Ford 3 Litre GT

[Mossie]

A bit cockpit heavy in this GB.  I planned a F-5 for a long while, but thought I'd do a car instead.

Airfix's Ford 3 Litre GT, it's old but looks good when built.  A kit a lovely looking machine that didn't live up to it's promise. The parts still go together pretty well, but the moulds are well worn and the edges have small amounts of flash but need tidying.


Here's the interior, greebled up.  There's a big gap between the dash coaming and the windscreen, I'm not sure if it's supposed to be on the real car or not.  I used a bit of round strip to fill it, call it electrical conduits or something.  Even with two strips in place, there's still a gap but it shouldn't show too much when the windscreen is in place.

[PR19_Kit]

A lovely car, the F3L, or P68 as it's sometimes called.

I saw it in its first race, the BOAC 500, at Brands hatch in 1968, and it went very well, starting 2nd on the grid. Mike Spence was in the lead with the car when one of the transmission doughnuts failed and put the car out, a big pity.

I've got two of them as slot racers, one a converted Airfix kit like yours, and one a 'Whiffed' NSR model done in a Martini scheme.

[Mossie]

I've watched a few videos recently, and boy did it thunder up the straights.  Let down by that lack of reliability you mention and those same slippy aerodynamics that made it so quick in a straight line caused problems in the corners.

[zenrat]

GBs are always mostly winged things.  I have fought against it in the past in the 1WGB but not this year.
Good to see someone else taking up the tyre iron and fighting the good fight.   

I had this kit as a youth.  Can't remember what I did to it but i'm sure it probably ended up street machined with 1/25 parts.

[Mossie]

I had grand ideas two years ago but stalled at the start line.  I've got slightly bored of winged thingys and I'm looking to diversify a bit.

Not as much done as I'd hope today, I was wanting to have the major parts together. I painted the interior:

[PR19_Kit]

Ahah, now I see how you've Whiffed it. 

Your model is LHD, whereas the real thing was RHD. 

[Mossie]

Gives a slight clue as to the end user, along with the greeblies. 

[zenrat]

Is that a flux capacitor?

[Mossie]

Nope... 

[Mossie]

No time travel, just hi-tech displays, the use of which the user isn't letting me in on...

I've tried an experiment.  I've got some glow in the dark pigments I bought a while ago for another project.  You mix them with acrylic base (I used Vallejo Thinner Medium).  It goes on a bit grainy (more of a paste then paint) and obscures the colour you put them over (in hindsight white would be best) but I restored it a bit with Vallejo wahses which only slightly reduce the effect.  It's also quite harsh on the brushes , but the effect is quite dramatic.  It's distracted me a bit from getting it done and if I had more time I'd work at getting it a bit neater but worth the test.

Goop applied:


Charged up with a UV light (sunlight works well too):


Glowing in dim light:


And with the lights turned off:

[PR19_Kit]

OooooooOOOOooooooooh, that's different! 

[zenrat]

Nice.

[Mossie]

Not winning.  I'm at the point I hoped to be two days ago.  I've got a bit distracted, doing extra things I didn't plan like the glow in the dark stuff, but also I'm staying up late and I'm tired, I didn't get much done last night as it's catching up with me.  Still I'll carry on and see how far I get.

Major parts together:


Tail lights working! I painted the back of the plastic part to make the lights glow. This is actually a pink pigment but it comes out green, I guess the plastic is filtering it.  I'll add some red transparent paint to make it right.

[PR19_Kit]

Where would we be without Tamiya tape? 

Almost all my builds look similar at one stage in their life.

[Mossie]

Fantastic stuff.  I actually ran out, one strip is another cheaper brand that I bought from a now defunct model shop, works just as well though.

Tape is my closing method of choice, I used to use clamps but they make parts slip, especially something like this that is all curves.  I still use wooden clothes pegs for smaller parts though.