Mercedes Über Build

Well Mercedes fans here we go !

I have decided to build in über detail the Mercedes 300SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe using the Fujimi kit, the Mercedes 300SLR LeMans based on the Monogram kit, and the Mercedes High Speed Transporter using the Museum Collection resin kit.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/boxes.jpg

The Uhlenhaut Coupe from Fujimi appears to be exact in every way to the Revell Germany version so I expect one was a re-issue of the other. Perhaps someone knows more about this than I. The kit is well detailed with gull wing doors on both side and full engine detail under the openable hood. I will be replacing the plastic wire wheels with Herb Deeks Photoetched wire wheels. Other than that, the kit will receive as much scratch built detail as reference material will provide.


http://www.szirmay.com/slr/slrubox.jpg


The SLR race car will be built to represent the 1955 LeMans car that was driven by Moss and retired by team orders after the horrific accident that claimed so many lives earlier in the day. Since the kit represents the Mille Miglia car I will have to make some modifications to the body and perhaps more. At this point I am putting out a pleading call to anyone and everyone that has any reference photos, diagrams or what have you for the LeMans version of the 300SLR.


http://www.szirmay.com/slr/slrbox.jpg


Finally, I managed to get my hands on a Museum Collection Mercedes High Speed Transporter resin kit. As you can see in the photo below, this is one major block of resin :) Very nicely cast I might add... The remainder of the parts are all white metal with rubber tires. I won't get started on this beast until I'm quite a ways through the construction of the two cars.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/transbox.jpg


My plan is to display this trio with the racecar loaded on the transporter in preparation for it's drive from Stuttgart to France for the LeMans race. The Uhlenhaut will be displayed along side the other two.

Construction begins on the two car bodies by eliminating all mold lines and rescribing the very weak panel lines. The trunk and tiny door is cut out of the SLR body so I can detail those areas as much as possible.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/slrcut.jpg


The Uhlenhaut receives the same cleanup and rescribing but I will not open the trunk on this one. In fact after I started test fitting the Gull wing doors I have decided to glue closed the driver's side as it was badly warped. I managed to keep the passenger door open and fitting nicely. Much work will still need to be done to make them fit perfectly...

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/slrufront.jpg

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/slrurear.jpg

Well there's the opening volley. I will be working on this project on and off for the better part of a year I suspect so please be patient with me as I will update as often as time allows. Thanks for reading.

Mick Sz.

I'm looking forward to watching this build :cool:

Please keep us updated :)

Fantastic. I will be watching this thread very closely and look forward to seeing what happens next. I have the Uhlenhaut coupe as well and was warped also.

Um yea!! That transporter is funky awsome!! Good luck on all!

This thread will be great! I just love those 300SLR:s.

-Niko

ohhh, this will be one stunning build! Will be really nice to see all three together.
What color are you planning to put on the Uhlenhaut?
One thing that stopped me from building this particular car (Uhlenhaut), wich I have on my shelf, is that I can't really figure out how to paint the Mercedes star and the "300 SLR" on the trunk. Any ideas on how you will do it?
best regards
Joel

Nice project. I especially like that Transporter. I´m sure this will be a stunner, so give us every detail you´ll have as an update.

Funny. I had the exact same idea 10 years ago when I put together this 1/43 Vroom Race transporter and the 1/43 Starter 300SLR. I hope this picture may inspire you...

Good luck!!

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/allerlei/300slr.jpg

Nice work Guy!

Mick, really looking forward to your build. Looks like it's gonna be a challenge!! Surely we'll all learn a thing or two.....


Murray

Thanks everone for your interest. Thanks Guy for your inspiration as well :) So regarding the Transporter, I notice you painted yours black, and the one on the kit box is also black, but every reference photo I have shows the transporter as being a medium blue color. Do you have reference material showing it was black back in the day ?

Seriously people, I need reference material for these obscure beasts :)

Mick Sz.

Thanks everone for your interest. Thanks Guy for your inspiration as well :) So regarding the Transporter, I notice you painted yours black, and the one on the kit box is also black, but every reference photo I have shows the transporter as being a medium blue color. Do you have reference material showing it was black back in the day ?

Seriously people, I need reference material for these obscure beasts :)

Mick Sz.

It's not black, it's dark blue. I'll scan some reference pics for you. I just have to find them first :sly:

My apologies, looking at your photo again I see it is dark blue. The pics I have of the (I assume) restored/recreated transporter are MUCH lighter blue. Here is what I have been using for reference so far:

Transporter (http://www.mgussin.freeuk.com/MercedesTransporteratGoodwood/MercTrans.htm)

Mick Sz.

My apologies, looking at your photo again I see it is dark blue. The pics I have of the (I assume) restored/recreated transporter are MUCH lighter blue. Here is what I have been using for reference so far:

Transporter (http://www.mgussin.freeuk.com/MercedesTransporteratGoodwood/MercTrans.htm)

Mick Sz.

10 years ago I only had black and white reference pics of the original 1955 truck, and a few color pics of a built model, which was painted in this dark blue.

Since the recreated truck is made by Mercedes, I can only assume that they used the correct color, based on old documents. I still will scan the black and white pics because they show a lot of details that you don't seem to have.

As for the color, I would advise you you use a color that matches the Goodwood truck.

Good luck!

Thats the plan, man :) And I thank you in advance for any picts you have foe me :)

Mick Sz.

This'll be good! :)

Is the Monogram kit the same as the one Revell (re)issued a few years ago?

This looks like a serious project! I'll be eagerly watching for updates!

super cool idea!

Found the article I promised!

Here are the scanned pages :

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/reference_pics/01_small.jpg (http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/reference_pics/01.jpg) http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/reference_pics/02_small.jpg (http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/reference_pics/02.jpg) http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/reference_pics/03_small.jpg (http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/reference_pics/03.jpg) http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/reference_pics/04_small.jpg (http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/reference_pics/04.jpg) http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/reference_pics/05_small.jpg (http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/reference_pics/05.jpg) http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/reference_pics/06_small.jpg (http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/Sennake_models/reference_pics/06.jpg)

Sennake,

You are SO the MAN ! Thanks very much for doing that !
I will have an update very soon.

Mick

This whole thread is pure inspiration. Got me thinking how this Transport will look like on my shelf. Is the Transporter still beeing produced or do I need to have luck with ebay?

Godfather,
I'm really not sure if it's still being produced or not. I happened to be browsing at Hapico (http://www.hapico.com) and noticed it. I immediately gave them a shout and I was lucky enough to acquire one. I had been looking at it on HobbyLink Japan for years and it NEVER showed up as being in stock...

Mick Sz.

Godfather,
I had been looking at it on HobbyLink Japan for years and it NEVER showed up as being in stock...

Mick Sz.


I was just checking hlj.com. Thanks for the info. Spares me time of desparate waiting until it showas as being in stock!

I love HLJ but sometimes they seem to be out of the loop...Motoi at Hapico is the man for hard to find items...

Mick Sz.

Hi Mick

Very cool project! I had that Uhlenhaut kit as well but it was stolen with other kits from my cellar ( funny story....got back a bunch of the kits when someone tried to sell them on ebay after buying them on a fleamarket in the area ...but not this one:-(
Along with the W196R the most beautiful Merc imho!
I do happen to have a bunch of pics of both the LeMans SLR and the Uhlenhaut from car shows. They were not open but at least the SLR has an open cockpit and i got that:-)
Send me a PM where to send them and i'll dig them up. Seems i'll not be able to make use of them anytime soon.
For inspiration on the "blue wonder" transporter you may wanna check the CMC diecast...that's a beauty!

Cheers

Jaykay

Small Update time.

One of the main reasons I decided to do the LeMans version of the 300slr is I hated the way the windshield looks on the Mille Miglia Car... The car is beautiful and aerodynamic and yet the windshield looks like it's almost perpendicular which ruins an otherwise beautifully flowing design. Plus I just love LeMans cars :)

So with that in mind I set out to get rid of the windshield mounting holes and the overscale looking windshield mounting plate. Also looking at the references I have I also noticed that the LeMans car does not have the small scoop to the right of the dash hump.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/slrwinscreen2.jpg

I cut the scoop off as flush as possible, then filled the opening with a piece of evergreen card. I drilled out the windshield mounting holes to accomodate a larger diameter piece of evergreen round stock. All glued in and left to dry for a few days.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/slrinside1.jpg

Here's a view from the top

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/slrwindscreen.jpg

All sanded up and ready for primer

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/slrclean.jpg

I'll work on the new, much smaller, windshield mount now. More later :)

Mick Sz.

Big Thanks to JayKay for filling my mailbox with perfect reference material this morning :) These will help immensely !

Mick Sz.

Looking good so far! Is this the Le Mans car that had the flip-up airbrake?

Yup. I'll have to scratch build the whole thing :)

There is an article on "722" on latest issue of Octane -magazine. It has couple of pictures of bare chassis & drivetrain of the car. Also while i was browsing trough my magazines yesterday i found a picture showing this transporter and slr on their way to Le Mans. Transporter seems to be a bit darker shade of blue than the recreation is.

PM me if you are interested, i can send you pics.

-Niko

Small update :)

Before I went any further on the body work I thought I’d better do some mocking up of the interior and chassis. I started by doing a dry fit of the interior. This showed up a problem immediately. As you can see in the next two photos the contour of the left side of the dash did not conform with the door opening at all.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/dash1.jpg
http://www.szirmay.com/slr/dash2.jpg

Out came the plastic sheet stock and slowly, layer by layer (I think there were 5 in total) I built up the contour to match both the door opening and the dash edge. Also note that in the photo above I had started playing with the windshield mount. After looking at more reference specific to the LeMans' car I noticed the mounts to be completely different, like the ones below.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/dash3.jpg

After a day of drying, the new piece had hardened nicely and stayed conformed to the shape.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/dash4.jpg

I managed to find another Monogram 300slr kit for cheap so I thought it might be a good idea to slam together the complete chassis to see if there were any issues that needed to be dealt with before chassis construction began.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/chassis1.jpg

This next photo and the reference shot that follows shows that the detail of the kit is not terrible considering what you’ll actually see once the body is mounted. The scale thickness of the frame tubing is definitely wrong and I will be adding a fair bit to the real chassis once things get under way...

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/chassis2.jpg

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/chassisreal.gif




Here are a few shots of the body taped into place.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/mockup1.jpg
http://www.szirmay.com/slr/mockup2.jpg
http://www.szirmay.com/slr/mockup3.jpg
http://www.szirmay.com/slr/mockup4.jpg

These next shots show the stock stance.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/mockup5.jpg
http://www.szirmay.com/slr/mockup6.jpg
http://www.szirmay.com/slr/mockup7.jpg
http://www.szirmay.com/slr/mockup8.jpg

I believe I will lower the car by about a millimeter just to give it a little meaner look. Other than that I think things are progressing nicely. Next I have to figure out how to hinge the door.....Hopefully I’ll have a few more hours to spend over the upcoming holiday season. Until next time...

Mick Sz.

Oh and I wanted to send out a HUGE Thank You Niko for some more VERY handy reference material he sent me last week. Thanks again !

Mick Sz.

Great update!

excellent! :bigthumb:

Nice update. Seems like you make sure, everything will work out fine on the build. Are you gooing to keep the rims box stock or are you going to adjust the chrome pattern, since it looks - in my eyes - too shiny, too chromish.

Robert

I have no intention of using those nasty looking chrome wires :) I have a few nice sets of Herb Deeks photo-etched wire wheels for these cars. I have George at Grand Master's Garage (http://www.grandmastersgarage.com) making me new turned aluminum outer wheels as the Herb Deeks kits come with white metal rings that are not that great... Neither the coupe nor the roadster had chrome wires, at least from the reference material I have....They will receive the same Mercedes Silver as the bodies. Thanks for your comments :)

Mick Sz.

Had some time this weekend to spend on the 300SLR :)

While still contemplating how to hinge the door, I thought I would tackle another unique piece for the LeMans car, the massive air-brake system.
It seems Mercedes wanted to add an element of braking not yet seen by anyone until this car. What they developed was a massive plate that would raise up hydraulically as the car went into the braking zone. Apparently this worked so well, they barely need to apply normal brakes when it was in effect.

http://szirmay.com/slr/300slr1.jpg
http://szirmay.com/slr/300slr2.jpg

So looking at the piece from as many angles as possible shows that it is a fairly thick piece and follows the contour of the body very closely. So I thought to myself, how am I going to create this piece and have it contour perfectly ?....Then I noticed the body of the other 300SLR kit I found not too long ago. :)

http://szirmay.com/slr/2.jpg

I can’t stress this point enough, if you are planning on a serious scratch building exercise based on a kit you can not go wrong by having at least two of the same kit to work with. I think I went through parts of at least three Fujimi GT40s on my Super Buildup of chassis 1075.

http://szirmay.com/slr/3.jpg

Here is the freshly cut piece sitting in it’s location.

http://szirmay.com/slr/4.jpg
http://szirmay.com/slr/5.jpg
http://szirmay.com/slr/6.jpg

Some sanding and contouring yielded a pretty nice fitting piece. Also looking at the reference I noticed what looks to be a small window cut into the lower right side which I assume the driver used his mirror to look through when the brake was in use.

http://szirmay.com/slr/7.jpg

Template made, I cut holes in the rough area.

http://szirmay.com/slr/8.jpg

Cutting and sanding and voila.

http://szirmay.com/slr/9.jpg

Mounted in place for the time being I went to work on the passenger side aero cover. So the cover would mount flush I first needed to create a mounting lip for it to sit on. This was created with a small piece of evergreen plastic sheet rough cut to shape, glued in and trimmed to shape.

http://szirmay.com/slr/10.jpg
http://szirmay.com/slr/11.jpg

On to the headrest. The kit supplied Mille Miglia headrests were huge compared to the LeMans one but at least it was a good place to start.

http://szirmay.com/slr/12.jpg
http://szirmay.com/slr/13.jpg
http://szirmay.com/slr/14.jpg

Once choped and reglued I applied a big lump of Milliput two-part epoxy. Once that dries I will reshape it to look like the LeMans’ one.

While that dries (I tend to bounce around like this) I went back to the aero cover and using more evergreen sheet plastic I cut and shaped the cover using two layers laminated together.

http://szirmay.com/slr/15.jpg
http://szirmay.com/slr/16.jpg
http://szirmay.com/slr/17.jpg

Thats it for now. Thanks for tuning in :)

Mick Sz.

You've made really good work! :bigthumb:
Can't wait to see these finished.

Hugely interesting and impressive build!! :bigthumb:

Please don't keep us waiting too long for the next installment ;)

Sensational styrene sculpting, :) Just Moss' 300SLR would be stunning enough, but the transporter and gull wing coupe will take it completely over the top.

Fantastic!

amazing. im dizzy just looking at this fantastic build up. im thinking of packing up my corvette and to start weaving baskets after seeing your skill and patience with researching and scratchbuilding. amazing subject also, i cant wait to see more of this. and very professional in progress pictures, my hat is off to you, MickSz. truly exceptional thread.

looks awesome dude! I love your models! Keep it up!

Hi,

great progress thread, interesting building process

Happy New Year to all at Automotive Forums :)

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been about 6 weeks since I’ve had a chance to update my buildup diary, time sure flies, especially around the holiday season...Since we last spoke I have made a few updates to the project, but not as many as I would have liked...:)

The headrest was filed and sanded to shape and looks pretty close to the much-shortened LeMans version:
http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/headrest1.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/headrest2.jpg

The signal lights were filled as they were not on the LeMans car:

http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/signallights.jpg

I couldn’t put off designing the door hinge any longer so I started bending wire..... Two hours and 4 prototypes later, I finally had one the looked and functioned like the real thing:
http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/hingeinside.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/doorup2.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/doorup.jpg

I thought I’d leave the body prep for a while and got started on chassis elements. Both chassis were prepped identically and built as far as possible where all the components could be painted semi-gloss black:

http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/chassis.jpg

The injector block had all the lines moulded in so I had to do some removal in prep for proper lines and fittings:

http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/injectorblock.jpg

One of the unique elements on the 300 slr are the inboard brake drums. After looking at the reference photos, I noticed the kit ones were too small in diameter and thickness and lacking of any detail so I had to find a way to thicken them up to start with. I couldn’t find anything suitable in the parts bin, but as I was searching I noticed on the chrome parts tree for the slr, some of the nasty wire wheel components. Lo and behold the inner wire wheel frame was the exact diameter of the drums and the thickness was close to perfect. I cleaned out the spokes and scraped off all the plating and merged them with the drums:

http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/brakedrumsb.jpg

Once dry, I sanded everything flush. To add a little diameter, I simply took some sheet plastic and wrapped a layer around the perimeter:

http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/drakedrumsa.jpg

Then to add the cooling fins, I added another thin strip along the inner edge. Once dry, I took the trusty old #11 blade and cut grooves in the new layer and voila, I had my bigger, thicker, more detailed drake drums. I will still need to add some bolt detail and do some fine sanding but we're close :) Here is a before and after:

http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/brakedrumcomplete.jpg

I glued together the engine block and started adding some detail to the valve cover as it had no bolt detail whatsoever and this piece will be quite noticeable once the engine is in place:

http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/enginedetail.jpg

Gas tank was glued together and the filler hole drilled out in preparation for the filler tube:

http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/gastank.jpg

Firewall had one of the elements moulded in so that had to be removed of course :) :

http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/dash1.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/szirmay/image/dash2.jpg

And that is the short but sweet first update of 2006. Hopefully it won’t be 6 weeks before my next update :)

Mick Sz.

I'm following this one closely. Gotta love those classic Benzes.

Yeehaw!! Progress!! ;)

Amazing work on the brakes and door hinge (well, and all the rest too, of course).

Can't wait for more!

I was just wondering about this one...

Thanks for the update. Looking good (as usual....)

Murray

This is awesome! I am loving this build!

This build looks like a labor of love!

Great job and keep up the great work and detailed updates!

Bill

[German Bodybuilder Voice]ÜBER BUILD![/German Bodybuilder Voice]

Thanks for your continued interest and encouragement :)

I picked this book (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1583881220/qid=1137023467/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-7595858-0456606?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) up over the holidays and I have to say it is a MUST-HAVE if you're planning on doing either the Mille Miglia or LeMans version. It also has a pretty good section on the Uhlenhaut Coupe. For $20.00 it's money well spent.

Mick Sz.

Another quick update.
I finally found some time to work on the hinging of the air brake. Laying down masking tape, I drew out exactly where I needed to cut slots into the body for the hinges to go.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/hingeholes.jpg

I purchased a photo-etched set of NASCAR hinges from Model Car Garage and proceeded to build them as per their instructions. The image below shows the original hinge and the one on the right showing the cut-down version, which would get cut down even further after this photo was taken.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/hinges.jpg

Hinges are now super-glued to the body.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/hingeattachment.jpg

Hinges are now tested.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/hingetest.jpg

The airbrake is test fitted to the hinges. I won’t glue this down until after everything is painted. There is still some detail work to be done to the underside of the air brake. Also, there are hydraulic rods which raise and lower the airbrake that need to be scratch-built.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/airbraketest.jpg

Moving to the last scratch-built hinge project, the trunk. Looking at the reference material I have noticed that there was a frame that the trunk lid rested on which of course was not built into the model kit. To create this frame I took some thin sheet stock plastic and glued it to the contour of the entire trunk.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/trunkframetotal.jpg

Once dry I simply cut away all the plastic except for a 2mm frame. Since the trunk was originally cut out of the body, there was an excessive gap between the trunk and the body opening. I took some thin sheet plastic strips and glued them to the perimeter of the trunk to increase the overall size. Filed and sanded, the trunk lid now fits nicely with room left for primer and paint.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/trunkframefinal.jpg

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/trunkfit.jpg

Reference material shows some detail structural framing to the inside of the trunk lid so I placed the trunk lid in place and drew a line around the opening which would act as a template for the trunk lid underside detail.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/trunkframeunder.jpg

The template line was then transfered to masking tape and the remainder of the frame sketched in. The template was then transfered to more sheet plastic and cut to shape. Before I glue this into place I have to fill some injection markings in the underside which is much easier to do now than after the framing is in place.

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/trunkinnertemplate.jpg

http://www.szirmay.com/slr/trunkinner.jpg

Next up will be the hinge...

I'm afraid that's all for now.Thanks for tuning it :)

Mick Sz.

nice, fine workmanship as usual. thanks for the update.

Wow how did I miss this for so long? lookin good.

Excellent progress!
I love this thread - not just because I admire your skills bur because I cna learn so much!. Thanks for sharing :bigthumb:

cough cough reference pics ;)

Beautiful process, great detail!!

Can't wait to see more!

Congratulations!

wow this is great work. Ive just seen this for the first time today. Gonna have to follow it to the very end now. Simply amazing scratch building......keep the pics coming

After such a great start I really need an update fix!

Me too! :lol:

nothing short of AMAZING :eek2: :boink: