but my mates on the Slot Racing Forum that I inhabit suggested that I get on with it, so I have. It's got as far as the decal making stage so far, and that's giving me grief, but more on that later on I expect.

So far the car looks like this.



I managed to get the green colour pretty close to Mr. Piper's green by mixing Ford Linden Green and Halfords Grey Primer ON THE MODEL!  I sprayed one pass of green and then one of grey, changing the ratios until it looked right. Not easy but an interesting technique, which I also used years ago on a Braniff 727. The engine deck louvres were made with the aid of a thing that holds carpets down (yes, really...) and the wing mirrors were scratchbuilt using styrene templates and 2-part epoxy.

And since then I've added the head and taillights too.





These were positively MINUTE, and were the every devil to get into place, but they're there now.

[zenrat]

Will you drive this aggressively when it's finished?
Surely one crash and all your work is undone.

[PR19_Kit]

Will you drive this aggressively when it's finished?
Surely one crash and all your work is undone.

Definitely NOT!

It's destined to be a Concours Queen, and I've even switched the motor for a less potent one for just that purpose. The hot motor's going in a GTM Lotus 40 with luck.