Henri Toivonen tribute build

[corrrado]

30 years ago, 2nd of May 1986 was a black day of Rallysport. It marked the loss of Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto but it also marked the end of the Group B era.
Henri Toivonen was, without any doubt, one of the most gifted driver ever in the rallysport history. He marked the 1980 RAC Rally as the youngest ever WRC winner and his success was growing continously through the years to follow. After a less satisfying Opel Ascona and Manta Period, he joined Porsche to compete on the European Rally Championsip. He was on the way to succeed, when Cesare Fiorio decided to hire him for Lancia WRC program, thus let his own protegée, Carlo Capone become the ERC champion in 1984. He scored few success with the already outdated 037 when he got his chance of lifetime behind the wheel of the 450 HP Delta S4 - the car which absolutely suited to his style. RAC, Monte Carlo rallies were won easily by huge margins, but the next few races went without luck. Engine problem in Sweden and the accident by Joaquim Santos in Portugal prevented him from good results. Interestingly, he tested before the Portugal rally on the Estoril F1 track and he made a time with his Delta S4 rally car to qualify in the top ten (some other source says 6th) on the qualification grid for the 1986 Portugese Grand Prix!!! The following Tour de Corse proved his talent again, despite a flu, fever and the fact that Peugeot's Bruno Saby was illegally testing in Corsica months before, he led the rally by more than two and a half minutes at the end of the first day!!!. What happened the next day on the 18th special stage, is still a mistery. Unfortunately Toivonen and his copilot Sergio Cresto lost their lives in a very debated circumstances. There are many hypothesis about the real cause of the accident, reported black outs after his accident in a previous rally, dizyness by fuel vapor from the not well sealed fuel tank and the brake pedal which went through the Lancia's super thin firewall, but for sure, we will never know the real reason why they left the road and plunged into a ravine where their Lancia Delta S4 exploded...
The Kit.
First of all I would like to say that, with this build I would like to commemorate Toivonen in his "happy times", before the tragic accident. I have the Lancia Delta S4 kits from both Ken and Profil 24 but I still don't have enough confidence to build it. For sure, I will never build the Corsica car though. So I chose the Porsche 911 SCRS from 1984. Years ago, I bought the Renaissance Porsche SCRS kit but after looking at it, I decided to buy the Tamiya 1988 Porsche Turbo which looked much easier to modify than correcting all the defects of the Renaissance kit... I only used a few decals, photo etched parts and the resin steering from the kit. I know that Micha from ScaleProduction produced an excellent kit of the SCRS but two months ago, when I started the build, it was not available. Anyway, the Tamiya Turbo gives an excellent base for the build, although you need to modify the bumpers, the rear wing, the engine hood and the rockers. I also wanted to represent a winner car on tarmac rallye settings and with the "clean" Rothmans livery. The 24 Uren van Ieper Rally 1984 was an option on the Renaissance decal but it has too many additional decal which ruins the overall "clean" perception. The other choice was the Rally Vinho da Madeira. I had the extra decals done by my Finnish friend who always does an amazing quality work! Thank you again Petteri! What I learned from the interview from David Richards, the founder of Prodrive, who built the original SCRS, they had the car pretty much as a stock 911, with the engine and suspension modified. The door panels for example were stock 911 and the exhaust was from the 914/6, wrongly interpreted by the Renaissance kit.
I did use though the exhaust tip from Renaissance, heavily burned by a lighter. The interior is built on the Tamiya chassis. Lots of scratchbuild but I tried to keep it close to the original.The rear mesh wheel is from Hobby Design, a real trademark for Toivonen, since he always used it on both tarmac and gravel rallyes. The only thing I havn't found yet is a 16" Pirelli tarmac tyre wich fits on the Porsche's rim...
I have to say that I am not an expert in Porsche, this is my first one. Any comments and suggestions are very welcomed about this build.

[corrrado]

I need to figure out how to post images...http://s1372.photobucket.com/user/ra...ml?sort=3&o=16

http://s1372.photobucket.com/user/ra...tml?sort=3&o=2

[corrrado]

Any help how to post visible images here???

[rallymaster]

Use the "IMG" link

[rallymaster]

[corrrado]

Thank you Phil. I'll try

[rallymaster]

you did a superb work on this model !!
really deserving to be seen !

just left-click on the "IMG" link and it's pasted, then just copy in the thread

[corrrado]

Well, Phil, it looks like I am too amateur for that ... I left click on the image icon which shows the http// then I paste the url from the photobucket image then few seconds after it shows a broken image icon and it would not post... I have no idea why...

[rallymaster]

ok let's try in french

lorsque tu es sur la page photo, à droite tu as les liens "share this photo"
il ne faut pas essayer de copier-coller avec le clic droit, il faut cliquer gauche sur le lien IMG, il est copié d'office et il n'y a plus qu'à coller (avec le clic droit).


j'espère que tu vas y arriver cela mérite vraiment qu'on voit ton travail

[corrrado]

<a href="http://s1372.photobucket.com/user/rallyefan075/media/Porsche%20911%20SCRS/IMG_8395_zpsj4qdhihj.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1372.photobucket.com/albums/ag338/rallyefan075/Porsche%20911%20SCRS/IMG_8395_zpsj4qdhihj.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_8395_zpsj4qdhihj.jpg"/></a>

[corrrado]

http://s1372.photobucket.com/user/ra...tml?sort=3&o=1

[corrrado]

[corrrado]

[corrrado]

Thank you very much Phil for your help!

[corrrado]