I finished something!
This is Fujimi's highly mediocre Ferrari 348TS kit. I have no real idea when I started this kit- likely it must have been on the order of 15 years ago. But it's done now.
For years, these kits were cheap and easily available on ebay- maybe they still are. Some of you will still remember Cobracolors. I started this build to try out my first ever bottle of Rosso Corsa. I had a lot to learn, about important topics such as lacquer thinner and clearcoat. Happily, my skills with lacquers progressed fairly quickly on other builds- but that left the 348 relegated to being shuffled around the back of my workbench for years to come. Eventually it found it's way into some isopropyl alcohol, and I resprayed it in Tamiya TS15 blue. For curiosity and fun, I oversprayed it with TS65 clear pearl. The pearl adds a nice touch, but it is more subtle than I would have expected (and hard to photograph). I've decided the combination is Genova Blu Pearl.
I always thought the taillights on the 348 looked like an afterthought. The rest of the car is fairly pretty, but the back end to me looks more Toyota then Ferrari. Fujimi paid tribute to this afterthought by half-assing the taillights as well. I couldn't do much with the kit parts, and so the 348 sat undisturbed for another few years.
Turns out that many in the 348 owner community seem to agree with me. Retrofitting 355 style taillights onto the 348 has been popular for years. It's a real improvement in my opinon- but it updates the look to make it look like everything that came after the 348. I wanted to do something that would look better than original, but also period correct for the 348. Happily the classic round orange and red lights that Ferrari had been using for many years were still being used to good effect on the F40- so a contemporary solution existed. Combined with the Testarossa style grille, they manage to look to me like what the car should have had in the first place. I pulled the parts out of my spares bin- I think I must have made them many years ago as a set of spares when I was building my F50.
The interior is mostly kit parts. Ferrari has long used a lovely earth red shade of leather they call Modena. I combined it with Chianti coloured carpeting to evoke my recollections of driving about the northern Italian countryside.
Because it's a GTS, the top is removable! The kit roof fits in place pretty well.
I am very happy to have this one finished- the kit was a frustration to work with, and I've been doubtful for years that I would ever really get around to completing it. Windows and wing mirrors took a lot of fighting to get into place, and the windshield wipers were completely unusable.
But it does manage to look like a Ferrari when completed. I just can't say I'm particularly encouraged to move onto Fujimi's F355....
Alex, you will have a MOTY entry from me this year.
Thanks for looking!