Completed: Aoshima Vertex Ridge Soarer D1

[Eric Cole]

Recently finished this Aoshima D1 drift car. Not my usual type of car to build but it was built for my wife. We were in the hobby shop and she liked this car and all the graphics and asked me to build it for her so I did... of course!

Although it's a D1 race car the kit has very little in comparison to the real race car. No role bar, full street interior (although there were racing front seats provided), street glass, very poorly done disk brakes that look like disk brakes off of a street car from many years ago... maybe!. The chassis is narrower than the body but overall the body is pretty decent other than the front winglets are a little thick.

With all of this in mind I suppose I would describe this kit as more of a street going replica of the real D1 car. So I used the normal seats and held on to the race seats for a future project. I also changed the brakes to something a little more realistic from a Fujimi wheel set. I also changed the wheels to something a little easier to paint. These have separate outer rings and the ones that came with the kit didn't, although the wheels are vaguely similar in style to what came in the kit.

Body is painted with Testors lacquer Flame Red, Tamiya Clear and polished. Wheel centers painted with Tamiya Clear Red. Decals where very dull and I'm always afraid to clear them so I polished them out with a little "Treatment Model Car Wax" and brought them to a nice shine. Overall I had a few issues with some of the decals and how they reacted to solvent and I tore a couple of them during application .

Also trying out a new photobooth and lighting...

Anyway, thanks for looking...

[Veyron]

Looks great...and the pics too!

[stevenoble]

Lovely job, looks great..!!

[NissanSkylineGTR98]

Excellent work, always love to see Soarers on here.

[p9o1r1sche]

Looks great, but how did you get the decals on backwards like that?











Ha Ha!

[ImolaEK]

wow, soo many decals. Great job!

[KevHw]

Very, very nice and vibrant!

On a side note, did you use a bare light bulb shining onto it? Putting a layer or two of tracing paper over the light will help to diffuse it and create less 'hard' light spots and give more softer, even lighting. Just wanted to mention that incase you didn't know about it, because there appears to be quite hard lighting in these photos.

[tonioseven]

Beautiful work!!

[klutz_100]

Very nice build Eric

But I am also trying to get my head around why some of the decals are mirror images?

[Jaymes]

wow...awesome build

[theOmni]

Nice to see a build for somone's loved one :-)

[Eric Cole]

Thanks everyone.

theOmni, I'm lucky in the sense that my wife is very cool, loves cars, car shows and racing. We watch F1 on TV together, go to cars shows together and go to Sebring, 24hrs of Daytona and Road Atlanta together.

... and No, she's not just a tag-a-long, she goes to the pits, meets the drivers, walks around and takes pictures, shops for cool car stuff, etc... with or without me... it's great! Above of all this, she bakes an awesome cookie...