Progress: Vauxhall Cavalier BTCC Touring Car 1:43

[ata]

I don't know if you are interested in this, as technically this is a die-cast project, but there is no plastic kit from Opel Vectra/Vauxhall Cavalier available... Tell me if this is not interesting, then I don't continue posting about this progress.

The idea was that there is no model of the John Cleland's British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) championship car of 1995 and I had an idea to build one from a 1:43 die-cast Opel Vectra. I also got a donor car for many of the touring car racing parts, a Vauxhall Vectra touring car, which I basically destroyed for this project, even the die-cast model is worth quite much as such. The Opel Vectra die-cast model I used was in a bad shape and I bought that second-hand from a model swap, where I got the donor model too.

Here are 2 photos of the real car:



And this is a photo of a similar Opel Vectra model I used, but this is in a better shape:


And this was the parts donor model:


First try of the racing parts inside the Vectra A body, partly sanded.




White paint (Tamiya):


Now added a scatchbuilt front spoiler and painted the yellow parts (took a lot of masking!) At the back you can see the body of the parts donor model.


And because this is a 1/43 model, the photos show the model practicly in real size. It proved to be really difficult to operate on such a small scale, compared to bigger scale models.

So, what do you think, should I continue with the progress here, even it's not a plastic kit, I will finish the model of course.

[Midnight Racer]

Great progress.Would love to see more.

[pettercardoso]

Wow, that's really a nice project. The paintjob looks pretty cool..Keep those pics coming..!!

[86_SR5]

Originally Posted by Midnight Racer

Great progress.Would love to see more.

niiice. looks good.

[willimo]

Looks great! Really impresed with your masking and painting, espescially at that scale. Please keep posting progress! There's no reason to send away people doing diecast who are doing this much modification. I'm looking forward to seeing this thing come together.

Edit: What are you going to do about the sponsor decals?

[ata]

Originally Posted by willimo

Looks great! Really impresed with your masking and painting, espescially at that scale. Please keep posting progress! There's no reason to send away people doing diecast who are doing this much modification. I'm looking forward to seeing this thing come together.

Edit: What are you going to do about the sponsor decals?

I did the texts with a thin marker pen, but it didn't work out, I'll have to do something else... the yellow part look better before the black marker parts... this scale is very difficult, as it's so small. I just have to wonder the ready-made 1:43 diecast cars, how accurate they are when doing something on that scale! (ok, they have decals for the details...)

before adding the black details from the back:


Some details added with permanent marker pens (black, blue, red):




At the back there are some ready made diecast Opel and Vauxhall race cars from the same era (early-mid 90's) with the same kind of livery, and without proper decals this looks horrible at these pictures. Maybe I have to use just white paper and a color laser printer for at least some of the decals.

The interior parts from the Vauxhall Vectra do not fit into the older style bodyshell as they were and required quite lot of modifications, so I can't turn back, as they don't fit to the original model anymore... The original Opel model had opening front doors, but I'm going to loose them, as there is no room anymore for the hinges with the more detailed interior. I cut the door hinges off and filed the doors thinner. Also the boot was openable, I'm also glueing the boot lid solid.

[ata]

Still 2 pics with the door taped on place:

[86_SR5]

nice progress. this have a motor?

[ata]

More progress photos from the BTCC Cavalier project:

Applied some Tamiya semi-gloss black to the window trims and some other details (which of course became too glossy as usual!). In comparison a similar model unmodified which this was, but as the hatchback version.



Built the face-lift grille from 2 pieces of plastic sheet. The Opel emblem (ok, the car should really have the Vauxhall emblem...) is from a Tamiya Opel Calibra DTM kit, as the emblem on an Opel Calibra is much smaller than on a Opel Vectra/Vauxhall Cavalier, it is about the right size on this model, even it comes from a 1/24 kit and this is 1/43. Also the rear light clusters are now painted as the facelift clusters at year 1995 which this is supposed to be. The original model was an 1989 model with the older type front grille and tail lights.





Have been a bit busy, but I'll post some more progress photos when I have time. These 1/43 models are surprisingly similar to bigger models in many ways. But of course there is no engine, but the interior detail is pretty good (not finished on these photos yet).

[vwman]

That looks very Goood !
BTW Ei millään pahalla mutta nuo tekstit näyttäää...
...öööö.... ...aika tyhmiltä
Mutta muuten tosi hyvä !

[ata]

Originally Posted by vwman

That looks very Goood !
BTW Ei millään pahalla mutta nuo tekstit näyttäää...
...öööö.... ...aika tyhmiltä
Mutta muuten tosi hyvä !

Juu, kun ne tekstit meni niin sanotusti "vituiksi" eli eivät onnistuneet...

The lack of decals and the idea to replace them with drawing them with a thin permanent marker pen just didn't work. I won't recommend that to anyone... even they looked good when I tried to draw them on paper, it was just so impossible to draw the sponsor logos on the car...

The texts will be replaced with wax printer computer printouts, It's not perfect either, but what can you do without proper decals and a race car replica, and I don't know anyone in Finland who could make proper custom decals.

[ales]

Your problem is easy to solve.

As the colour of the model is white, decals printed with a colour laser printer should work just fine on it. All you do is design the graphics and have them printed at some place (like a copy shop) that has such a printer on a clear blank sheet of decal paper. You won't be able to print white for the driver's name on the indow, though.