Building a Ford GTR Mk. VII (lots of pics)

[JTninja]

Hi guys! I doubt many here follow the American Le Mans Series, but the Ford GT has returned to racing! A Legend for its suscess at Le Mans, the Ford GT was brought back into production in 2005 by Ford, a clear form of its past racing father. But Ford would not have the GT race at Le Mans again. Many found this wrong, but it was Oliver Kuttner and Kevin Dorran who saw passed this, and visioned taking the GT to Le Mans again, this time in the GT2 class. We'll, it looks like their well on their way.

The car was planned to debut at this years 12 hours of Sebring, but the building process was far behind. The first car would go to Robertsons Racing, a Privateer team thats usually consistant but not on pace of the Ferraris and Porsches in their class. Thankfully, luck was on their side. The car arrived on Monday, the week of Sebring, and just had the doors attached. Over the week the car slowly got faster and faster. The car had no previous testing, and was just finished a few days before the event. Few thought that this dream would actually become reality. The car lasted the week with very little problems.

The 12 hours of Sebring is one of the hardest races in the world. The track is mostly made on an old WWII bomber base, and the bumps are intense. This is the make or break track, and most break. For 8 solid hours, the GTR ran with little problems. Before the hour was up, the car crashed in the barriers.

A dream came true that day. A car from an old legend came back, and competed with the likes of Ferrari, Porsche, Corvette, Aston Martin, Panoz, and Dodge. A small team barely finished their dream car, and ran it at the hardest track in the United States. The car ran with the only testing found that week. It ran with the best teams in the world.

The Ford GTR Mk. VII will one day run at Le Mans again. 3 more car will be built this year, one to Trans Sport Team, and the other 2 for the Doran team. Robertsons will continue to run the rest of the 2008 ALMS season, with the other 2 teams joining later on. The plan is for the GT to return to Le Mans in 2009.

Ive chosen to build this car. Sadly, there is no "great" or even "good" kit availible on the market for the Ford GT. Sure, we can have 8 versions of the F430, but no good GTs? I found a kit at a local Micheals craft store by AMT. It was the only one I could find, and for $9, I thought it would make a good project. Ill take the GT, and with some massive work, turn it into the Mk. VII. The I opened the kit....

Its a snap-together kit!!!!

Should I mention that you dont need to paint it???
Theres a good amount of chrome...oh my good...and the instructions?

Go ahead, get out the laughs now....


Heres the kit...

Here are the instructions...if you can call them that...

At least the chassis looks pretty good...

Love the shape...but those wheels are gone

Diffusors pretty nice, needs some sanding, but better than I thought!

Okay, needs a lot of work. The red circles show where the parts snap in. Green and Yellow need to be trimmed.

Go ahead...you can laugh again...this is pathetic..these "brakes" attached to the back side of the rims...


Well, I hope everyone had a good laugh, I have. This is going to be fun painting so sure, but thankfully I have the resources needed. The great thing about the Doran project, unlike any other, is that the whole process has been filmed, from the building to the race. It can all be found here, in HD too.
http://www.fordgttv.com/

Big thanks to Johnny for some awesome footage.

[pawlie]

Did it come with decals or stickers?

[JTninja]

Im surprised, theyre decals...I get the black or white stripes and 2 ford logos

[Veyron]

I like all your projects...it's the kind of stuff I prefer to do.

Good luck!

[Eric Cole]

Sweet, I saw this car in person at Sebring this year. I got a few pictures but nothing good enough to call "reference material".

The car sounded awesome.....

I'm looking forward to watching this build progress.

[JTninja]

Thanks guys

Ill have the chance to see the car at Long Beach (if it survives St Pete). My camera will be my best friend

The kit is supposed to be 1/25, and looks like it until put next to the Viper...


For the kit, im sanding the body down. Thankfully in many parts the plastic isnt too think, but sometimes (under hood) its really thin. Im putting in the plastic clear parts where the fog lights go, its going to be sanded and covered in paint anyways.

Curious, what type of sandpaper do people use at this stage in the project? Ive started with 400, but dont know if its enough...

[Veyron]

400 grit is plenty aggressive for styrene.

I'm more worried about that tube of Testors I see in your pic, what is that?

Yeah, one of those is out of scale...the Ford is roughly 7" longer than the Viper.

[JTninja]

400 is for the originally body, Ill use 600 for the styrene. Since Im new to "detailed" modeling, I didnt know what type to get, so I got size .02 6x12 sheets.

The tube of testors is the glue I use for the plastic. Ive always used some form of Testors glue for a few years, picked it up at my local hobby people. Havent tried anything else.

Turns out the GT is 1/2 an inch longer...good thing Im making the viper longer!

[klutz_100]

Nice project

[godfather23]

Very interesting project. I didn´t know about this race-GT. But it looks like you got yourself a longtimer. Good luck with everything.

Robert

[dlphnfn]

Ah, I have this same project in mind... A beautiful car indeed. I'll be watching for sure.
Erick --

[jmwallac]

Pretty soon you'll have the starting grid for an ALMS race! I'm thinking about doing the Cobra with the Jada kit. Maybe we should start an ALMS group build?

[JTninja]

Haha, sounds about right, you got me Just look at my sig, and you'll see where Im heading...

I was thinking...with meters of plastic styrene and tons of putty, could I take a Audi R10 and convert it to a Acura or Porsche P2??? lol

I have the night off from work, so Ive got lots of time to work on 2 cars The GTR will be a lot of work, but since Ive yet to figure out how to my door hindges, I dont think Ill be opening this one up

[evilbob]

I can feel your pain over the quality of the kit - I'm working on an AMT GTO kit at the moment. Making it passable is stretching my modelling skills, I can tell you.
My thread's here - looks like those brakes are the same part....

[JETninja]

Originally Posted by jmwallac

Pretty soon you'll have the starting grid for an ALMS race! I'm thinking about doing the Cobra with the Jada kit. Maybe we should start an ALMS group build?

Uhmmm, there are no "Cobra's" in ALMS these days. There was rumors for awhile of some Mustangs, but they didn't pan out.

If your in the USA, you can watch this weeks ALMS round (#2) at St. Petersburg, Florida broadcast on ABC on Saturday Morning. (tomorrow) It should be interesting, street circuits kill cars....