- 5,044
- Panama City, FL
I built my first Tamiya 1/12th kit when I was in college a certain number of years ago. (Call it the late-ish 70's.) That kit (Jim Clark's Lotus 49) has since been destroyed in a moving accident, but I've built several since then, including a replacement for that one, and I've also built a number of their 1/20th kits which, though they are not as incredible as the 1/12th kits, are still very good models and well worth having and building.
The detail in these kits is incredible, and the fit of the parts from Tamiya is unmatched by anything else I've come across. The 1/12th cars have working steering from the steering wheel, and movable suspension with real springs. Most of them also have removable wheels and body panels. They have oil, water and fuel lines, and ignition wiring. The 1/20th kits have front ends that are steerable, but not all the way through the steering wheel, and while many have removable panels, the suspensions are fixed in position.
I've used the word "mostly" in my thread title because I intend to post other cars eventually, but I'm starting with my Tamiya kits because, well, they're just more impressive, and thus more fun to display.
I'm going to show the cars in this post in chronological order of the subjects, with some (hopefully) interesting notes about both the subject and the model. With one exception, I've done no "super-detailing" of these kits. Everything on them besides glue and paint came in the box. The pictures you'll download are from a 5-MP camera, and I've left them large so you can zoom them up if you like. I ran them through Photoshop to fix brightness and contrast, but nothing else, and Photoshop reduces the file size by about two thirds, as well. Out of the camera, these image are over 2 MB, too large for Imageshack. Also, remember that Imageshack initially displays the image in a fit-to-window size. Click the image after it's displayed to get it full size.
First up is the 1/20th Honda RA-272, which is the first all-Japanese car to win a Formula One race, the 1965 Mexican GP. Tamiya also makes a 1/12th die-cast of this car, which I can't afford. The 1965 rules called for 1.5-liter engines, and Honda, with their motorcycle experience, figured that was actually a pretty sizable lump. They had room for 12 of their tiny little pistons in one of those, and mounted it sideways, which when you think about it, is how motorcycle engines are mounted (the crank parallel to the drive.) American driver Richie Ginther was at the wheel of the winning car in Mexico, the last race of the 1.5-liter formula.
Next, the following year's Honda, the RA-273, in 1/12th scale. The 1966 rules brought engine displacement up to 3 liters, and Honda's was easily the most powerful engine early in the formula's development, but also the heaviest, making for an ill-handling car. This car was not very succesful, but its successor did win one race, which was until 2006 the last Formula One race won by an all-Japanese effort. Note the unusual orientation of the heads, with the exhaust in the V and the intakes between the camshafts.
Now the Lotus 49. This car was introduced at the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix and won. Lotus was not prepared to field a 3-liter engine in 1966, and used several compromises through early 67, including a 2-liter Climax V-8 and a 3-liter BRM H-16. The H-16 was basically an adaption of the previous 1.5-liter flat 8: they put one on top of another and connected all the pistons to a single crank! But for the Dutch Grand Prix, the Ford Cosworth DFV was ready, as was the new model 49, with several important innovations. It was the first F-1 use of the engine as a stressed member. The engine didn't sit in mounts on a frame, it was bolted directly to the rear of the car, and the rear suspension in turn bolted to the engine block and transmission case, for very efficient packaging and light weight, with no subframe. There were also no framing members in the body itself, as this was a fully-monocoque chassis, a complete tube rather than a "bathtub". The body shell was the actual chassis, rather than sheet metal fastened to a frame of tubes. As for the engine, It became the most successful engine in Formula One. Ever. To this day. It went on to win 155 Formula One races, the last in 1983, 16 years after its introduction!
This model is of course a replacement for the one destroyed some time ago. If I had remembered how much trouble that yellow stripe was to mask, I probably wouldn't have bothered! The kit includes a decal for the stripe, but said decal stops short of the nose, and matching it exactly with paint was a pretty slim chance. So you've got the curves around the nose, and the curves around the number circle, which of course isn't there yet when you're painting the yellow stripe. Another weirdness of the kit is that it was designed to be motorized. There is a battery compartment for two AAs just behind the front wheels, and the engine is actually a tad bit wider than scale, to allow space for a 3-volt motor, which the American kits don't actually have.
Jackie Stewart's 1971 World Championship-winning car, the Tyrrell 003. Ken Tyrrell and Jackie Stewart had been together since 1968, when Tyrrell managed the French Matra team where Stewart drove. In 1970, Tyrrell formed his own team, running March cars, and Stewart stayed with him. Tyrrell brought out his own chassis in late 1970, and this is the 1971 car. Stewart won 6 of 11 races, and finished the season with nearly twice the points total of his nearest rival. His teammate also won a race, and Tyrrell won the Constructor's Championship, an astonishing feat for a team's first year.
This kit was different from all my other Tamiya F-1 kits in that the body was painted Tyrrell blue at the factory. This model is badly damaged, the same moving accident that destroyed my first Lotus 49 model. (A box was crushed by something sliding off its apparently unsecured position.) The mirrors on those delicate little tripods are hopeless, and the left front wheel is not actually attached to the car. I have a new kit on hand to replace this one.
I'm thinking the monocoque should actually be aluminum-colored, but I remember the instructions telling me flat black. I need to research that for the new build.
The Lotus 72 was introduced in 1970, and ran through 1975, with versions up to 72-E. This car is the 72-D, run in 1972 by Emmerson Fittipaldi to win the World Championship, and Lotus won the Constructor's title. (The emblems on the rear wing represent 4 previous titles won by Lotus.) The car was another revolutionary design from Colin Chapman. He moved the radiator from the nose to a pair of radiators at the rear of the monocoque, allowing a change from the previous cigar-shaped car to a sleeker wedge shape with a lower streamlined nose. While most cars of the day had inboard rear brakes (the brakes are attached to the transmission case rather than the wheel hub, to reduce unsprung weight in the wheel) Chapman carried the idea to the front of the car as well. Cooling the enclosed discs was a challenge, and the chimneys on the upper surface of the nose are the result. Also, the suspension was sprung by torsion bars rather than coils.
This is actually my most recently-completed model in this set. The aluminum surfaces were sprayed with Testor's Metallizer airbrush paint, which gives it an almost plated look, very much like metal, and much better than just using silver or steel enamel.
I have a McLaren M23 from 1974 that I was going to show here but decided not to. It is a project car for finish repair; it's the only car I've ever cleared over the finished paint, and it has yellowed horribly over the years. I have obtained a replacement decal sheet, and now all I have to do
is strip it, paint it, and apply the new decals to be good as new! If it ever happens, I'll post before-and-afters, but don't hold your breath. I have grandchildren now, and my motivation is going away. EDIT: I've also picked up a new kit of the M-23, so I'm just gonna build a new one.
The most unique setup ever to win a Formula One race has to be the Tyrrell P34 6-wheeler. The rules specify a maximum width for the bodywork, and Ken Tyrrell decided to try and bring the front tires within that specified width, for a smaller frontal area and reduced drag. He had Goodyear make special tires for 10-inch rims, and since the smaller tire had a smaller contact patch, made up the difference by adding more contact patches. His thinking was that the reduced drag was worth 40 or 50 horsepower, so if the car could handle as well as another, but go down the straights better, he'd have a winner. The car was introduced late in 1976. Problems were apparent in the handling, resulting from the narrow front track and excessive grip at the front compared to the rear. (Think of a tricycle.) To reduce the roll effect at the front, Tyrrell eventually widened the front track to a conventional width, but even while keeping the small front wheels, the aero advantage was gone. After 1977, with only one win, the idea was shelved in favor of a more conventional car.
This model is the last one also damaged in that moving incident. It was crushed with the Lotus, but not as badly. Notice the missing section of the roll hoop. (How 'bout that? Even on a model, the roll hoop protected most of the car!) The right rear suspension is broken (the wheel will hang under the car if you lift the model) and the rear wing assembly is barely hanging on. Fear not, as I have a replacement kit on hand.
Ferrari designed the 312T to be entirely contained within its wheelbase, with no overhang. The gearbox is mounted transversely (the 'T' in 312T) to accomplish this. The idea is that by reducing the moment of inertia you'd have a car that was better at changing direction than someone else's car. The flat 12-cylinder engine allows low bodywork for good streamlining and clean air to the rear wing. This is Niki Lauda's championship-winning car from 1975.
Here's yet another revolutionary design from Colin Chapman and Lotus, the Lotus 78, introduced in 1977. Wing size was being reduced by the rules to reduce downforce (compare this wing to the Lotus 72, for example) and to compensate, constructors were trying to build wing shapes into the bodies. Other cars had been run with airfoil-shaped sidepods, but Chapman created the innovation of sealing the sidepods to the ground with flexible skirts, creating the first true ground-effect car. With previous attempts by other teams, the air under the wing didn't stay there, or the low pressure just sucked air in from around the car, ruining the effect. With the underbody sealed off at the sides, airflow was properly restricted to fore-and-aft flow, and the low pressure generated by the venturi remained low, sucking the car down to the ground. Also, in addition to the normal suspension adjustments for handling, Chapman designed interchangeable pieces so that track and wheelbase could be adjusted.
Mario Andretti started his 1978 World Championship season in this car, and won the US Grand Prix at Long Beach, the only time the USGP has been won by an American driver.
This kit is the one I mentioned earlier talking about "super-detailing." All I did was not use the vinyl hose supplied with the kit for many of the oil lines. I'd come across some very small-gauge audio cable somewhere, and stripped the braided shield out of it to use as simulated braided hose on the model, as seen at the front of the car just behind the oil cooler, in the left sidepod well, and at the rear under the wing mounts.
Patrick Head, working for Frank Williams, saw the Lotus 78 and said to himself, "Hey, that's pretty cool." Or words to that effect. Then he had a go at designing one, and the result was the Williams FW07, introduced in 1979. This was the first championship-winning car for Williams, at the hands of Alan Jones in 1980. The kit is 1/20th scale.
Another car in 1/20th scale, the Brabham BT46. Brabham had been using the Alfa Romeo flat-12 engine with limited success since 1976. This car was an attempt at maximum reduction of drag. The designer was intending to eliminate the radiators, and relied instead on surface cooling, running engine coolant through special panels on the flat-topped rear of the car. With clean airflow, and low rear bodywork, it was hoped that drag would be reduced as much as possible. Surface cooling proved inadequate, though, and radiators had to be installed in the front wings, and oil coolers hung on the sides at the rear.
This car was made obsolete by the Lotus 78 ground effects car. The flat-12 engine left no place for venturi tunnels, so Brabham tried something, and got away with it, exactly once. The rear of the car was even more tightly enclosed, and a large "cooling fan" (that's what they said it was...) installed at the very back, under the wing, driven by the gearbox. The fan was of course pulling air out of the enclosed body and creating immense downforce. The car could be seen squatting when the engine was revved in the pits. It won the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix, and the win was allowed to stand, but the fan device was ruled illegal when it became obvious that its primary purpose was aerodynamic effect, not cooling, and movable aerodynamic devices are not legal in Formula One. The idea was not original, though. Jim Hall ran the Chapparal 2J (the "sucker" car) in the 1970 Can-Am series with enclosed rear bodywork and an exhaust fan pulling air out of the engine compartment.
The 1966 rules change for engine displacement, raising engine size from 1.5 liters to 3 liters, allowed for pressurized induction if the engine remained at 1.5 liters. The technology to build a competitive engine with half the displacement did not exist, however. In the 1970's Renault took up the challenge, and produced the first turbocharged Formula One car in 1977. The car shown here is the RE20, introduced in late 1979, and used in 1980. It won three races, but success was otherwise limited, with only one car finishing in 6 other races, and 4 races with both cars failing to finish.
Turbocharging allows the possibility of controlling the pressure of the intake charge, allowing more or less power as desired. For races, these early turbo cars produced around 500-560 horsepower, but could be run up to over 700 for short qualifying runs. Remember, this is from 1.5 liters, smaller than just about any street econobox today!
This model was troublesome to build, mainly because I went about it stupidly. My first error was getting flat-finish yellow paint by mistake. All that incredible time masking (check out the top of the engine cover) and the yellow dried flat. I thought about glosscote, but then remembered the McLaren M23 that yellowed its finish so bad in just 4 or 5 years. I'd already pulled the mask, as I do that with the paint still wet if I expect the cover to be sufficient. No choice but to mix a weak thinner solution and strip it, and mask it (again) and paint it (again). Second stupid thing was that this was the first kit I'd used the Testor's Metallizer on, and I didn't realize you had to seal it until I found aluminum-colored fingerprints on the flat-black-painted tank section behind the driver's seat. The kit's already partly assembled by this time, so no stripping and painting is going to happen now. I just rubbed the black lightly and forever with very fine steel wool, so it has a scuffed look, but no fingerprints. And while we're describing trouble, check out that pinstripe on the top of the body at the yellow-white line. That's a decal. Do you know how many times you will break a decal that small? Lastly, the clear areas of the decals have unfortunately yellowed with age, resulting in the obvious darkening around the letters on the sides.
Now the Williams FW11, from 1986. The two Williams drivers, Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet, were 2nd and 3rd in the championship, behind Alain Prost at McLaren. The Williams cars scored points in all but one race, and going into the final race at Australia, Nigel Mansell would win if he finished 4th or better, and needed no points at all if Alain Prost did not win. Late in the race Mansell's left rear tire blew, on one of the fastest straights, and while he managed not to crash, fighting the car with computer-like steering corrctions as it bounced and rocked on three wheels, the suspension was damaged and he could not continue. Sure enough, Prost won the race and the championship.
The kit is 1/20th scale, and is an example of Tamiya's incredible skill with decals. Except for the seat, there is no blue paint on this model. The yellow is painted, as is the white. The blue between is decal, all the way down to the point of the nose and the front and bottom edges of the sidepods.
In 1987, Lotus's long-running sponsorship from John Player was changed, and the black-and-gold livery was converted to Camel yellow. I have another example of this kit still in the box, with a JPS decal set that I'm going to build, also. They also switched from Renault turbo engines to Honda's turbo, so successful at Williams the previous year. Ayrton Senna came in 3rd in the championship, winning 2 races. One of those wins was Monaco, his first of 6 wins there. I don't recall exactly when I got this kit, but it's the last one I've bought that had the cigarette decals in the kit. Nowadays the kits are not allowed to show cigarette brands, because they're "toys" and that would promote tobacco use to innocent widdle babies.
The Ferrari 641/2 (F190) in 1/12th scale. Alain Prost moved to Ferrari in 1990, after winning the World Championship at McLaren in 1989. He finished second in the championship in 1990, only 7 points behind Senna. He won his home Grand Prix, the French, that year, which was Ferrari's 100th F1 victory.
The car was basically a development of the previous year's 640, continuing with the 3.5-liter V-12 that had replaced the previous 1.5-liter turbo after forced induction was banned for 1989 on. Also carried over from the 640 was the semi-automatic 7-speed gearbox, the world's first "paddle-shifter." The driver selects gears by squeezing a paddle on the steering wheel instead of a conventional lever, the idea being that he can drive better if he can avoid that letting-go-of-the-wheel business during gear shifts.
This was Tamiya's first 1/12th scale kit in many years, I believe since the RE20 shown above. It has metal suspension arms instead of plastic, because of their length, and many very small screws instead of glue joints at key stress points. Fortunately the kit came wih a very nice micro-philips screwdriver, slightly magnetic at that. It also came with metal foil for the interior of the engine compartment. The detail and fit of this kit is above Tamiya's previous kits the way the previous kits were above Monogram Chevys at Wal-Mart.
The last of the 1/12th models I'm going to show today, the McLaren MP 4/6 from 1991. Ayrton Senna won the World Championship in this car, his second consecutive championship. It was powered by a 3.5-liter Honda V12, replacing the previous year's Honda V-10.
This kit was never imported to the U.S. so shops here had to get them gray-market style, probably from distributors or shops in Canada. The kit was made fairly scarce world-wide because apparently McLaren pulled their licensing agreement not too long after going into production. I paid over $200 for this kit in summer 1994, which of course was after Senna's fatal accident at Imola. The shop "threw in" the Marlboro decals, as the kit comes with McLaren decals so little kids growing up won't see tobacco names on their 'toys.' So kids, don't click the thumbnails for this model, wait for your dad to click it and look over his shoulder. The car will have a cigarette name on it.
I had one small problem with this kit. Flourescent colors do not cover well, and I ended up with a very splotchy paint job with the white showing through my Marlboro flourescent red. Now that I'd built the Renault (see notes on that car above, if you're skipping around) I knew how to strip a newly-painted model. So I stripped it, repainted the whole body white, masked it, and painted it plain red first, then the flourescent red. Perfect!!!! The finish is great, even in full sunlight.
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There's nobody in the world who's ever heard of Formula One that doesn't know the name Michael Schumacher. This is the car in which he had his first Grand Prix win, the 1992 Belgian GP at Spa, the Benneton B192. Powered by a Ford V-8, he placed 3rd in the World Championship. The car's most unique feature is its high nose, the first in Formula One, and a standard configuration in current cars in many open-wheeled series. Raising the nose allows airflow under it to be directed exactly as desired, and also allows more wing area at the front of the car.
The kit is 1/20th, and another example of Tamiya's decal wizardry. The only paint on the body is the base yellow. All the markings are decal, including the knobs over the front suspension pushrods and the rear curves of the body inside the rear wheels. The markings in the green are actually decals placed on the green decal. The flash lightened the color significantly in these pics; the green is actually quite a bit darker.
Another McLaren, this one the MP 4/8, in 1/20th scale. Nigel Mansell won the 1992 World Championship in the awesome Williams FW-14B, perhaps the most advanced F1 car ever built. It had fully-active hydraulic suspension, traction control, launch control, anti-lock brakes, and a semi-automatic gearbox with the ability to learn a track and become fully automatic, shifting correctly without driver input. After that, he decided to go Indy racing in 1993, taking the seat vacated by Michael Andretti at Newman-Haas. The car here is the one Andretti went to, teamed up with Ayrton Senna. The car was powered by a 3.5-liter Ford V-8, and featured a low nose with a raised area between the front wheels. It also had the "barge-board" air deflectors at the sides, in front of the radiator intakes. Andretti was not very successful in the car, and widely criticized in Europe for a perceived lack of commitment. He would not live in Europe during the season, instead commuting overseas for race weekends from here in the U.S. Michael managed a podium finish in his final F1 race, a third at Monza after an incredible pass on the outside in the Parabolica turn. He was replaced for the final 2 races of the season by Mika Hakkinen, who was McLaren's test driver at the time.
For kit notes, once again, it's decals. This model has no flourescent paint on it. The entire Flourescent red area is decals, actually several decals, even the wings.
OK, nearly done! I spent so much time on Mansell in the previous notes, because I knew Mansell's car was coming up. This is his 1993 Indycar, with Newman-Haas racing, in 1/20th scale.
The kit is unique among all of these in that it is snap-fit, no cement needed. The body top is removable to show the engine bay, but unlike other Tamiya kits, there is really nothing to be proud of. There is an engine and transmission, suspension bits, and radiators, but no hoses, belts, wires, or any of the other details that make the other kits so fascinating, so I can't be bothered to pull the cover off. Tamiya was kind enough, however, to make the body cover seam occur at the edge of the black area, so you paint that part black, the other one white, and your paint job's correct without masking.
Personally, I'm wondering if Tamiya was just dumbing-down the kit because it was primarily aimed at American roundie-round fans.
I have several other kits in progress, not built yet, including the Lotus 49-B (the high wings mounted on struts attached to the suspension), A Matra V-12 car from 1968 or 69, a Ferrari 312T4, and the aforementioned Williams FW-14B, all in 1/12th, and numerous recent 1/20th kits. ('Recent' is on a decades-size scale, mind you. If I bought it in 1996, it's a recent acquisition.) I also have some of Tamiya's non-F1 1/12th kits, such as the Lola T70, the Porsche 935, and the Datsun 240ZG. maybe someday I'll finish some of these and post them, as well.
The detail in these kits is incredible, and the fit of the parts from Tamiya is unmatched by anything else I've come across. The 1/12th cars have working steering from the steering wheel, and movable suspension with real springs. Most of them also have removable wheels and body panels. They have oil, water and fuel lines, and ignition wiring. The 1/20th kits have front ends that are steerable, but not all the way through the steering wheel, and while many have removable panels, the suspensions are fixed in position.
I've used the word "mostly" in my thread title because I intend to post other cars eventually, but I'm starting with my Tamiya kits because, well, they're just more impressive, and thus more fun to display.
I'm going to show the cars in this post in chronological order of the subjects, with some (hopefully) interesting notes about both the subject and the model. With one exception, I've done no "super-detailing" of these kits. Everything on them besides glue and paint came in the box. The pictures you'll download are from a 5-MP camera, and I've left them large so you can zoom them up if you like. I ran them through Photoshop to fix brightness and contrast, but nothing else, and Photoshop reduces the file size by about two thirds, as well. Out of the camera, these image are over 2 MB, too large for Imageshack. Also, remember that Imageshack initially displays the image in a fit-to-window size. Click the image after it's displayed to get it full size.
First up is the 1/20th Honda RA-272, which is the first all-Japanese car to win a Formula One race, the 1965 Mexican GP. Tamiya also makes a 1/12th die-cast of this car, which I can't afford. The 1965 rules called for 1.5-liter engines, and Honda, with their motorcycle experience, figured that was actually a pretty sizable lump. They had room for 12 of their tiny little pistons in one of those, and mounted it sideways, which when you think about it, is how motorcycle engines are mounted (the crank parallel to the drive.) American driver Richie Ginther was at the wheel of the winning car in Mexico, the last race of the 1.5-liter formula.
Next, the following year's Honda, the RA-273, in 1/12th scale. The 1966 rules brought engine displacement up to 3 liters, and Honda's was easily the most powerful engine early in the formula's development, but also the heaviest, making for an ill-handling car. This car was not very succesful, but its successor did win one race, which was until 2006 the last Formula One race won by an all-Japanese effort. Note the unusual orientation of the heads, with the exhaust in the V and the intakes between the camshafts.
Now the Lotus 49. This car was introduced at the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix and won. Lotus was not prepared to field a 3-liter engine in 1966, and used several compromises through early 67, including a 2-liter Climax V-8 and a 3-liter BRM H-16. The H-16 was basically an adaption of the previous 1.5-liter flat 8: they put one on top of another and connected all the pistons to a single crank! But for the Dutch Grand Prix, the Ford Cosworth DFV was ready, as was the new model 49, with several important innovations. It was the first F-1 use of the engine as a stressed member. The engine didn't sit in mounts on a frame, it was bolted directly to the rear of the car, and the rear suspension in turn bolted to the engine block and transmission case, for very efficient packaging and light weight, with no subframe. There were also no framing members in the body itself, as this was a fully-monocoque chassis, a complete tube rather than a "bathtub". The body shell was the actual chassis, rather than sheet metal fastened to a frame of tubes. As for the engine, It became the most successful engine in Formula One. Ever. To this day. It went on to win 155 Formula One races, the last in 1983, 16 years after its introduction!
This model is of course a replacement for the one destroyed some time ago. If I had remembered how much trouble that yellow stripe was to mask, I probably wouldn't have bothered! The kit includes a decal for the stripe, but said decal stops short of the nose, and matching it exactly with paint was a pretty slim chance. So you've got the curves around the nose, and the curves around the number circle, which of course isn't there yet when you're painting the yellow stripe. Another weirdness of the kit is that it was designed to be motorized. There is a battery compartment for two AAs just behind the front wheels, and the engine is actually a tad bit wider than scale, to allow space for a 3-volt motor, which the American kits don't actually have.
Jackie Stewart's 1971 World Championship-winning car, the Tyrrell 003. Ken Tyrrell and Jackie Stewart had been together since 1968, when Tyrrell managed the French Matra team where Stewart drove. In 1970, Tyrrell formed his own team, running March cars, and Stewart stayed with him. Tyrrell brought out his own chassis in late 1970, and this is the 1971 car. Stewart won 6 of 11 races, and finished the season with nearly twice the points total of his nearest rival. His teammate also won a race, and Tyrrell won the Constructor's Championship, an astonishing feat for a team's first year.
This kit was different from all my other Tamiya F-1 kits in that the body was painted Tyrrell blue at the factory. This model is badly damaged, the same moving accident that destroyed my first Lotus 49 model. (A box was crushed by something sliding off its apparently unsecured position.) The mirrors on those delicate little tripods are hopeless, and the left front wheel is not actually attached to the car. I have a new kit on hand to replace this one.
I'm thinking the monocoque should actually be aluminum-colored, but I remember the instructions telling me flat black. I need to research that for the new build.
The Lotus 72 was introduced in 1970, and ran through 1975, with versions up to 72-E. This car is the 72-D, run in 1972 by Emmerson Fittipaldi to win the World Championship, and Lotus won the Constructor's title. (The emblems on the rear wing represent 4 previous titles won by Lotus.) The car was another revolutionary design from Colin Chapman. He moved the radiator from the nose to a pair of radiators at the rear of the monocoque, allowing a change from the previous cigar-shaped car to a sleeker wedge shape with a lower streamlined nose. While most cars of the day had inboard rear brakes (the brakes are attached to the transmission case rather than the wheel hub, to reduce unsprung weight in the wheel) Chapman carried the idea to the front of the car as well. Cooling the enclosed discs was a challenge, and the chimneys on the upper surface of the nose are the result. Also, the suspension was sprung by torsion bars rather than coils.
This is actually my most recently-completed model in this set. The aluminum surfaces were sprayed with Testor's Metallizer airbrush paint, which gives it an almost plated look, very much like metal, and much better than just using silver or steel enamel.
I have a McLaren M23 from 1974 that I was going to show here but decided not to. It is a project car for finish repair; it's the only car I've ever cleared over the finished paint, and it has yellowed horribly over the years. I have obtained a replacement decal sheet, and now all I have to do
is strip it, paint it, and apply the new decals to be good as new! If it ever happens, I'll post before-and-afters, but don't hold your breath. I have grandchildren now, and my motivation is going away. EDIT: I've also picked up a new kit of the M-23, so I'm just gonna build a new one.The most unique setup ever to win a Formula One race has to be the Tyrrell P34 6-wheeler. The rules specify a maximum width for the bodywork, and Ken Tyrrell decided to try and bring the front tires within that specified width, for a smaller frontal area and reduced drag. He had Goodyear make special tires for 10-inch rims, and since the smaller tire had a smaller contact patch, made up the difference by adding more contact patches. His thinking was that the reduced drag was worth 40 or 50 horsepower, so if the car could handle as well as another, but go down the straights better, he'd have a winner. The car was introduced late in 1976. Problems were apparent in the handling, resulting from the narrow front track and excessive grip at the front compared to the rear. (Think of a tricycle.) To reduce the roll effect at the front, Tyrrell eventually widened the front track to a conventional width, but even while keeping the small front wheels, the aero advantage was gone. After 1977, with only one win, the idea was shelved in favor of a more conventional car.
This model is the last one also damaged in that moving incident. It was crushed with the Lotus, but not as badly. Notice the missing section of the roll hoop. (How 'bout that? Even on a model, the roll hoop protected most of the car!) The right rear suspension is broken (the wheel will hang under the car if you lift the model) and the rear wing assembly is barely hanging on. Fear not, as I have a replacement kit on hand.
Ferrari designed the 312T to be entirely contained within its wheelbase, with no overhang. The gearbox is mounted transversely (the 'T' in 312T) to accomplish this. The idea is that by reducing the moment of inertia you'd have a car that was better at changing direction than someone else's car. The flat 12-cylinder engine allows low bodywork for good streamlining and clean air to the rear wing. This is Niki Lauda's championship-winning car from 1975.
Here's yet another revolutionary design from Colin Chapman and Lotus, the Lotus 78, introduced in 1977. Wing size was being reduced by the rules to reduce downforce (compare this wing to the Lotus 72, for example) and to compensate, constructors were trying to build wing shapes into the bodies. Other cars had been run with airfoil-shaped sidepods, but Chapman created the innovation of sealing the sidepods to the ground with flexible skirts, creating the first true ground-effect car. With previous attempts by other teams, the air under the wing didn't stay there, or the low pressure just sucked air in from around the car, ruining the effect. With the underbody sealed off at the sides, airflow was properly restricted to fore-and-aft flow, and the low pressure generated by the venturi remained low, sucking the car down to the ground. Also, in addition to the normal suspension adjustments for handling, Chapman designed interchangeable pieces so that track and wheelbase could be adjusted.
Mario Andretti started his 1978 World Championship season in this car, and won the US Grand Prix at Long Beach, the only time the USGP has been won by an American driver.
This kit is the one I mentioned earlier talking about "super-detailing." All I did was not use the vinyl hose supplied with the kit for many of the oil lines. I'd come across some very small-gauge audio cable somewhere, and stripped the braided shield out of it to use as simulated braided hose on the model, as seen at the front of the car just behind the oil cooler, in the left sidepod well, and at the rear under the wing mounts.
Patrick Head, working for Frank Williams, saw the Lotus 78 and said to himself, "Hey, that's pretty cool." Or words to that effect. Then he had a go at designing one, and the result was the Williams FW07, introduced in 1979. This was the first championship-winning car for Williams, at the hands of Alan Jones in 1980. The kit is 1/20th scale.
Another car in 1/20th scale, the Brabham BT46. Brabham had been using the Alfa Romeo flat-12 engine with limited success since 1976. This car was an attempt at maximum reduction of drag. The designer was intending to eliminate the radiators, and relied instead on surface cooling, running engine coolant through special panels on the flat-topped rear of the car. With clean airflow, and low rear bodywork, it was hoped that drag would be reduced as much as possible. Surface cooling proved inadequate, though, and radiators had to be installed in the front wings, and oil coolers hung on the sides at the rear.
This car was made obsolete by the Lotus 78 ground effects car. The flat-12 engine left no place for venturi tunnels, so Brabham tried something, and got away with it, exactly once. The rear of the car was even more tightly enclosed, and a large "cooling fan" (that's what they said it was...) installed at the very back, under the wing, driven by the gearbox. The fan was of course pulling air out of the enclosed body and creating immense downforce. The car could be seen squatting when the engine was revved in the pits. It won the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix, and the win was allowed to stand, but the fan device was ruled illegal when it became obvious that its primary purpose was aerodynamic effect, not cooling, and movable aerodynamic devices are not legal in Formula One. The idea was not original, though. Jim Hall ran the Chapparal 2J (the "sucker" car) in the 1970 Can-Am series with enclosed rear bodywork and an exhaust fan pulling air out of the engine compartment.
The 1966 rules change for engine displacement, raising engine size from 1.5 liters to 3 liters, allowed for pressurized induction if the engine remained at 1.5 liters. The technology to build a competitive engine with half the displacement did not exist, however. In the 1970's Renault took up the challenge, and produced the first turbocharged Formula One car in 1977. The car shown here is the RE20, introduced in late 1979, and used in 1980. It won three races, but success was otherwise limited, with only one car finishing in 6 other races, and 4 races with both cars failing to finish.
Turbocharging allows the possibility of controlling the pressure of the intake charge, allowing more or less power as desired. For races, these early turbo cars produced around 500-560 horsepower, but could be run up to over 700 for short qualifying runs. Remember, this is from 1.5 liters, smaller than just about any street econobox today!
This model was troublesome to build, mainly because I went about it stupidly. My first error was getting flat-finish yellow paint by mistake. All that incredible time masking (check out the top of the engine cover) and the yellow dried flat. I thought about glosscote, but then remembered the McLaren M23 that yellowed its finish so bad in just 4 or 5 years. I'd already pulled the mask, as I do that with the paint still wet if I expect the cover to be sufficient. No choice but to mix a weak thinner solution and strip it, and mask it (again) and paint it (again). Second stupid thing was that this was the first kit I'd used the Testor's Metallizer on, and I didn't realize you had to seal it until I found aluminum-colored fingerprints on the flat-black-painted tank section behind the driver's seat. The kit's already partly assembled by this time, so no stripping and painting is going to happen now. I just rubbed the black lightly and forever with very fine steel wool, so it has a scuffed look, but no fingerprints. And while we're describing trouble, check out that pinstripe on the top of the body at the yellow-white line. That's a decal. Do you know how many times you will break a decal that small? Lastly, the clear areas of the decals have unfortunately yellowed with age, resulting in the obvious darkening around the letters on the sides.
Now the Williams FW11, from 1986. The two Williams drivers, Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet, were 2nd and 3rd in the championship, behind Alain Prost at McLaren. The Williams cars scored points in all but one race, and going into the final race at Australia, Nigel Mansell would win if he finished 4th or better, and needed no points at all if Alain Prost did not win. Late in the race Mansell's left rear tire blew, on one of the fastest straights, and while he managed not to crash, fighting the car with computer-like steering corrctions as it bounced and rocked on three wheels, the suspension was damaged and he could not continue. Sure enough, Prost won the race and the championship.
The kit is 1/20th scale, and is an example of Tamiya's incredible skill with decals. Except for the seat, there is no blue paint on this model. The yellow is painted, as is the white. The blue between is decal, all the way down to the point of the nose and the front and bottom edges of the sidepods.
In 1987, Lotus's long-running sponsorship from John Player was changed, and the black-and-gold livery was converted to Camel yellow. I have another example of this kit still in the box, with a JPS decal set that I'm going to build, also. They also switched from Renault turbo engines to Honda's turbo, so successful at Williams the previous year. Ayrton Senna came in 3rd in the championship, winning 2 races. One of those wins was Monaco, his first of 6 wins there. I don't recall exactly when I got this kit, but it's the last one I've bought that had the cigarette decals in the kit. Nowadays the kits are not allowed to show cigarette brands, because they're "toys" and that would promote tobacco use to innocent widdle babies.
The Ferrari 641/2 (F190) in 1/12th scale. Alain Prost moved to Ferrari in 1990, after winning the World Championship at McLaren in 1989. He finished second in the championship in 1990, only 7 points behind Senna. He won his home Grand Prix, the French, that year, which was Ferrari's 100th F1 victory.
The car was basically a development of the previous year's 640, continuing with the 3.5-liter V-12 that had replaced the previous 1.5-liter turbo after forced induction was banned for 1989 on. Also carried over from the 640 was the semi-automatic 7-speed gearbox, the world's first "paddle-shifter." The driver selects gears by squeezing a paddle on the steering wheel instead of a conventional lever, the idea being that he can drive better if he can avoid that letting-go-of-the-wheel business during gear shifts.
This was Tamiya's first 1/12th scale kit in many years, I believe since the RE20 shown above. It has metal suspension arms instead of plastic, because of their length, and many very small screws instead of glue joints at key stress points. Fortunately the kit came wih a very nice micro-philips screwdriver, slightly magnetic at that. It also came with metal foil for the interior of the engine compartment. The detail and fit of this kit is above Tamiya's previous kits the way the previous kits were above Monogram Chevys at Wal-Mart.
The last of the 1/12th models I'm going to show today, the McLaren MP 4/6 from 1991. Ayrton Senna won the World Championship in this car, his second consecutive championship. It was powered by a 3.5-liter Honda V12, replacing the previous year's Honda V-10.
This kit was never imported to the U.S. so shops here had to get them gray-market style, probably from distributors or shops in Canada. The kit was made fairly scarce world-wide because apparently McLaren pulled their licensing agreement not too long after going into production. I paid over $200 for this kit in summer 1994, which of course was after Senna's fatal accident at Imola. The shop "threw in" the Marlboro decals, as the kit comes with McLaren decals so little kids growing up won't see tobacco names on their 'toys.' So kids, don't click the thumbnails for this model, wait for your dad to click it and look over his shoulder. The car will have a cigarette name on it.
I had one small problem with this kit. Flourescent colors do not cover well, and I ended up with a very splotchy paint job with the white showing through my Marlboro flourescent red. Now that I'd built the Renault (see notes on that car above, if you're skipping around) I knew how to strip a newly-painted model. So I stripped it, repainted the whole body white, masked it, and painted it plain red first, then the flourescent red. Perfect!!!! The finish is great, even in full sunlight.
There's nobody in the world who's ever heard of Formula One that doesn't know the name Michael Schumacher. This is the car in which he had his first Grand Prix win, the 1992 Belgian GP at Spa, the Benneton B192. Powered by a Ford V-8, he placed 3rd in the World Championship. The car's most unique feature is its high nose, the first in Formula One, and a standard configuration in current cars in many open-wheeled series. Raising the nose allows airflow under it to be directed exactly as desired, and also allows more wing area at the front of the car.
The kit is 1/20th, and another example of Tamiya's decal wizardry. The only paint on the body is the base yellow. All the markings are decal, including the knobs over the front suspension pushrods and the rear curves of the body inside the rear wheels. The markings in the green are actually decals placed on the green decal. The flash lightened the color significantly in these pics; the green is actually quite a bit darker.
Another McLaren, this one the MP 4/8, in 1/20th scale. Nigel Mansell won the 1992 World Championship in the awesome Williams FW-14B, perhaps the most advanced F1 car ever built. It had fully-active hydraulic suspension, traction control, launch control, anti-lock brakes, and a semi-automatic gearbox with the ability to learn a track and become fully automatic, shifting correctly without driver input. After that, he decided to go Indy racing in 1993, taking the seat vacated by Michael Andretti at Newman-Haas. The car here is the one Andretti went to, teamed up with Ayrton Senna. The car was powered by a 3.5-liter Ford V-8, and featured a low nose with a raised area between the front wheels. It also had the "barge-board" air deflectors at the sides, in front of the radiator intakes. Andretti was not very successful in the car, and widely criticized in Europe for a perceived lack of commitment. He would not live in Europe during the season, instead commuting overseas for race weekends from here in the U.S. Michael managed a podium finish in his final F1 race, a third at Monza after an incredible pass on the outside in the Parabolica turn. He was replaced for the final 2 races of the season by Mika Hakkinen, who was McLaren's test driver at the time.
For kit notes, once again, it's decals. This model has no flourescent paint on it. The entire Flourescent red area is decals, actually several decals, even the wings.
OK, nearly done! I spent so much time on Mansell in the previous notes, because I knew Mansell's car was coming up. This is his 1993 Indycar, with Newman-Haas racing, in 1/20th scale.
The kit is unique among all of these in that it is snap-fit, no cement needed. The body top is removable to show the engine bay, but unlike other Tamiya kits, there is really nothing to be proud of. There is an engine and transmission, suspension bits, and radiators, but no hoses, belts, wires, or any of the other details that make the other kits so fascinating, so I can't be bothered to pull the cover off. Tamiya was kind enough, however, to make the body cover seam occur at the edge of the black area, so you paint that part black, the other one white, and your paint job's correct without masking.
Personally, I'm wondering if Tamiya was just dumbing-down the kit because it was primarily aimed at American roundie-round fans.
I have several other kits in progress, not built yet, including the Lotus 49-B (the high wings mounted on struts attached to the suspension), A Matra V-12 car from 1968 or 69, a Ferrari 312T4, and the aforementioned Williams FW-14B, all in 1/12th, and numerous recent 1/20th kits. ('Recent' is on a decades-size scale, mind you. If I bought it in 1996, it's a recent acquisition.) I also have some of Tamiya's non-F1 1/12th kits, such as the Lola T70, the Porsche 935, and the Datsun 240ZG. maybe someday I'll finish some of these and post them, as well.
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👍 Can't wait to see more.
