1/8 Porsche 935/78 'Moby Dick'

[Big Pat]

Unbelievable! All these efforts finally reaching their natural conclusion!

What next? Binky will finally meet the road?

All kidding aside, I think calling you a masterful scratchbuilder is the mother of all understatements. Thank you for sharing your project with us!

[ScratchBuilt]

Hello everyone,

Thank you for all your comments and questions - I think there will be some answers later in this post! I've started a 'completed build' thread this afternoon with 19 photos, and hope to add more when Photobucket allows me to upload them. If I'm honest, it's been getting the photos online that has been the biggest headache over the last year or so...

Overall size of the 935 is about 610mm by 260mm (or about 24" by 10", if you prefer!). I took a photo of it alongside a 1/18 model for scale, but that's one of the shots that is currently waiting to upload - I'll get it online as soon as I can. I haven't tried weighing it yet...

For now it's sitting on an empty desk, but I suspect it'll end up in the dining room - many of our family and friends know about my model-making, and most of them have seen the 935 at various stages of it's life, so it's probably safer to have it on display downstairs for a while. I'll have to show the guys at work too, as they know all about it - several of them have full-size project cars on the go, so we're often discussing the same problems but in different scales!

Beyond that, I guess it will end up on the shelf with the other projects while I get the next one underway. I've said before that it's hard to put a cash value on something like this - my main reason for modelling is for my own pleasure, rather than financial gain - but when something takes over 4000 hours of your free time (and, realistically, won't be repeated) it would be very difficult to part with it.

So, what's the next project? For now I'm still thinking it's going to be a 956: I have some layout drawings from one of my books, the engine arrangement is basically the same as the 935/78, and the bodywork can't be any harder to make, can it?

I do have concerns though; the 956's ali tub was a first for Porsche, and would be a new challenge for me too - I need to convince myself that it can be made accurately and strongly enough. There's a lot more wiring and plumbing visible on the 956, so that's going to be fun, and the general feeling I get of the suspension, etc, is that everything is more 'refined' compared to the 908/917/935. Even at 1/8 scale, I fear that there's going to be some parts which are a struggle to get the right balance between scale detail and actual strength. At this stage I'm not planning on re-creating any particular car - I'll be using photos and references from multiple sources, and I'll worry about the livery later!

If the 956 doesn't go to plan, I'm not sure what the alternative will be. I suppose I could just build the engine and gearbox as a display piece? It would be better to have something to put it in, though...

Before I finish this post, a few words of appreciation. Firstly, to everyone who's followed the build, posted comments and encouragement (even from my brother, daglesj) and generally had the patience to sit through to the end - many thanks! I truly hope that the next project will not take so long - but don't quote me on that!

Thanks to Rijk for the springs (again), and to Nicky Y for the carbon floor panel - without this I'm not sure that it would have been possible. Thanks to Freisinger Motorsport for posting all the photos of their rebuild of the sister 935/78 - a gold-mine of information!

Finally, thanks to my folks for putting up with all my problems while I've been working on this - the cutting and drilling, the dust, the little bits of white styrene that seem to travel all over the house, the ranting and raving when things haven't quite worked out, the glue smells wafting downstairs from my room...but I think it all worked out in the end.

From this:



To this....in several thousand easy stages!



All the best,

SB

[nugundam93]

absolutely smashed it out of the park with this work of art, sb!

[kans0002]

It's hard to write words that describe this build in a way that hasn't already been done by another member, so maybe instead I will just say thank you. As someone who has followed this build from the first thread (and often just lurked in the background) I am very appreciative of not only your craftsmanship, but the way you document and present each step of your progress. Cheers! Stuart

[kalax]

Following your projects all the years...wow, wow, wow, unbelievable!

Impatient...waiting for the 956!!!

[lasagna99]

such a great work!And now an incredible ,stunning model!
many many compliments!