Le Mans Contest Entry: '69 Ford GT40 Chassis 1075

[MickSz]

Hi Everyone! Long time no see! I've had a lot of inquiries for me to reupload all my photos for this buildup and I simply have not had time. Well I've made time now

Ever since I was a kid there was only one car that was awe-inspiring to me. I don’t know why but whenever I saw one of the Gulf GT40s on TV I just stopped what I was doing and stared. Chassis 1075, won the 24 hours of Lemans in 1968, and then again in 1969, and have inspired many racers and teams, and us modelers as well.

My model building renaissance started back about 7 years ago having done the wife and kids thing. Having a great passion for racecars, particularly sports prototypes that have left their mark down the Muslanne Strait, I set out to find and build that car, but there was nothing on the market that could replicate this classic, at least that I could afford.

I managed to find many a LeMans runner of every other shape, size and spec, but no GT40’s in 1/24 scale other than the more than adequate Fujimi MkII from the 1966 LeMans. As time went on, the market started to yield some interesting variations on the GT40 theme and I started collecting every piece I could get my hands on.

I good friend had a Thunder Valley GT40 Transkit for the Fujimi MkII and I drooled over it for at least a year before I ponied up the money for my own. LeMans Miniatures had two versions, a full-blown, panels off ‘69 Gulf Car and a less detailed, no engine version for a lot less money. I opted for the cheaper of the two. Then Fujimi decided to release a whole gaggle of GT40’s including the ‘69 winner. I bought a couple of those as well as the 68 winner, just so I could see the differences.

So there we have it. I had sitting in front of me the bodies of the Thunder Valley, LeMan’s Miniatures, and Fujimi Kits. After a number of hours of looking them over from every conceivable angle I decided that the proportions of the Fujimi “felt” right to me. I mention at this point that I am not one to measure everything to the exact scale, size and proportion, if it has the right “look” in 1/24 scale, that’s good enough for me.

The Thunder Valley body seemed too aggressive in the front fenders for 1075 and the rear end on the LMM kit was all together wrong to me. So the LMM kit went back in the box and I sold it on eBay. What I did like in the LMM kit was the tires, resin wheel centers, hubs and rotors. Lucky for me these could be purchased as a separate kit from LMM so I put in an order for two complete sets. (If I can afford it, I always buy two of everything because I know me well enough that I’m very likely to screw up one of them).

I decided to keep the Thunder Valley kit for a few of its parts as well. The turned aluminum outer wheels were very accurate and mated well with the LMM tires and resin centers. The only other part I used was the main radiator, which was white metal and had nice detail on both sides, as it would be visible from both sides.


My acquisition was not yet complete. Other than the full-blown LMM kit, there was no decent engine and rear suspension available for this classic racer. As a member of the GPMA Yahoo newsgroup I read of a gentlemen who was producing a resin transkit for the Fujimi ’69 car and I leapt to the keyboard and ordered two sets from Replicas and Miniatures of Maryland. The kit is from Harold Bradford and is definitely a necessity if you are going to build this replica right.

Even though the Bradford engine kit came with beautiful resin shocks I had promised myself that this project would get the full treatment and as such bought a complete set of turned aluminum shocks from RB Motion which are available on eBay almost every week. Very nice………

Acquisition almost complete I rounded things off with some photo-etched sets from Studio 27 and Acu-Stion, some turned aluminum switches, and velocity stacks from Sakatsu.

Enough procrastinating, it was time to begin………………………….





The Fujimi kit as a whole is a nice kit with everything you need to create a decent curbside of this car, except for the wheels and tires being grossly narrow for the rears in particular. The other thing, which we’ll get to near the end, is the decals. If still available when you read this, buy the kit with the Cartograph decals. The standard Fujimi ones are yellow and translucent….blech…

The first thing that needed to be done was to fill in the fuel filler on the left front fender as in ’69 they only had the one on the left open. I cut off the bottom of both filler areas and glued a piece of one into the hole on the left fender. The right side fender gas filler hole was reshaped to match reference material I had. The next thing was to cut out the opening for the front radiator. Dremel tool and an X-acto knife and poof it was done.





While I had the Xacto knife in hand I decided that I would open the driver’s side door. Scribing gently with the backside of the blade for about 11 years yielded a nice clean cut that wasn’t too wide.

The roof vent at the back of the roofline was wrong for the ’69 car so I fabricated a new one out of a piece of clear lexan from some old packaging. Glued down and sanded into place, I put a coat of Gunze Sangyo Mr. Surfacer 500 along the seam to fill it in. This stuff is great for filling seams. Easy to brush on, easy to sand off, and it dries quick.

While things dried on the main body I prepped the rear engine cover by gluing and filling the rear valence.



I then turned my attention the chassis, which is where all the scratch building began.

The front inner fenders are molded in, which is fine for a basic curbside, but as I was gonna go mental on this one I decided to cut them off and re-fabricate them out of aluminum.

As mentioned previously, I had bought turned aluminum shocks for this beast and as such needed to build some proper mounts off the lower front A-arms. The stock Fujimi A-arms were a little thin for my liking and would not support the shocks I had, so I rebuilt them using some thin aluminum tubing and the joints from the original Fujimi piece.







The most major scratch building was done on the front bulkhead, which was different on 1075 than any other GT40. 1075 was a re-skinned Mirage which had a square bulkhead, not a semi-circular one, so I had to build most of it from scratch. While I was at it I separated the upper A-arms from the Fujimi bulkhead and drilled holes through and pinned them so they would move properly.





Next was to build a hinge mechanism for the driver side door. As luck would have it, the actual car had the simplest hinges I’ve ever seen. A block and a C shaped hinge fitted together with a pin. My replica worked perfectly during the test fitting so I left it at that until final assembly.








I turned my attention to the rear bulkhead that was supplied in the Harold Bradford kit and was a perfect fit. I needed to fabricate some mounting posts so I could pin the rear bodywork down. Into the photo-etched parts bin I found some wide metal sprue that did the job nicely. I cut and bent them to the appropriate shape and mounted them. Then I drilled out a hole in the top and inserted the top half of a needle for me to put the hood pins through. Worked like a charm.






That was enough scratch building to last me a lifetime so I said that was it and sprayed three coats of Plasticote black sandable primer. Once dry I sprayed it with Humbrol #33 Matt Black, which left a nice satin finish.

The stock dashboard was fine for a curbside but mine would be clearly visible with the door open so some extra detail would be necessary here. I removed all the dash detail and inserted some stock plastic card so I had a perfectly clean, flat surface to work on. While I was at it I decided to remove the dash air vent panel. Cut and cleaned, I added some fine mesh and voila.







The dash received aftermarket dash bezels from the Studio27 photo-etched set with gauge faces printed on my ink-jet printer. Holes were drilled in the dash face for the Sakatsu switches and as a final touch of realism I printed labels for the switches.

The interior was all but complete except for one more monumental trial of patience, the seats. Anyone who knows anything about the GT40’s knows that in their infinite wisdom they designed the seats with approximately half a million grommet-surrounded holes for cooling the driver’s.

The Fujimi seats have some nice detail but would have been a lot of work to paint and make look realistic. So, like the crack-head that I am, I decided to go the hole (pun intended) nine yards and install a set of photo-etched grommets made by Renaissance. Making sure I had no caffeine for about 6 days prior, I decided to tackle the job at hand. In about 6 hours I was done,
one seat……………………………………………………………………………..

It was worth it in the end but would I do it again? Hah!









To wrap up the cockpit I installed a set of Studo27 set belts, which in comparison to the grommets took about 11 seconds to put together.

Back to the front end I scratched some of the various fluid bottles, wiring harnesses and connectors that would be visible when the tire cover was removed. I installed the Thunder Valley radiator and scratch built the hoses from some 22 gauge wire and some shrink-wrap tubing.











On to the engine room. As I said before the Harold Bradford kit is exquisite. Very well molded and it fell together as well as any kit I ever done. The only thing that was missing for 1075 as it was run in the ’69 LeMans was the Cold Air Box. Not a difficult piece to scratch together other than the fact that I had to grind off the carburetor mounts on the engine so the whole thing would fit under the bodywork.

The only other modification I made to Harold’s kit was to replace the injector stacks with turned aluminum ones from Sakatsu. Harold’s were beautiful but I didn’t know how I was going to paint them and have them look right. The carbs were drilled and fuel lines were added to the best of my ability (don’t laugh please).

I added turned aluminum spark plugs and a plug wire kit from RB Motion just to finish off the package. His stuff is just incredible…..And the final item was a white metal oil filter from Studio27.











My choice brake rotors and hubs started out to be the extra wheel kit I got from LeMans Miniatures but I good friend of mine who is a very talented machinist offered to turn me some hubs out of aluminum. How could I say no? They were beautiful. I added some aluminum tubing spindles that I threaded using a nut so the butterfly wing nuts would actually work.







The biggest flaw in the Fujimi kit can be seen here. The rear tires and wheels are WAY too narrow. The wheel/tire combo on the left is what I opted for and from the purists out there I understand that even this set up isn’t wide enough but it was close enough for me.




Time to get busy on the paint. The body was now complete and primed with white Plasticote. Because I was skeptical of just how opaque the Cartograph decals were ( I had never used them before) I decided to paint the number roundels on. White enamel was sprayed lightly to the three areas where the numbers would go. Once dry I used a roundel masking kit I got from Microsport Engineering. Stretchy vinyl and they come in every size you’d need. These work great.

No matter how hard I tried to convince myself that the Cartograph decals for the orange nose section would be good I just could do it. So I masked off the stripe areas and shot the Gulf Blue Dupont Acrylic Car enamel on the rest of the car. A few weeks later I masked off the blue areas sprayed the orange areas.

After the whole thing had cured for a few weeks I polished the body to remove any ridges between the colors. Then I had the task of adding the black separation line between the blue and orange. I very carefully cut the black stripe from the Cartograph decal sheet and applied it to the body. No problem….whew…





Time to put the major sub-assemblies together. The door needed to be installed first, as the hinge pin was not easily accessible once the body was on. Door on, I slid the body on without incident. Snapped the rear bulkhead into place and things were lookin’ good. I never took any pictures of the door as I was building it but as a latch mechanism I was lucky again as the actual car had an incredibly simple design. A sliding plate, with a rod for a handle. This was easily replicated with a piece of photo-etched sprue and some layers of masking tape laminated together with some super glue.






Back to the engine compartment for the final additional scratch built elements. Brake lines, reservoirs and a wash of the entire thing with black ink and a big brush to give it that grimy realism.

The wheels and tires were cleaned up and the Fujimi tire stencils were added. Sakatsu turned aluminum valve stems were added. I bought Sakatsu three wing knock-offs for use with this car but decided to use the stock Fujimi plastic ones because the Sakatsu ones were too thin looking and basically the wrong shape. I bored out the centers to match my aluminum spindles and threaded the plastic to match. Works like a charm..





Tires on, body work all in place, time to add the glass. The door glass needed to have the inner vents removed so I took the Xacto and slowly removed the area. I then drew a template of the opening and transferred it to some clear lexan. Cut to shape I glued them on with two elongated drops of Microscale Micro Kristal Klear. I held them open with toothpicks over night then added the latch mechanism made by stretching more Kristal Klear across the opening. Looks good enough for me.

The headlights had bare metal foil added to the backside and they were glued in place. The headlight covers were masked and the outer frame was painted flat black from the inside. The rest of the lights were painted as necessary and glued in place. All that was left was the white metal gas cap from Sakatsu and the remaining decals.

The remaining photos are of the completed model, some outside and the rest in my hobby room. I look forward to any and all comments, be they good or bad. Thanks for reading


Mick Szirmay



















Thats all folks !

Mick Sz.

[RallyRaider]

Not impressed, you've essentially stolen my entry I was doing P/1079. Now do I pull mine from the comp or plough on regardless? That aside, very nice work. I've yet to digest it all but did you know Fujimi supplied the blanking plug for the left fuel filler? Or at least they do in my 1968 kit.

Please excuse my surliness I've just been gazumped. Your work is astonishing to see.

[labandabonnot]

I've never thought it could be so easy!....

Seriously, I'm ...

But I'll survive! You, and your magnificent entry on this contest, are welcome!

I hope we'll have plenty of wonderful GT40 like this one! Such a pleasure to the eyes!

[sjelic]

This is what I call a cool start of a thread. Phil you have a chalanger for sure . I love to see another GT40 and what an entry is this, absolutly amazing, I wish I had so much love in me.

[Focus2000]

Absolutely beautiful! I think we may well be looking at the competition winner.

It's obvious to see all the hard work that has gone into this, it really shows in the final model. In fact the use of the word 'model' doesn't seem right, this looks too real to be called a 'model'.

Great write up and photography too.

Phil - don't feel too disheartened, there's always more room for another excellent GT40, and I'm sure you'll give Mick a run for his money!

[Layla's Keeper]

Astonishingly awesome, and a testament to the quality of RMCoM as well. This has to be the finest work I've ever seen done with the Fujimi kit.

Now, where's a MPC GT40 MkIV when you need one?

[Bloodhound]

Two Words: GOOD. GRAVY.

I have never seen anyone go to this extent for ANY Model. I declare this contest OVER.

[RallyRaider]

Originally Posted by Bloodhound

I have never seen anyone go to this extent for ANY Model. I declare this contest OVER.

Good thing you're not a judge then We have got plenty of models coming that will compete with this no problem at all

[schumieke]

one word: STUNNING!!!!

really very sweet job

[RallyRaider]

Hey I Chris! Haven't seen you around for a long time. Welcome to the Motorsports forum!

[Focus2000]

Originally Posted by RallyRaider

Hey I Chris! Haven't seen you around for a long time. Welcome to the Motorsports forum!

I've not been far, just lurking in the background. I've not had the time to post much, and even less time to spend on my models, due to house moves, wedding plans and work. My Focus WRC is still on the go after 6 months

I wish I'd had the time to enter the compo myself, although the standard so far has been way above my meagre skills!

[RallyRaider]

Well good to know you are lurking, the Rally forum is dead these days without guys like MarcoWRC and you about Still plenty of time to enter the LM comp - if you can find the spare time to work on models that is.

To get back on topic, Mick did you know you have a few decals out of place? You also seem to have left off a few pieces like the bug deflector on the bonnet, rear view mirror and rear sway bar.

Oh and this makes 20 entries in the Full Detail category

[Gainsbourg]

What can I say after seeing these images?
This is without any doubt the best construction of a GT40 model I’ve ever seen so far.
I’m sure this one will be fighting for the first positions of the competition.
Excellent work.

[godfather23]

Just inspiring work. And great pictures as well. Welcome to the contest and let me asure you that you set a pretty high standard for the other competitors. RallyRaider, there is an entry already, the judges will compare your GT40 to. So you better keep it coming nicely !

The pictures are so nice that I think, I´ll download some of them. Hope you don´t mind. But I´m just impressed and very inspired. I should stop watching the entries for the contest. Puts a little pressure onto my shoulders...

[Vric]

Totally insane GT40 ! WoW !