GSI 1/24 Austin Healey Sprite Mk.1 (aka Bugeye aka Frogeye)

[ales]

I'm on a roll.

Time for some classic British cuteness.

Below is my completed Austin Healey Sprite from GSI, the paint is Humbrol enamel orange, the clear is 2K from Spies-Hecker. It's built almost box stock except the front turn signals - I lost one and a colleague of mine turned two new ones on the lathe. The upside of that is that I asked him not to polish them so that they remain that opaque white - it's worked really well IMO. Oh, and the gasket under the fuel filler is a small washer painted black and I added a PE keyhole on the dash. All chrome that you see is Alclad II. Originally I planned to make the car dark red, then metallic green, but after problems with both paints I decided to use orange.

The biggest headache by far was the windscreen. In the end I've lost count on how many attempts in how many different ways I'd made to build the damn thing and also how many times the frame had cracked on me. It also cracked during the final assembly but at that point I just glued it to the clear part and put a patch of BMF over the crack. It's noticeable but not as noticeable as a break would have been.

Overall a fun little kit, very simple. Fun trivia - the car was supposed to have pop-up headlights a-la the Miura, hence the funny characteristic shape and placement of the lights. In the end, though, it would have been too expensive to produce so they became fixed but their position, thankfully, was not changed, and the car ended up with very unique and fun muzzle. Here are the pics then:















Thanks for looking, and all comments are, as always, very welcome.

Alex

[bigfrit]

Alex, great color you chose for this car, makes me happy to know you're rooting for the orange team.

Paint looks absolutely flawless, car is very very cool and different, i like !

[keefr22]

Very, very nice build!! I really like that, so much so that I want to build mine now!

The colour really suits it & your paint job really does it justice!

Great job!

Keef

[dmacb]

Lookin good.

[quadzero]

What a jewel. You did a heck of a great job on this.

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

I love it. I need to find/build one of these; I built the racer long ago and it needs a street companion.

[MidMazar]

I love this pic, looks like its smiling! Very clean job.

[alex156]

What a lovely "Frogeye" Sprite,the orange suites the shape well. Alclad work very good also.

[ales]

Thank you very much for the kind comments. It's not often that someone calls my model a jewel, I really appreciate that, thanks! And yes, it is a smiley little orange frog

Bob, I remember your completed race car model very well, and I would also love to build another one day, especially if GSI for some reason decides to reissue hi-tech kits.

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

Originally Posted by ales

Bob, I remember your completed race car model very well, and I would also love to build another one day, especially if GSI for some reason decides to reissue hi-tech kits.

My racer was low-tech, though I think it had a very few p/e parts.

I wish they'd reissue a lot of the racers, I think they'd do very well, it's been a long time...

[Ferrari TR]

Very nice!
You need a shot with a big car, say a Miata.

I wish they would re-issue their sports cars as well, though 'mid-tech' versions would be good. Something with a bit of pe but not the poorly cast white metal parts or crazy pe parts like a frame.

[kitefighter]

A friend of mine has this kit (bought with the TR2 & TR3A). Your results look lovely. Kit looked frightening as I recall, having to build the chassis from flat metal to reshape to a box section. Any chance of taking pictures underneath the model?

[klutz_100]

Sweet!

With that "smile" at the front end, he looks like a candidate character for the movie "Cars 2"

[Viccario]

Super! Very nice in orange!