Tamiya Lexus LFA and Revell BMW 507 in 1/24

[mattbacon]

It's been a crazy busy couple of weeks, but I've got back to the bench now...


The dash for the 507 -- a bit of detail painting and the Revell decals for the instruments and radio, and I think it looks pretty convincing.




More great kit design and engineering from Tamiya. The front suspension looks the part, but only has about 6 of them -- parts, that is...



..which means that I can officially declare the LFA powertrain *FINISHED*



...and this is where we are this evening...

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

...a bit more assembly tonight:





The piping on the seats could be neater, but it'll be under the hardtop...

Work on the LFA interior is now under way in earnest.

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

I've done a lot of "carbon" lately...



It's all the usual Zero Paints Graphite Grey sprayed through a fabric mesh mask and Kleared. So much easier than chopping up decal, even if it isn't as accurate....


The doors have "carbon" in the front corners if you look hard, and the two sides of the "bridge" are the same. It's hard to photograph!


Seats with belts and "sockets" added (what ARE those things called???).


Transmission tunnel insulation is cigarette packet foil... useful stuff!


And now you CAN see the carbon effect on the "bridge". You can see why I think the key to realistic interiors is to use a lot of different finishes and colours to reproduce different materials. Tamiya would have you do the whole thing in semi-gloss black and German grey...

It's starting to come together now, even if it doesn't look that way! Tomorrow I want to finish the LFA interior and make good progress with the 507 chassis...

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

Great thing about the LFA is that you can spec it any way you like, so who's to say that this look doesn't exist! ;-P I decided that the horizontal recessed panel would be impossible to mask and get into with the mesh "carbon" technique, so I used some of the Scale Motorsport decal I have. It claims to be 1/24, but it looks a bit large to me. It's another texture and finish effect in the mix, though...







..and that's the LFA interior done. Once again, not too many parts, but crisply moulded, well-fitting, and just crying out for detail painting...

Slow progress on the 507 in parallel, but not much to show for it at the moment!

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

Despite its age, the Revell kit has some nice detailing. I must read up on how this rear suspension works, because I've never built one like it before. It looks like some kind of torsion tubes for the "springing", regular shock absorbers, and a cross-brace to locate the rear axle. It needs some detail painting and touching up, as well.

Nearly there with the LFA chassis now... more on that later.

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

It's been a productive day today:





That's the whole chassis completed. Now time to move onto fitting out the body. You can begin to appreciate the engineering of the real thing: carbon tub, aluminium chassis beams and the most complex packaging of all the cooling systems. Plus the engine. Ah, yes...




Not many parts, but it's quite the beastie. In these shots you can see the various tones of "black" I've used (NATO black, Rubber Black, Semi-gloss black... and the air box is actually just the kit plastic, polished up)






This is the bit I love about modelling. Now, when I hear Clarkson or Evo raving about the engineering of the LFA, I can really understand what's going on under the skin. The kind of engineering that made the guys at Toyota stop half way through the design of the thing and redo it from the ground up with carbon instead of aluminium is clearly visible in the Tamiya kit. You won't get a better insight into the relentless pursuit of "supercar" quality that those guys went on. There are few compromises in terms of what the kit gives you, either, all the whilst keeping the kit buildable. No fiendish complexity and equally fiendish fit like a Fujimi Enthusiast kit -- nope: all the parts you need to reproduce the genius of the original, and no more. This is a car kit like no other I've built, although I hope that the LaFerrari will be its equal.

And next, today's progress in BMW-land...

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

The 507 is making good progress as well:




Chassis pretty much complete now. I did that detail painting and assembled the front suspension. Further reading makes me think there's a bit missing at the back: all my references talk about the rear axle being suspended on longitudinal torsion bars and located with a "Panhard Rod" and a rear A-frame. The Panhard Rod is the diagonal brace running parallel to the axle; the torsion bars are the black rods running along the car attached to the front and rear axles. I see no "A-frame". I need a shot of the underside of a BMW 507...




First test -- does the chassis sit with all four wheels on the ground? Yes, it does... phew!





Second test -- does the cockpit sit properly inside the body if it's stuck to the chassis, not the bodywork? Check... it does!

Tomorrow should see the 507 with full engine compartment detailing, and the LFA with all the "bits" attached to the body shell interior...

bestest,
M.

[da_ashman]

Both look amazing!!!

[HondaSan72]

Amazing scratchbuilding skills!!

[mattbacon]

Thanks, guys -- but it's pretty much all out of the box, bar some seat belts and wires...

Didn't do as much on the LFA as I wanted today, but the 507 is progressing nicely...





These are all kit parts, just with some detail painting.


I decided that the best way to deal with the chromed windscreen and detail parts, which were covered in flash and injector pin marks, was to strip them, glue into a solid assembly, and then respray them with Humbrol Chrome Silver. And the clear part does fit -- I checked before polishing it!





Getting the bonnet on and opening was a pain. Both plastic pins on the bonnet ended up being replaced with steel pin segments, and the transverse tube in the frame at the front of the bonnet folds the crossbar above the radiator,. With it removed, the bonnet opens fully, but there's going to be some fettling needed to get it to close fully tight...

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

I'm pleased to report that the "fettling" has been a success...





When I left off, the bonnet would open nicely, but hovered open with about a 1cm gap at the back. It would close OK if you pushed it down, but popped back up of it's own accord. Fortunately, I remembered that a while ago I'd acquired some small but strong magnets -- that's one covering the 10mm mark on the steel ruler. Turns out that you can fit one nicely into that silver box at the centre of the firewall. With a magnet in there, and a piece of old knife blade glued to the underside of the wide end of the bonnet, the magnet holds the bonnet closed very nicely. It's strange -- Revell have obviously designed the kit so the bonnet rides high in the middle, to sit flush with the raised chrome grille behind it. It's not warped -- the fit into the corners and along the sides is too exact for that. I can't really see from photos if this is prototypical, but it would be a lot of work to fix, involving flattening the bonnet, reshaping the sides to be straight again, and probably lowing the engine or shortening the air stacks/carbs...

Anyway... on with the LFA now.

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

The windscreen is on, now, and I'm glad I did build it up before painting...




And then time for another test fit of the hardtop.




Still needs glazing, obviously, but the fit is going to be OK!

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

... and here's the next stage.

Wheels on the 507:




The Lexus is not so photogenic at this stage, but progress is being made. The body shell now has all its grilles etc fitted, and the lights have been painted.




The retracted rear wing has been carbon decalled (using some of the spare "patch" decal from the Tamiya LaFerrari, which has a better texture than any aftermarket product I won), because I decided that the blue wasn't a good enough match for the body -- one too few coats of the transparent glaze second colour, I reckon. It just goes to show that the only way to be sure with these two- and three-layer colours is to tape the "add-on bits" into window gaps, for example, and spray them all together. For whatever reason, the "extended" wing is a better match...




And here it is... I think it makes the beast look pretty wicked...



So... this is the bench tonight. The finish line is in sight, I reckon...

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

And since I've now put the 507 to sit on a tile so that the wheels set finally in a four-square, "feet on the floor" position, I thought I'd test out the hardtop again...






...seriously, if someone offered me one of these two cars for real, I wouldn't know which to choose. Nice problem to have, though...

;-P

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

The LFA is finally assembled. It went together as well as I'd expected, though I was surprised to discover that the exhausts don't actually reach the ports in the rear of the body. Otherwise, no issues...





..and with the pop-up wing popped up:






They make a striking pair, I think. Last detailing tomorrow, I hope! Home straight, definitely.

bestest,
M.