Next Project - Lotus 49 - 1967

My biggest love of the 1960s was Jim Clark. This was a man who could do no wrong to me (except race in a Formula 2 race at Hockenhiem, which he didn't need to do and where he got killed!). My best man, Roger, and I used to go to Crystal Palace for every race meeting (I have posted this before) and one memorable day saw Jimmy and Graham Hill compete in the saloon car race. They were both in Lotus Cortinas. Unfortunately, I can't find a decent, workable, kit for one of these - in spite of Zero Pants just releasing a paint set.

Anyway, in my tiny stash, I have the recent re-release by Tamiya of their 1/12th scale Lotus 47 as Jimmy used to race it. Ignoring all the dramas and mistakes of recent builds, I have got the kit out and started to make it. I have a set of wire covers for the air intakes, as these are never included in Tamiya kits. I bought these some months ago from Hobby Link Japan.

Here is the box art. As you can see, when compared to the Mac keyboard, this is a large kit. Placed on top are the body parts (??) that need to be in British Racing Green (BRG). I have primed them with Zero Paints 2 Pack grey primer ready for their first coat of colour.

I have moved on from there and have done the following:

• Stripped all the chrome off the relevant sprues back to the base plastic
• Sprayed all the remaining sprues with Vallejo Black surface primer
• Sprayed all of the engine parts in Vallejo acrylic Metal Colour Steel
• Sprayed all of the stripped chrome parts in Vallejo acrylic Metal Colour Chrome
• The body parts have been given one decent coat of BRG and then cut back with MicroMesh before  getting a final coat.
• Everything else has had just a coat of the Black Primer

I ran out of 2 Pack Clear finish (actually, it ran out onto my cutting board and stuck everything solid) so I had to order some more. Hiroboy got me the pack very quickly, as usual, so my next task is to 2 Pack the BRG bits.

At that point I will post some more images.

More news on the racing Mini-Cooper. I found a Youtube video which showed how to remove paint using Dettol (For US readers - Dettol is a strong disinfectant). I tried this and it worked - sort of. It did manage to clear all of the combination of Vallejo acrylic primer, Zero paint BRG, Johnson's Klear and Vallejo Flat Green. It was a messy process and my wife constantly complained that the flat smelled like a hospital! Also, it detached all of the parts stuck on with Tamiya Extra Thin Cement. That was alright until I realised that one headlamp had gone down the plughole! Annoyingly, my Hiroboy delivery had included some racing car number decals to redo the Mini once it was repainted.  As I can't have a Mini-cooper with only one headlamp, I threw the body away and will buy a second kit - I have done this a few times before if you remember - a Ford Mustang and a Ferrari 330 P4 spring to mind. So, there we are. A nice set of numbers and a chassis but no body. This project could run and run.