Lamborghini Gallardo Polizia

So, I thought I'd start an OOB project to warm up before starting one of my tougher bike builds. Although I can't seem to make things OOB this will hopefully stay as close as it can...

I've hade the Lamborghini Gallardo Polizia on my shelf for years, one of few cars I might add. It is the 2004(?) Gallardo that initially was given to the italian highway (stradale) police from Lamborghini.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/FC5F333E-6F58-4A15-BFB9-1E69D8E69BFC-1403-00000213A36225E5.jpg

Later on it turned out to look like this...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/052934CD-FFEA-48A4-A3DA-51AC02BC81AA-1403-0000020F7F596039.jpg

Later on it a LP560-4 version came along looking gorgeous.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/74C29D11-1181-4E2D-AD30-01432ACA3EC1-1403-00000216FD310453.jpg

Kit itself is pretty basic and straight forward. As the car is to be painted light blue much of the parts come in som blueish green color.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/D93306F5-BABB-4381-98B3-2B2FD314D52E-1403-000002153DAE2336.jpg

There is also a sprue of kit specific parts.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/3AFB92A9-7D91-47CF-A854-BF0E88F14609-1403-00000214E9722C4F.jpg

I've bought a P/E set from Crazy modeler to get hold of the mesh parts surrounding the lower engine parts and exhaust. Perhaps I'll also give the P/E brake rotors a go. As the kit have molded vents on top of the rear deck that are open but vents above the rear wheel arches that are closed I've started to have a look at the Hobby Design PE set wich includes the vents. With that set you'll also get brake calipers in resin.

I've seen a few but great builds of this kit, Portalus made one of them. As I'm not a car kit builder I'm a bit worried about the larger chassis areas to be painted but I'll have a go :-)

Any heads up on the Fujimi kit is much appreciated.

The side windows have a bad fitment. The rest of the kit is pretty good.

Be very careful of the A-pillars... They're very fragile! I've busted them on 2 separate builds. Try not to handle the body around the A-pillars when sanding/polishing.
Cheers Cliff

Ok, so I started cutting the parts away from the sprues and did a little dry fitting. Must acknowledge your heads up blubaja regarding the side windows... Now, I'm not building cars that often but how will these windows stick to the body? And, after putting this part in place

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/ADC3BB3F-3A05-4230-814F-E209F8FB118F-3764-0000059BCAF697A7.jpg

shall I fill the gap or isn't it visible when the window trim is painted?

Some other points that comes to mind is that there are no guiding holes for the antennas or the roof lights. Especially the latter will be tricky to put in place.

Otherwise I'm looking forward to getting started on the painting. Got my new spray booth in the mail today!

Looking through the instructions I see that the window part in the post above is to be painted black. Is it something that Fujimi added to hold the windows in place or does it exist in the real car?

Got myself the Hobby Design PE fret wich also have resin calipers and a bit more detail to the brakes.

I started putting the front discs together tonight. Man, how do they figure those tiiiiiny rivets to be added? Four discs where 12 holes shall line up through all discs, then put one rivet in each hole. Didn't get ONE in place :-)

Haven't done ventilated pe discs before so the fins came out a bit skewed but they are fairly easy to straighten.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/C13FC564-32BC-4C28-84CE-C15B394BC5E9-3339-00000362BDA00C46_zpsbd73a475.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/F0C61209-39E6-4884-A2A4-6736C2923993-3339-00000362C8670775_zps88f28745.jpg

I've done some basic painting on the chassis and glued some of the interior together. Ordered some Mr Hobby Blue gray for those parts, none of my Tamiya paints seemed to match properly. See if I can get some coats on tomorrow.

I've not finished my build. Only passing on the info I've taken in from the reviews of the kit I've read.

Interior is to be painted with Blue gray mixed with 15% flat base. Put all my gear up just to find out that the Gunze Mr Hobby paints come in both an acrylic and a waterbased range and that I've ordered one jar of each.... Just packed the stuff back in the closet.

Now I'm off to ebay!

Interesting that there are no holes to fit the roof lights and antennas. Will look like crap if not aligned correctly...

It's more than noticeble that I am new to photo etch. Glueing them wrong, using the wrong brake disc pattern. Good thing is Acetone removes CA glue :-)

Hope to post some progress photos soon.

Time for some pictures to get some live coverage...

Body has a few ejector marks. Two in the rear and two in the front. Polizia car has its front plate sitting lower than the standard Gallardo, so I filled the fitting holes for the plate as well.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/Lamborghini%20Gallardo%20Polizia/IMG_0755800x533.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/Lamborghini%20Gallardo%20Polizia/IMG_0754800x533.jpg

Looking through the body mold I can't find that many details missing. One that I've noticed is that the line going in front of the rear lights shall continue down to the hatch. I used a scriber to correct the issue.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/Lamborghini%20Gallardo%20Polizia/IMG_0756800x533.jpg

PE brakes from Hobby Design has possibilities to look great. Perhaps nog in my version though. Ventilation fins is skewed and there is a lot of CA left to remove. The set includes 48 rivets to be inserted into the tiny holes in the middle ring. The rivet shall pass through four layers of pe material. I can tell you I couldn't get one (1) of the rivets through one (1) of the holes in one (1) layer of pe :grinyes: So they are all left out.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/Lamborghini%20Gallardo%20Polizia/IMG_0762800x533.jpg

Dry fitted the mesh for the back. Fits very nice. Hopefully I can paint it without filling the holes. It seems the material of the fret is not working well with blacken-it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/joelwideqvist/Lamborghini%20Gallardo%20Polizia/IMG_0757800x533.jpg

Next is to paint the parts attaching to the chassis and the wheel suspension. Interior is all the same color so I will do that any night as well. I'm thinking of flocking on the floor but can't decide if it is to overdo it.

/Joel

That's some serious work you are doing there! :thumbsup:
Looking forward to see the rest of it.