Le Mans Contest Entry: '69 Ford GT40 Chassis 1075

[bigfrit]

This is an absolutely super-impressive entry, everything to it just screams out pure GT-40-ness!

Lovely also how you took the best of all worlds of gt -40 kits to build this masterpiece!
The nice opening window is a very nice plus too, as is the opeining door which more tehn often just looks wrong in kits, but you did an excellent job on it!

Nice write-up and photo-skills, it was a joy to read!
I d better get modeling quickly then!
Olivier

[nervestrikes]

Simply amazing.

[MickSz]

All I can say is WOW to all your kind comments. That was quite a welcome Having seen your collective works, I am honored to be complimented so.

To those that mentioned omissions to the car, you are correct, I hadn't added those few details because I was desperate to have it finally sitting on the shelf. I have the parts, I just need to throw them on. I did find the filler blank for the other fuel inlet AFTER I chopped up the other one, DOH! I should have looked closer at the parts

Any other questions please feel free to ask.

Mick

[PRIVATEER]

A beautiful model of a beautiful car!! Outstanding work.

[MickSz]

Thank you ! I appreciate your comments

[ol' dude]

I have a question, What are you doing right this minute? I called my shrink, he will see you now!!!!!!!!!!!! Totally awesome build Mick, its amazing!!!!!!!! Oh yeah, welcome to A/F!! Hope you stay for awhile!

[MickSz]

LOL

Thanks ol' dude, thats funny And thanks for the welcome I have a few other buildup articles I've compiled over the last few years, none as extensive as this, but still pretty cool. I should dig them out and post them.

Have a good one,

Mick

[ol' dude]

Originally Posted by MickSz

LOL

Thanks ol' dude, thats funny And thanks for the welcome I have a few other buildup articles I've compiled over the last few years, none as extensive as this, but still pretty cool. I should dig them out and post them.

Have a good one,

Mick

I can assure you, we all look forward to seeing them!!

[007ightning]

Hey Mick, What a beaut to follow step by step.
Awsome job.
What brand/ color light blue did you use to paint the car?
John

[MickSz]

Thanks 007. I have a friend who works in an automotive paint store and he managed to hunt down some old color chips as far back as 1972. What he found was 1972 Porsche Gulf Blue.

I have been using Dupont Centauri Acrylic Urethane Automotive Enamel with great success for four years now. Very hard finish that you can polish out within a week, maybe earlier but I'm never in that big a rush. I always use a medium reducer and for the Aztek airbrush I mix about 1 part enamel, 2 parts reducer. Metallics are thinned about 1 part enamel, 4 parts reducer.

The tinting guide says this:

Mix Size: 5.00 of Gal.
758S Drier Additive 9.2
748A Monastral Violet 10.6
705A Black (HS) 14.4
721A Blue (HS) 20.0
700A White (HH) 81.9
756A Fast Dry Binder 184.6

To my eye it looks the part of Gulf Blue
I hope that helps

Mick

[marci-blitz]

Awesome build!


What a masterpiece, I'm speechless! Makes you want to jump right in!

All the best, Marc

[Sennake]

I have been watching and stuying your pictures for 2 days now, and only at this time I post a reaction. Why only now? Because I have been speechless for 2 days in a row.

This is such an increadible build, such perfection, so clean! Congratulations on a perfect model build!!!

If my 1/24 Le Mans Miniatures GT40 will look half as good as yours, I will be more than happy! Especially since I am a big Jacky Ickx-fan, who still is the greatest Le Mans driver ever in my eyes, and this was his very first winning Le Mans-car...

[MickSz]

Thanks Sennake, I appreciate the compliments I agree with you 100% that Jacky was THE MAN and in my mind he is still the all time greatest sportscar driver.

Which version of the LMM GT40 are you building ? The full panels off version ? I remember back a few years ago I was deeply inspired by a buildup of that kit by a guy named Jorgen Stendahl. He is still the greatest GT40 model builder I have ever seen and I only hope to one day be able to build like him.

[RallyRaider]

Oh yeah JS was out of this world, not just his GT40s but Alpines, Renaults and his M8B was . Unfortunately he has withdrawn from the WWW. I miss him.

[MickSz]

You are so right Raider, he was much more than a GT40 builder. I too miss his incredible buildup diaries...Sigh...

BTW Raider, I am really watching you're GT40 buildup. It looks to be a stunning build. You are right when you say there are some inaccuracies to my model but as I said in the beginnning, I'm not a stickler for measuring things down to the half millimetre, I tend to build models to achieve the right "look" to my eyes.

I am in AWE of builders who can accurately recreate a car in 1/24th that is perfect in every way. I don't know if you've had a chance to read the autobiography of Mr. Tamiya but it's a great read. Not a lot about car modelling but one section in particular struck me. He said when they were researching cars for reference to a new model, they were often shocked to find that if they created a model to the exact dimensions of the real car, the model would tend to look longer and narrower than it should. The reason he came up with is we tend to look at real cars from roughly 6 feet from the ground whereas models we tend to look at from much higher up (in scale of course) so the perspective is much different. To remedy this they would take the dimensions of their plans and widen them until the car looked "right" from a normal model viewing angle. Food for thought