The 'Secret' prototype.....

[McColm]

Will the engine be exposed or hidden by the hood/bonnet as you seem to put a lot of work into it, it would be a pity if it was hidden from view?

[PR19_Kit]

Yes, you'll be able to see much of the engine, but it's a pretty narrow bonnet.

[PR19_Kit]

Now the interior is completely finished, thank goodness. Here it is with the seat belts attached (naturally to BS Au48 approved anchorages...) and the instrumentation strapped down firmly.



I'm doing the final touch-ups on the proper bodyshell now and I should be able to start final assembly in a day or so.

And about time too!

[PR19_Kit]

With the proper body just about finished, I glued the windows in position. The windscreen and rear window went in nicely, but the side windows aren't the same shape as the frames, by quite a margin! 

With some judicious filing I've managed to get them in place, but in a couple of places the edge of the window is right on the frame, no tolerance at all.

Didn't they ever build one of these kits after they moulded them?   

[PR19_Kit]

Having got all four windows glued in place, with quite a bit of difficulty ensuring their edges weren't visible, I then found the interior won't fit! 

There's no way of knowing this beforehand as you can't test fit the windows, and you can't glue them in place until you've done all the frame painting. It wouldn't have fitted even if I'd built the thing OOB either, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. 

I had to carefully carve chunks off my nicely painted and trimmed interior to get it to sit deep enough so I can install the underframe tomorrow.

Sometimes you can really go OFF a model! 

[zenrat]

...Didn't they ever build one of these kits after they moulded them?   

It often appears they didn't.

[buzzbomb]

Pretty sure the perserverence will pay off

[PR19_Kit]

Got to 'The Irrevocable Step' last night and glued the underframe into the proper bodyshell, added the pre-cut induction and radiator pipes and then started to glue the wheels on.

The front two went fine, as did the RH rear one, and the car sat there nicely level, but then I tried to glue the LH rear one on......

It was MILES out! About 2mm too far rearwards and 3 mm too high!

I checked my carefully built rear suspension assembly and found the whole thing tilted slightly to one side, so Plan A was to separate the traction bars from the body and bend it level before gluing the traction bars back to lock it in place.

WRONG!

The whole darn assembly came off in my hand while trying to re-align it. 

At least it'll be easy to glue the RH rear wheel on, and then I re-glue the whole thing back, correctly this time........ 

[zenrat]

It is for that reason that I often leave fitting the rear axle until after I have assembled the rest of the car.  I fit the front wheels to the car, fit the rear wheels to the axle and then attaching the rear axle with 5 minute epoxy, sit the whole thing on my glass plate so the glue dries with all four on the floor.
This way warped parts or fit issues won't cause it to three wheel.

[PR19_Kit]

That's the method I'm going to use to repair the current disaster Fred. Thanks for confirming it's the way to go. 

In this case I had to fit it beforehand though as the underframe was essentially in two halves and I needed the rear suspension in place to act as a datum for the rear half. It looks like something has warped after I assembled it though.

[PR19_Kit]

The proper body's all complete now, apart from a small bit of paint trim that I can't do until I've fitted the dummy body. That's a big relief, it was driving me NUTS trying to get that rear suspension back in place.

The whole thing's not as good as it could have been, there's lots of details that could have been done better and some that could be tidied up, but frankly I've had enough of it by now. I'll be glad to get that dummy body tidied up and finished off, probably tomorrow, and then I'll have done with it.

[PR19_Kit]

It's done! 

Well, I think it is. I may need to do a small bit of paint trimming after I've finally fitted the dummy body, but not very much. Otherwise it's all sorted.

Just about to do a mege pic session and I'll post some later tonight with luck.

[Rick Lowe]

Yay, all will finally be revealed and I can have my 'Quizzyosity' assuaged! 

[PR19_Kit]

Warning, this'll be very pic heavy, mainly because I hardly posted any of it during the build.

Here's some pics of the 'Secret Prototype' as it would have appeared on the road.



A general view, not the prettiest car ever made....




From the rear you can just get a hint of the real car underneath. Note the trade plates, held on with the obligatory MEGA elastic bands.




From the front it's singularly menacing, as well it should be with the MONSTER engine! Note that both front and rear lights of the real car shine through holes in the dummy body, the but the dummy's indicators are separate items.




The rear view mirrors have to be mounted on the dummy body, the proper body doesn't have any fitted.

And what is it underneath?



It's a Rolls Royce! 

A 1960 Silver Cloud II to be precise, but used by RR's Experimental Dept. as a test mule for the forthcoming V12 engined Silver Seraph in the mid '90s. The Silver Lady, RR's 'Spirt of Ecstasy' is removed when the dummy body is in place of course. They keep her in the glove compartment... 




A general view, which still has the classic lines of the Silver Cloud. Almost none of the mods can be seen from this view.




From the rear there's a hint that all may not be as it seems because of the twin, central exhaust pipes.




Looking inside, the test instruments can be seen mounted on the rear seats with their operator in the rearward facing front passenger seat.




The engine bay still uses the Silver Cloud's twin bonnet doors, revealing the big 7 litre V12 hidden inside. The big silver pipes and the block on top are part of the fuel injection system.




More of the engine bay.




And finally the underframe from below showing the independent front and rear suspensions and the transmission.

The Back story is here :- https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=48427.msg899317#msg899317


Oh yes, the black trim line round the lower side of the proper bodyshell is because the dummy body just would NOT fit down low enough, and I had to cut a large hole in the roof and box that in, as I mentioned a long time ago. So the b lack trim was to hide the proper body's colours with the dummy body in place.

We did exactly that with real disguise bodies back when I was in the industry in the 60s, so it's based on fact, like the rear facing passenger seat.

[PR19_Kit]

More stuff on the build.

The three kits I used for this were the 1/24 Minicraft Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II for the main body and interior, the Tamiya Jaguar XJR9 Le Mans winner to provide the V12 engine and rear suspension, and the Revell Mustang GT which provided the front subframe and suspension and steering.




I'm going to use the body of the XJR9 for a 1/24 slot racer, and the Mustang already provided some bits and pieces for my son-in-law's Mustang that I built last year.

I used lots of extra bits and pieces, like competition seats and belts from Hiroboy, plus all that stuff that we Whiffers just have lying about of course. The paint all came from Halfords, the main body colour was Ford Dove Grey and the roof, bonnet and boot Vauxhall Regatta Blue. All the detail paints were various acrylics (which I'm starting to like...) because of their swift drying properties. Plus the Molotow Chrome Pens, which made it all possible really. The chrome side strips and window frames would have been almost impossible for me without them...




Masking the window frames was on e SERIOUS job, as you can see below!



I'm glad that's over and done with, I was really losing the will to live in the last few days, but it's sorted now.