'57 Ferrari Pontoon Fender TR250

This is an older 1/43rd scale kit from late 1980 or sometime in 1981. I know the date because I have a personal attachment to this kit for a few reasons. Primarily because I cast all the white metal parts in this kit when I was the head caster at Precision Miniatures back then. The parts were mastered and the molds were made by Lloyd Asbury. The box art was drawn by my late friend Dale King.
https://i.imgur.com/wmzDqHf.jpg
The decals were drawn by my father, Lloyd S. Jones of Scale-Master Decals. These look a bit rough due to their age of 42 years, but this will be built as an alternate version so I only need a few of the ones on this sheet.
https://i.imgur.com/MZ9DFbc.jpg
This is the raw body (and chassis) casting straight out of the box. It's pretty clean even compared to more modern kits, but still requiring some clean-up.
Interestingly, to mold the front grille opening as part of the body (instead of a separate piece), they were spin cast in a unique three part mold. (Actually four parts since each mold made two bodies.) A separate plug for each body had to be sandwiched between the main halves and carefully extracted from the metal body after each cast. Lloyd was quite the innovator…
https://i.imgur.com/824gCfp.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/TxGc54m.jpg
The rest of the parts include PE wire wheels, semi-soft tires, vacuum formed windshield and headlight covers, chrome parts and a good amount individual parts for decent detail of the time.
https://i.imgur.com/XjChzzN.jpg

Looking forward to seeing this. Such a great personal connection!

The first thing I did was to solder the rear valance onto the body. Cement would work fine, but solder makes a great truly permanent bond and fills the seam at the same time.
https://i.imgur.com/JLx666R.jpg
The same amount of work sanding as if it were cemented yields this result.
https://i.imgur.com/hIcR2sd.jpg

Instead of painting the brake drums, I wire brushed the raw metal. The ones on the left are how they looked before brushing.
https://i.imgur.com/DEKZAOd.jpg

The tires are injection molded and the ones in this kit had a shift that left a good sized mismatch. https://i.imgur.com/7RHZi8l.jpg

Rather than totally obliterate the tread to sand out the offset, I pulled a set from my private stock and replaced them.
The PE spokes for the wire wheels are very delicate, but not really that difficult to assemble if you use a light touch.
Turns out the real car does not have tire lettering so the kit provided Englebert decals were not needed.
https://i.imgur.com/NoUQ77U.jpg

The knock offs were missing from the kit, but fortunately I had a set I could donate to the project. They will be installed after the wheels are set up with the body/chassis.
https://i.imgur.com/fNse7GD.jpg

I filed the ends of the steel axles down to narrow the track. The front wheels are where I want them; the rears still have to come inward a bit more at this point by about 0.050.
https://i.imgur.com/VEsrTPC.jpg

I cab see what you mean. It is sitting quite wide on its wheels indeed. I'm not into these cast metal cars, but yours is really coming to live.

The seats were used to align the transmission tunnel and side panels but they were not cemented in at this time.
https://i.imgur.com/VIjyybl.jpg
From the provided reference this car has an all black interior (except for the red seats) as opposed to the bare metal areas some had. I sprayed the chassis, tunnel and side panels satin black to start.
The floor and front section of the tunnel were brush painted flat black.
https://i.imgur.com/pYnjbyp.jpg

Looks good!

Thanks!

The seats were primed in gray (all the metal parts that get painted are primed first), and then TS-8 Italian Red was lightly and not uniformly airbrushed. The white piping was done with Scale-Master decal stripes. (They are being produced by Warbird Decals now.) Even though the stripes are straight, a little decal solvent makes them very pliable to follow the curves. Still a few more sections to add at this point. I used the "H" size which is a size that is consistent on all the Scale-Master stripe sheets, even from the 80's.
https://i.imgur.com/9yUHx0i.jpg

I remember when Gene Parrel did the review in Road Track in his scale model section when I was a kit in the late 1970's. These along with the AMR /BAM kits were leaders. I think I bought one of these from the original shop in Costa Mesa before it was sold along with a AMR Greenwood Corvette. That was what a spoiled kid I was, allowance for 6 months down the drain.

Yep, Costa Mesa at 637 Paularino St. was where the PM shop was, right next door to Marque Products, the store you likely ordered from.
Gene Parril was the boss that wrote my paychecks. A really nice man too.
Bob Hines bought and ran Marque Products for several years while Gene moved onto Precision Miniatures.

After the decaling was done the seats were sealed with clear flat.
https://i.imgur.com/YFo0ysv.jpg

The interior features separate parts for the pedals, battery, electrical panel and shifter.
https://i.imgur.com/XQGvjBq.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/eKedN8J.jpg

The exhaust is made up of two parts per side. I find it is easier to cement the small pipe from the header to the main muffler/tailpipe section and install later as single units. The main parts have tabs that fit positively into the axle holes in the chassis so a little tape is all that's needed to keep them in place.
https://i.imgur.com/aZNBVsw.jpg

The body needed a few little spots filled, I used CA (instead of solder) since they were so shallow. One was the panel line molded into the nose; this car does not have that line. I also scribed some of the panel lines a little bit deeper. I forgot how unforgiving that can be freehand in white metal…
https://i.imgur.com/1MRoSyM.jpg

I decanted some TS-14 Black, thinned it and airbrushed the body with three light coats to help preserve the delicate details. When that dried for 24 hours I wet sanded the paint with 1200 and shot it with one more coat. This is the result.
https://i.imgur.com/A9AjLV3.jpg

The windshield is vacuum-formed from very thin Lexan. (Lloyd Asbury was a master at vacuum-forming parts and making the masters for them. He was the guy behind Lancer slot car bodies and did some for Associated R/C cars too.)
While there is a demarcation molded into show where to cut, it's on the faint side. But trimming with a knife leaves a more visible whitish line and as tedious as it seems, it is not that difficult once you get started. I used scissors to cut the base of the sides evenly after excising it from the sheet with a knife.
https://i.imgur.com/xjZd5Vm.jpg

The steering wheel is beautifully mastered. I still remember seeing the brass master Lloyd made the day he finished it. A real work of art; it even has the delicate finger notches on the other side of the rim.
I used brown, candy red and black acrylics to paint the wood rim. It's attached to the steering box here. Keep in mind the diameter of the wheel is about the size of a pinky fingernail.
https://i.imgur.com/OA2RIWI.jpg

The dash needed some detail so I drew a set of gauges and printed a set of decals.
https://i.imgur.com/HTpufw4.jpg

The decals for this particular version were provided by the person I'm building it for. They aren't for this casting so while they scale out well, the nose band doesn't quite fit this kit. A couple gaps on the bottom need to be dealt with. Not a problem…
https://i.imgur.com/yxpEeHf.jpg

I used a couple sections of the same Scale-Master white stripe decals used on the seats to make up the white parts. Then I mixed some Tamiya X-7 Red and X-3 Yellow to fill in the rest with a brush. A close look shows where the repairs were made, but since it's on the bottom it won't really be visible. I also had to paint the lip of the grille opening.
https://i.imgur.com/qOmHYnT.jpg

All the decals have been applied…
https://i.imgur.com/nKQLuct.jpg

The headlight covers are also vacuum formed clear Lexan and even more tedious to cut out than the windshield. Careful sanding is the trick to making them fit properly. On this car they are painted silver; I used Tamiya Mica Silver.
https://i.imgur.com/d2wzLnE.jpg

Now to let the clear dry for a while before final assembly…
https://i.imgur.com/RX2Ksv3.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/bYIIFl7.jpg

It's up on its wheels and leveled. Paint has been cut & waxed. The dash and steering wheel/column are installed too. Wind (and the static it creates) doesn't play well with black paint…
https://i.imgur.com/AgJ7qey.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/dA4IZ3G.jpg

A nice result given its scale and being a metal cast.
Both scale and model are not entirely my cup of tea, but a result you can be proud of :)

Thanks!

I made a circular punch and cut out a Mylar disc for the rearview mirror face. The tail lights are plated white metal painted with Tamiya Clear Red.
https://i.imgur.com/Ifo5j0u.jpg
The windshield fits OK, but there is very little material in contact with the body. I used RC560 canopy glue to secure it and create a small fillet.
https://i.imgur.com/oDGuZ3v.jpg

The last details to be added were the chrome decal stripes around the base of the windshield (Scale-Master Decals produced by Warbird) and the two prong knock-offs for the wheels.
https://i.imgur.com/pnWVA6e.jpg