Revell Ferrari California

[andybmw7272]

So I saw a great picture of a Ferrari California and got the bug to build one. As fate would have it, I was at Walmart and saw a Ferrari California on clearance after Christmas. You know I had to buy it.



Just like the inspiration, this will have the ADV.1 wheels but, the paint will be black. Thanks to 124models.com readers for the color help! Interior will be Rosso Red leather with carbon fiber accents. My goal is to have this be the cleanest build ever. Two of my new focuses are scale, keeping wires etc. in proper scale, and sheen to make sure that the paint and finishes are as you see on the 1:1 car.

This car is something that I am using to perfect some skills for the Ferrari 250TR and the Shelby CSX2001.

Unveil is scheduled for the 2012 Birmingham Alabama show.

A trip to the Ferrari configurator on line helps me select all of the options to use for interior and exterior colors, finished, etc. The interior will be red with some carbon fiber accents.




The exterior is black which I think should go nicely with the interior.




I am using the KA Models PE kit. With the focus on scale, a lot of these pieces are going to have to be scratch built instead. I am excited about the brakes and the air vents as well as the seatbelt hardware and some the of the engine dress ups.





I made a body kit to be subtle yet try to add some masculinity to the car. It is hard to believe, but the body has about 6 hours of clean up at this point where I was rescribing door and panel lines, filling the minimal sink holes, mold lines and making the car crisper and cleaner. I was going to open the doors and trunk, but realized I was getting in too deep. I really think those ADV deep concave wheels are going to make this thing look great. (Teaser: I am converting some FXX wheels into 21" deep concave for my 458 that I got at an ACME meeting last month)




Since this is a drop top, the interior has to be 110% top notch.

The dash is two pieces and having a hard time fitting together thanks to some air vents. You can see it all looks a little sloppy.




I am going to rebuild the vents so I can ensure they fit tight. They will also be floating, not connected to the lower part of the dash, which will help things fit better. you can see the styrene that I have shaped as a mock up on the vent on the far right. Now that this fits, I know I can safely cut off the stock vents.




Stock vents are gone. You can see things want to fit better already.
I have also gotten rid of those huge out of scale stitching indention that Revell had in the dash.




Now it is glued together. Look how much better it all fits together now. I am going to be using the radio from the KA kit, so that radio is about to go.




Doors are getting their pockets rebuilt and the tweeters got drilled out and replaced with some round styrene that I shaped to have a concave nature. The purpose of the tweeter adjustment was to reduce the gap on the stock tweets which was too large and out of scale. The drivers side door will have a scratch built mirror adjustment panel.



The seats have been cleaned up and have seams scribed in them. I cant wait to see these suckers in red. I have mixed a darker red custom paint that I have decided will work for the interior. Some shading is going to be used with some underlay tricks with white and gray primer to add depth the interior. Look for the PE painted prancing horse trick I picked up from Dave T (daveyracer) on the seats in the front and the back.




In order to fill some join lines and replicate the real car, I have had to cut apart the interior pieces and put them together a little differently. This is a pain, but will be worth it in the end.




The car has since been painted black and cleared and is being colorsanded now. I will have some pics up tonight of the color and I am warning you, get ready for some shine!!!!!!

Thank you all for following!
Andy

[nugundam93]

progress looks good so far. looking forward to the rest of the wip pics

[andybmw7272]

Here are some pics of the car with the clear and buffed.

Today's ACME meeting was bring something to work on (modelpalooza) so I spent some time on this and my son Andrew and I worked on a 1970 Mustang Boss 302 diecast.

There are some areas which need to be hit again with the sandpaper and then buffed through the grits again. Kind of disappointing, but I want this one to be dead on perfect. I want to be able to say there are absolutely no imperfections in the paint. I am not there yet.











After I put the finishing touches on this paint, it is time to start interior final touches and painting the interior a nice red, based on the testors model master lacquer stop light red.

Thank you again for following and the nice words!
Andy

[rallymaster]

Nice job on the paint, great color !
Just curious to see the red inside...

[BVC500]

Looks great so far!

[MidMazar]

Progress looks good, i like the silver cali IMO. Keep us updated.

[countach79]

beautiful paint work

[chaos]

Shaping up to be a nice project. Will be following!

[andybmw7272]

Thank you guys.

Rallymaster, I am a little worried about the red interior as sometimes I try to do too much and it comes out looking a little weird. After seeing the pics from the configurator, it gives me a little more confidence this could turn out okay.

Here are pics of the even more polished body. There is still work to do!!!!!!! Man. I got some sunlight/daylight florescents in my workbench and they show everything. The great thing is, if you can make it look good under these lights, it looks really good when you display the car elsewhere. It looks great in my kitchen and then depressing under these lights.










It is time to progress elsewhere and come back before I mess something up.
I think it is back to the red interior after this. The dash specifically and then I want to hit the interior with some color.

Thank you all again for the kind words!
Andy

[euro_z]

beautiful paint job! looks flawless to me. What paint did you use?

[janositamas]

Wow, it looks sweet so far!

[crisjr]

Originally Posted by rallymaster

nice job on the paint, great color !
Just curious to see the red inside...

[corvettekid_7684]

Looks good! I like black & red together

[andybmw7272]

Well, I spent all morning shooting the red interior and it looks terrible. The paint didn't cover well at all and it is very inconsistent with color, some very dark red and some light red/pink. Maybe I should have primed it with grey vs white. Regardless, it is getting a purple power bath right now and I am going to start on the engine while I get my head feeling a little better about this thing. We have all been through it, but I am totally bummed right now. It may be getting tan leather. We will see. Damn.

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

Originally Posted by andybmw7272

Well, I spent all morning shooting the red interior and it looks terrible. The paint didn't cover well at all and it is very inconsistent with color, some very dark red and some light red/pink. Maybe I should have primed it with grey vs white. Regardless, it is getting a purple power bath right now and I am going to start on the engine while I get my head feeling a little better about this thing. We have all been through it, but I am totally bummed right now. It may be getting tan leather. We will see. Damn.

What red were you using?

Don't give up! It probably didn't need to be stripped!

Testors bottled lacquer "Chevrolet Engine Red", Mr. Hobby bottled red (and they have darker) should mix up easily and cover easily.