Eagle Weslake, 1/20, MFH

Another one finished - this time it's the Eagle Weslake kit by Model Factory Hiro. The car is the 1967 Eagle Weslake as driven to victory in the Belgium GP by driver and team boss Dan Gurney.

In my opinion this is the best looking F1 car ever. It's also close to me, because I spent years driving the Grand Prix Legends racing simulator and the Eagle is the car that started my (virtual) racing career.

The build was not that difficult; you should have a bit experience, though, before trying a MFH kit. It's almost OOB except for a guitar-string instead of the muffler springs and I added the brake lines.
I painted it with a mixture of some Zero Paints blues and Alclad chrome, to get metallic flakes small enough for the scale. Zero 1k clear on top, polished with Tamiya compunds and finished with Hasegawa coating polymer. The exhausts were stained with the Tamiya weathering set (and eye shadow), the metal parts got a small washing.

I had one MFH kit before, the 68 Ferrari, and when comparing the kits I have to mention that the Eagle kit does not include tire stencils, the tires itself are not so good (visible seam), the etched parts were on a foil in the Ferrari kit, so you didn't have to cut them off, and on some parts you see that the parts from rapid prototyping were not cleaned as well as they could have been, which causes some small steps that are hard to clean in some places.

Nevertheless I like the model, and I hope you, too.

WIP: http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1068874

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_00.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_01.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_02.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_03.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_04.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_05.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_06.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_07.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_08.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_09.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_10.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_11.jpg

Dan is going for a test drive.

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_12.jpg

And one pic in the sunlight to show the mtallic effect.

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/mod_MFHEagle_13.jpg

Fantastic work to realise this beautiful race car. I love the photography but in particular I like the last two pictures.
Regards,
Steve.

Wow, superb build. Looks like real thing.

Superb build mate. Stunning

Regards

Ron

Beauty... My favorite F1 car of all time and you've done a great job building it.

I have the metal die cast model of this car and yours is more detailed. The die cast paint is darker blue (seems like it might have some gray or black in it). I've seen the real one and can't remember if the color tends toward the 'blue' blue or the darker blue. I think it's somewhere in between but that's from memory.

I like the way you 'blued' the exhausts. On the die cast there is heat discoloration about half way between the collectors and the springs, then bluing up to and through the springs, then more heat discoloration out to the tips. On yours the bluing starts at the collectors then changes to discoloration halfway between the collectors and the springs. Again, I'm not looking at an exhaust pipe right now but I think yours looks more accurate.

Very nice job. That Eagle is fun to drive at Spa in GPL isn't it?

thanks all :)

@Greg23: I think it might be a bit darker in real, but from photos it's impossible to get it right. For the exhausts a fellow German modeller showed me this picture: http://www.imagegecko.de/index.php?m=display&h=4206fad67b56f2570d958c4594b28e

I've driven GPL for 10 years, raced in more than 600 online-league races and still I got goosebumps everytime I let the car drift into the original Stavelot corner...
I'm waiting for rFactor 2, it'll have the old Spa included, and the preview video they showed looked amazing.

Looks beautiful, I've enjoyed following your WIP and the end result is great.

@MarcoSaupe - That rFactor video makes GPL look like a cartoon by comparison. You drift through Stavelot? I pretty much hang on and hope for the best. I don't like fast, decreasing radius corners. Two corners I've never been able to master are: Stavelot and the last corner at Bridgehampton. I had a top 10 GPL Rank(ing) for my age group, when everyone was posting honest times, before the chassis/engine combo got hacked. So I'm not exactly a bad driver.

I noticed SPEED TV is starting a series where the took the top 10 Play-Station GT (whatever it is now) rankings and are letting them drive real race cars. The overall winner gets a ride at a major race.

The image you referenced shows the exhaust pipes they way I would expect them to look.

Well, it's 13 years between GPL and rF2, so you'd expect some progress ;)
Drift may not be the exact word... I don't brake for the corner; I turn in, go off the throttle, shift down, the rear steps out a little bit and scrubs off enough speed to make the corner, down to 3rd, and full throttle when the wall on the right starts. I did a 3:13.1 once, never got to 3:12... damn ;)
Today I race the 71 mod for rF, good fun, but so far I haven't found a corner that gives me the same feeling.

Super build, Marco. Clean, detailed and accurate to the Spa specification. Well done. A friend of mine was with Gurney at Spa and I've seen his photos, so my only reservation [albeit a big one] is the colour. I feel this is far too blue and too pale, when you really look at the period photographs..even though this can be notoriously decepetive at times.

I agree that I should have mixed in a little bit black or dark grey, but if you look at the pics in the WIP you'll see that the car appears different in almost every photo; when I look at it right now it is a bit darker in real life than on the photos.
So you are right, it is probably not spot on, but it is close enough for me ;)

Simply specfreakingtacular! Looks absolutely real! Congratulations!

Beautiful work. Cleanly and precisely constructed. Super :worshippy:worshippy

A friend of mine was with Gurney at Spa and I've seen his photos,

Why not post them if you can get them? I for one would love to see those, as I'm about to start my MFH Gurney build, and I want to make it as accurate as possible.

Beautiful model, the heat staining looks so good.

Ahh, here it is! Such a quick build, and so well done! Thanks for sharing your build of this Historically significant F1 car(Still the only American driver in an American built car to win an F1 race!)

If any of you guys are interested, my report on the Eagle build is now on the models page at www.garagistesland.com (http://www.garagistesland.com)
Will we see any of you at IPMS Scale Model World on November 12/13 ?

Your skill level is impressive. Pure automotive art!

Superb.