Le Mans Contest Entry: Panoz LMP-01 'Spirit of America'

[Steve Gibbins]

Well, it's about time I got my ar*e into gear and posted a thread for this competition.
My entry will be a conversion of the Le Mans Miniatures 'Military' kit that ran at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2002. The 'Spirit of America' cars ran at Le Mans that same year.



I had been wanting to build this car for quite a while, but no proper kit has been released, but with the discovery of decals from Patto's Place that was the only excuse I needed.
Once receiving the kit, upon closer inspection and more research the two cars differ in quite a few places, most of the visual differences on the body I have been able to modify with styrene sheet, putty and filler.



The main differences seem to be around the front half of the body. The nose is narrower and doesn't 'droop' in the same way, I've built this up with putty and filler to be more the correct shape. Another major difference is the area behind the front wheels. The aerodynamics/venting around this area is total different, out comes the junior hacksaw and the styrene sheet. One difference at the front that I cannot really change are the headlights. The early cars ran with two lamp units, one above the other but the Le Mans cars have three lamps in each headlight, two at the top and one larger lamp below. Due to the fact that it would be virtually impossible to make the clear part to cover the new headlight cluster I have left these as the earlier version.
More modifications are required at the rear of the car, the tail is slightly longer so some box section styrene was glued onto the rear end and then rounded off at either end, also the aerodynamic bodywork behind the rollover hoop is a lot shorter and no longer goes all the way to the rear of the car, this was filled with putty from the inside and then cut away and sanded to form the new shape.



The colour scheme itself is quite complicated, although Patto's decals provide a decal to cover the red areas I thought that they may not fit the body exactly so I would rather paint them, so first a coat of white, then I masked everything except for the red areas and painted those, this is as far as I have got to with the body, next I shall cover the red areas and the stripes on the front section and paint everything else blue, most of the side of the body can be blue as well, as this will be covered with carbon fibre decal.



More soon (I hope)

Steve Gibbins

[freakray]

Another nice, unique build from you, I look forward to seeing more

[Spitfire7]

Hope it turns out well!

[Jay!]

Pretty cool.

Will be interesting to compare/contrast to Rtuned's Star'n'Stripes Porsche when complete. Like a little mini-theme.

[nismo man]

looks like a cool car i'll stay tuned for this one .

[ales]

Nice to see your work again, Steve!

[sjelic]

Nice subject, I will be watching

[RallyRaider]

Very cool project Steve, thanks for joining the comp. Although it is a bit of a shame to sacrifice a "B29" Panoz kit, that is such a cool livery in itself! Will be particularly interesting to see how the Patto's decals work for you.

[p9o1r1sche]

quote: "The early cars ran with two lamp units, one above the other but the Le Mans cars have three lamps in each headlight, two at the top and one larger lamp below. Due to the fact that it would be virtually impossible to make the clear part to cover the new headlight cluster I have left these as the earlier version."

You may want to investigate using Squadron's Clear Thermoform for headlight covers. Its easy to use and you only need a simple mold. I use it routinely to reproduce clear parts from kits that are too thick to be realistic looking.

Good luck with the build!

[Layla's Keeper]

Another great example of the attention to detail and phenomeonal diversity in this contest. I love the modifications made to Le Mans spec.

[Steve Gibbins]

Just a quick update, the body has now been sprayed dark blue (sorry for the quality of the picture), now I have to wait for the paint to harden off before cutting back the paint build up along the edge of the blue, then onto the decals.
I'll try taking some pics of the chassis later, but there's not really much to see as it is mostly painted black or covered with carbon fibre.



More next week-hopefully

Steve

[PlumbedandWired]

That's some amazing masking that you've done - especially the wavey red livery at the front. Keep it coming.

[bigfrit]

Absolutely gorgeous.

Might the force be with you, I m looking forward in seeing some more updates on this puppy

Oli

[Vric]

now that could be a publicity for masking tape

[Steve Gibbins]

Hello all,

Here's the latest progress on the Panoz, the chassis is now complete, as is the front splitter, the body is almost finished now, just awaiting polishing and then the final touches such as mirrors, photo-etch, aerials and the light lens'. All being well, should be finished by this time next week.
There were no problems putting the decals on, in the end I used a few of the decals supplied by Patto, some from the original decal sheet from the 'military' kit and a few others from leftovers from other kits. The main problem was that I think the stars and the badge from Patto's decals are a little on the large side while the flames along the sides coming from behind the front wheel are far too short. There are a few decals that I have missed off because they are far too small to be able to make from anything else i.e. the drivers names being one of them.
Overall though I am pretty pleased with the result so far-see what you think.



Steve