Patrick Snijers Manx Rally 1988 Beemax BMW

[corrrado]

Probably most of the rallye fans know this video, one of the best piece of drive of an M3 E30. The Belgian Snijers had a really good feel for the M3 especially on the narrow, twisty roads of the isle of Man. I know that the rally version of this BMW from Beemax is on the way but I couldn't wait and used some parts from the old S27 transkit, Renaissance + Alps printed decals ad some scratch buildind. I started with the interior and I added a light weathering to it. In fact the car has the same numberplate as the Beguin '87 corsica winner Rothmans car but there are many differences inside and outside according to my references.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJB8BtkSEHM

[Kaj45rpm]

Great start and fantastic details. I was at that rally in 1988 when he won on his first visit to the island if memory serves me correct.
Where can you get decals for that car (with Irish GXI registration )?

[corrrado]

Kaj45rpm, thank you for your comment. You are one of the luckiest guy to be at that rally and see his amazing drive! I really envy you! For the decals, I'll use the Renaissance Bastos BMW decal but for the GXI 9427 numberplate I'll use either the Renaissance or S27 Rothmans decal. I made the Castrol logos, the rally plates and the Lucas/Bilstein/Speedline decals on the front fender in vector format and had them printed. If you need the vector file I can forward to you with pleasure.
I made a little progress with the interior although still a lot to do.

[E46nm52]

Wow, this is so detailed. Great job. This put my current WIP thread to shame, I should end that thread... like now.

[Kaj45rpm]

Decals look superb. Do you have the Speedline wheels for it? M3 engine sounded superb. The Manx was part of the European Championship back then. Fond memories.

[corrrado]

Hi E46nm52, this build is not intended to put anyone's build in shame. There are lot's of excellent builds from lot's of excellent modelers in this forum. I think the intention of this forum is to learn from each other to improve our skills. By the way you had some excellent builds, like your Porsche and others recently. What material did you use for the seatbelt? Looks really great!
Coming back to the BMW, I made some small progress on the suspension which was quite a challenge. I realized that it is not enough only to elongate the shocks but I also need to change the geometry of the supporting arms around it. On the publicized photos of the new rally version, there are no new arms and the demo model looks way too low in my opinion. At the end I ended up adding 2mm in the front shocks plus adding a 2mm ring in the spring tower and added 4 mm in the rear shocks. This means that the front suspension arm changed radically but luckily most of the changes will be covered by the skidplate. The rear arm needs less modification, I only glued the front pegs and the lower part of the wheel center in its new position then bent the axles downwards a bit. The front and rear bumpers also needed some work to represent Snijer's car, notably closing the upper intake and scribing the lines around the towhook.

[Kaj45rpm]

Great progress. Details are superb.

[michel1973]

Nice detailwork, but the pictures are a bit large

[corrrado]

Hello, I managed to do some progress on the BMW.

[Kaj45rpm]

Looking great!
PS what Web site can you upload photos from as I'm not paying for Photobucket 3rd party hosting?

[corrrado]

Thank you Kaj45rpm. I upload the images from Imgur. It is easy and much faster than photobucket. I had the same problem with photobucket and not willing to pay them either.

[corrrado]

Small progress on the BMW, finally managed to spend some time on the build. I put some round base for the logos and changed the inner headlight lens for clear one
which better represents the original car.

[chris24]

Wow ! Brilliant !

[Kaj45rpm]

Love it. Tremendous details.

[corrrado]

I almost finished with the build - just in time before Beemax brings out the rally version (at least I got good use of my old Studio27 transkit). Only needs some light worn effects here and there. Looking at the preview images from the new rally kit, it will need some modifications as well. The most difficult in this build was to create sufficient place for the fusebox under the dashboard, I had to lift the hole dash around 3-4mm. This is the disadvantade of the separated chassis and interior-tub construction and will be the same problem on the rally version kit. The chassis needs to be modified as well to accomodate the side exhaust and discard the oil cooler. The rest was really good except from the now well known problem with the side glasses.