Jaguar XJ220 -- Tamiya, 1/24

[mattbacon]

... you know how sometimes a project just seems like the right one to do right now? Well, I've been noodling with the Murcielago SV, but I suddenly got the urge to build an XJ220. Don't ask me why...



The usual start with Zero Paints for the body. This is meant to be "Silverstone Green", one of the exclusive colours for the XJ220. It's NOT meant to be any kind of British Racing Green, and I found some excellent pictures of a car on sale that categorically is Silverstone Green. This is specially mixed by Steve at Hiroboy -- a "Pacific Green" originally found on a Mustang. The colour codes for the original paint are not in the 15 pages of database entries for Jaguar colours on Lechler mixing tool, so I had to get something close. One source pointed to Boyd "Chezoom Teal" which is available in a Testors can, but is not in the DB either, so this is the closest I could get after rather a lot of online research. I wanted to keep the wing painted with the body to make sure it was exactly the same colour -- I learned that lesson the hard way!






As always, the clear coat transforms the colour. I'm quite happy with this, since it matches my reference pictures pretty well. It's hard to photograph! The headlight covers raise and lower, and fit rather well -- these are taped on for effect and came slightly loose before I took the pix.

On to the rather neat engine now...

bestest,
M.

[Some_Kid]

An excellent kit with excellent potential for improvising and scratch building. I'm slowly still working on mine. Feel free to check my WIP if you want to see how i went about the engine bay. There are a few xj220 threads on here with top notch build quality.

[Emilssi]

Good job so far! I love the color. It is pretty hard to photograph but having built a Silverstone green Mini recently I know what it looks like on a model (it must look even better on an xj220 - one of the most beautiful cars ever IMO) Looking forward to the next update

[corvettekid_7684]

Color looks fantastic!

[mattbacon]

Thanks, guys. Lots of things going on in real life at the moment, so progress is slow, but it hasn't quite ground to a halt completely.



The value of good references! This is one of two books on the XJ220. One costs £1750 in a limited edition of 1000, with a leather slipcase and signed by many members of the XJ220 team. It's definitive. This one, on the other hand, cost £8 from one of many Amazon marketplace sellers, and gets the job done!





Basic colours are Humbrol Metalcote "Polished Aluminium" and 56 Flat Aluminium. Citadel washes and detail painting in various metallics, and the Jaguar and XJ220 titles picked out in chrome silver marker pen ink.



Cats and exhausts in Humbrol Chrome Silver spray, with discoloration added using Citadel purple, blue and sepia washes.




Dropped onto the chassis and test fitted to see what you can actually see through the rear window area. Quite a lot...


Some plumbing under way. There's no way I'm doing all the tubes and pipes that are under there, but a reasonable selection of them should busy it up nicely. That's the downsideof having excellent reference images. When do you stop detailing? ;-P

bestest,
M.

[Tompidom]

Great work especialy on the exhaust!! Keep it up mate!

[mattbacon]

...a few more pipes going in. The big ones are electrical wire with the original flexy copper pulled out and replaced with thicker wire that holds its shape. No idea what these do, but it's starting to look crowded round there, which is definitely a characteristic of the real thing...




bestest,
M.

[generationx]

Excellent work on those engine/gearbox colours.

[BVC500]

Some reference pics, including underside shots from a car my 2nd cousin sold:

http://www.canepacollection.com/deta...d-9199049.html

[mattbacon]

Well, it has been a while. Since the last bulletin, my wife's been ordained, we've moved house, my eldest has left for university at King's College, London...and my dedicated modelling shed has transformed into most of a garage:



Anyway, on with the important stuff -- I'm back at the bench!




The Jaguar has got some seats at last. Cockpit in various Vallejo tones of beige and sand. Home made belts with some spare Hobby Design brass buckles.



The dash responds really well to some detail painting. Very eighties plastics, too...



Brake disks painted with Humbrol Metalcote steel -- polished on the rotors, left matt grey on the callipers, and painted with Citadel Boltgun Metal in the centres. I could drill them, or draw tiny dots for holes, but given that they completely disappear inside those alloy wheels, I'm not going to bother.





Cockpit all together. I'm still slowly working on cabling and piping the engine, and I'm getting to the point where the engine bay needs to come together around the engine and frame, so I can start on the plumbing that attaches to the walls...

Progress won't be quick (still many other demands on my time) but at least I'm making some headway, and it feels good!

bestest,
M.

[Tompidom]

Looks fantastic! Love the detail on the dash!

[mattbacon]

Thanks, Tom! I think I've done as much plumbing round the engine as I can stand (and fit in...)



The big insulated pipes are made from solder, wrapped in the embossed paper/foil from a cigarette packet. Whenever I see a fresh empty packet dropped somewhere, I always plunder it for modelling goodness before putting it in the bin and tut-tutting... See that tiny splash of red, buried deep in the guts of the thing, in the angle of the two insulated pipes? That's the distributor, properly wired with six plug leads, all going to the right places on the cylinder heads... At least I'll know it's there....




It's now a bit of a 3D puzzle. The instructions would have you add the firewall to the cockpit, but I can't see any reason why I can't complete the engine bay with four walls at this stage. The piping on the blue tank and coming out of the firewall are is new -- a combination of fuse wire, aluminium tube and rubbery jewellery elastic. The two insulated wires coming out of the right hand wall have to wrap around the back of the connector on top of the blue tank, so that corner has to get done first. I have no idea where to finish them off -- somewhere down in front of the engine. Equally, I'm not sure where the pipes from the front of the engine terminate, so they'll just get lost in the spaghetti junction of the firewall. The two insulated pipes coming over the left of the engine terminate in that black box on the wall -- that one I CAN see in my pictures. There's probably rather less than half the plumbing of the real thing, but it'll look busy enough I reckon...

Time to try a test fit! Wish me luck!

bestest,
M.

[nugundam93]

wow. awesome stuff right there

[mattbacon]

Thanks, my friend... and now, after much cursing and swearing, and a lengthy period holding stuff together because there's no clamp in the world the right shape...






The chassis should come together pretty quickly now, I hope...

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

...and now the chassis is coming together...






...with a bit of luck, the lid will be on this weekend. I've found a solution for the sun-roof, I think...

bestest,
M.