1/43 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR

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This is a 1/43 Mercedes 300 SLR by Starter. The kit is quite simple and has only a few parts as you can see below. The detail is not sharp, and in fact in some places, pretty awful. Nevertheless, this is a great subject and I think the kit has a lot of potential.

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The biggest attraction for me is the wired wheel, although the detail is not entirely accurate. I would probably flatten the center lock and add PE emblem. Maybe next time.

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Here are the tires. The upper left is the original and the rest is modified. I seriously doubt that groove tire tread was introduced back in the 1950s. To give the tires a more authentic look, I used a knife to slowly make the cross cuts all around. A lot more sanding was done later to clean the flash.

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Here are pictures of the original body. The air intake scoop is too narrow and should be more rounded. The dash board is :screwy:. The exhaust is :headshake. And the tail lights are :sly:. Well, I am speechless.

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Having crappy details is worse than not having any details. I decided to strip the body clean by sanding away the crappy details and scratch building with styrene. The most dreadful part of the process is removing the exhaust. I had to cut away the entire housing into the resin body in order to fit a new exhaust pipe.

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I scratch built the entire cockpit, parts by parts, so that I can paint them separately. Improving the original cockpit is, in my opinion, a waste of more time.

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Here is the new cockpit vs the old. Much better isn't it?

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It's a shame that much of the cockpit can not be seen after mating with the body.

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Here I ran into a problem with seats. The kit decal no longer matched the new seats and was not large enough to cover the seating surface. I hand painted the empty areas, which after some weathering, are less visible. Still, I could have done a better job and be a little more patient painting.

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Here is the final assembly of the cockpit.

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Another view.

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The next step is to scratch build a wooden steering wheel. Yes, I mean a steering wheel made of REAL WOOD. I wanted to test this idea for so long and now I finally had the opportunity. Another reason is that I broke the original steering wheel :biggrin: and left myself no choice. Okay. This is what I did. I began with a bamboo BBQ stick. It's not gonna be easy to bend a wooden stick into a circle, well, at least not in 1/43 scale. So I carefully scrapped the stick into thin pieces and wrapped them around a steel tube of approximate diameter. I used quite a bit of instant glue between layers. I then slowly sanded away the thickness and width down to a small ring. Hey, this may as well be a perfect method to make a wooden ring for your significant other.

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I then stained the wood with 1-2 coats of Tamiya acrylic clear yellow, followed by 3-4 coats of Future, and fit it with a couple machined parts. I am really happy with the final result.

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Moving on to the head lights. I used the yellow resin headlight as template to make the clear lens.

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I also machined the headlight housing and made more lenses. The grill is made from PE radiator mesh glued onto a piece of styrene. I coated it with flat black and lightly sanded over the surface to reveal the metal.

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Well, here are the complete pictures. The body was painted in Tamiya Mica silver. Looks a bit grainy under the clearcoat even after polishing. This is probably not the best silver to use. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this build! Comments are welcome as usual.

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Made a background for the car. The asphalt is a piece of sand paper which is a brilliant idea from someone here on this forum. I forgot who exactly though.

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Great job, that really turned out nice.

Hi

Wow, really great scrated build.

Sascha

Very clean work , congratulations .

Just fantastic...!

This amount of resin turned out in a gem, bravo Helico :bigthumb:

Robi

I think you've done a fabulous job of an awful kit, great stearing wheel!
Lee.

You've done a fabulous job, is a beautiful work

Nothing else to say, simply, AMAZING!...I like a lot the weathearing in the wheels, the flat look of the seats upholstery...wow...the steering wheel!!..a masterpiece!...Excellent!

Yeah, a finer silver would have been more suitable, but doesn't take away from a great build! Excellent attention to detail. The wood steering wheel looks awesome!

Superb model. Really like the steering wheel and quite temarkable in 1/43 scale.
Thanks for posting the wip pics as well.
Regards, Steve.

Nice!!! Not a flaw to be found... Love the steering wheel:smokin:

The steering wheel build is a fantastic add-on to this rebuild, great job!

Very very nice! Love the seats!

Wow! The results certainly show the effort, fantastic.

Stunning work Helico! It's always exciting to see some 1/43 build here and you're really getting on with those little kits! Simply terrific!

A belated thank you for all the kind compliments. I am still brain storming for a small diorama to put in an IKEA picture frame as I had done previously. I did a little research on the history on 300 SLR hoping to get some cheerful inspiration. After a brief read up on Wiki, I sadly realized that 300 SLR was in fact involved in the most catastrophic accident in the motor racing history. A collision in 1955 Le Mans killed not only the driver Pierre Levegh of the #20 car, but also took lives of 83 spectators and further injured 120 people. What a horrible tragedy.

That's an impressive little Mercedes! Very nice work.

That is so cool! Nice build!

Beautiful build.

VERY nice teeny, tiny car.

Fantastic work!

Beautiful!
How is it even possible to achieve that cockpit from scratch...? Stearing wheel is just crazy.