Fujimi Fiat Nuova 500

Here's Fujimi's Fiat 500 built for Scale Auto review. Pretty simple kit that looks decent. I painted it in a phantom Euro-retro color scheme of Tamiya AS-91 Intermediate Blue with a red interior. The AS paint is a satin color, but it buffs out nicely. I cleared it with TS-13 clear.

The only major issue I had with the kit was the wheel/tire fitment to the suspension. It was comically bad; the front ride height was way too tall, more Jeep than Fiat. The rear ride height was okay, but the track front & rear is too wide, the kit tires are old Pirelli P7's, so the wheels/tires are too wide to begin with. I resorted to some pretty basic "engineering by Dremel" to remove material from the inner wheels, suspension, whatever, to get the wheels to sit properly. I ditched the tiny brake discs since you can't see them through the wheels. Front/rear bumper fit isn't great, but not terrible. Fun kit...waiting for the Abarth Ferrari 695 version coming this summer.

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Fantastic work as always. So you didn't have to do modification work on the tires? I am planning to get the standard Abarth kit but even the fujimi-built sample looks a bit screwy....wheels undersized and popping halfway out, front bumper looking too small, seems like even a bburago die cast has better proportions.
I am waiting on the esseesse version that is supposed to come out soon and hope it will have those problems fixed.

Clean build, great pics.

Great build on a cute car. I would like to see a WRC version of that car.

With your photography and building skills, you always manage to make your builds look like the real thing. Great clean work.

Looks nice, I agree with you: the tires of the kit are not perfect for the model

Lovely looking kit with an excellent colour choice. I am disappointed to here about the problems, as I was intending to get an Abarth version and convert to a tarmac rally car.

Beautiful, this is how it should look! Perfect to my eyes! Congrats!

Thanks for all the comments!

Lovely looking kit with an excellent colour choice. I am disappointed to here about the problems, as I was intending to get an Abarth version and convert to a tarmac rally car.

You'd have to do the same work on the suspension for fitting proper rally wheels/tires as I did, so in reality your idea should work pretty well. It also depends on how picky you are about accuracy; the work I did to fit the wheels was pretty brutal, but you really cannot see it once the wheels/tires are fit into place. Having built this one, I have no qualms about building the Ferrari version when it comes out.

it's a real car? wonderful build!

Nice job! Always love underside pics.

Nice job! Always love underside pics.

Beautiful build like always! I started experimenting with AS line as well and so far I am satisfied!

great work, I love these little Fiats, can't wait to see your Ferrari version when you get to it.

Steve

Superb work as usual, your modifications were well worth doing, the end result is very convincing!