Bengalensis

Well, first I must build the Twini from Targa Florio '63, and I have talked about that for +10 years...

I found two more photos on a web search. Built by someone called "Conroy Motors" apparently. Could be an interesting project...

The long four door Mini is interesting...

It's looking promising!

Looking very nice indeed!

If this is only your third completed model we are in for a real treat when you show your coming builds in the future This looks very nice, very well done!

That's good work. The problems can be rectified with a little work, you will fix that.

I have been looking forward to this stage of build! Nice! This will be interesting to follow.

That's looking very good indeed!

As Stuart says; they do look fantastic! Very nice work to bring them to this state from such humble origins.

It wasn't quite ready for spraying; I had two minor details I almost forgot. Being the modern car it is it's filled with some gimmicks, some slightly visible. First the reverse radar sensors or whatever they are called. It's the first car I've had such things on. OK, the rearward view is limited, so they have some value on a daily driver. I fitted some small photo etched dots I had laying around. Then there are the washer nozzles for those high tech headlights. They actually started life as photo etched brass 1/43 F1 brake pedals. Cut down and filed slightly to shape they at last found a purpose after 25 years or so in the PE spare box. Then I could spray some primer. Building all those odd resin kits I do I sometimes forget how straight forward it is with a good modern Tamiya OOB kit. No further surprises to deal with at all. I threw in a test piece to try building up that red paint on before I make a serious move. All the other parts have also formed the usual mess of pinned parts on foam blocks, and the day has seen the first major spraying session.

Good to see this old classic tackled again! There is some lovely work going here, it's looking very promising.

Good panel work! But I agree about the colour.

One of the best in my world:

Very well done! It will be great with a tank on it. Looking forward to see that taking form.

Superb work and very convincing! The real car could absolutely have looked like this. Very well done!

There is no inner structure in the door interiors, just an open hole into the empty bodyshell. Again not much will be seen, but I made some pieces to be painted and create a structure closer to the real thing. All the chassis and suspension parts have been cleaned up and I put together a front and a rear sub assembly before painting. The main chassis part is acting as a jig while the glue dries. These parts are now also ready for paint. I drilled out the two end pipes as much as possible. There is a mould technical compromise where the two end pipes comes out of the rear muffler, which I removed and rebuilt with 2-part filler. It's now time to start pinning up parts for painting and spraying some primer on the body parts that will be red.

You're absolutely right Fred, I'm mixing up the names of the Alfa builders I'm in contact with at the moment, I'm very sorry. It's amazing what a file a 3D wire locking bolts can do That's another lovely photo, the commercial boards alone are worth an extra look, so good looking.

Excellent progress Bernard! It's looking very promising. Edit: Sorry, Fred it is. I hope Bernard is also making good progress with his build

Thanks a lot Keith! I just hope the build will be as good as the popcorn Many thanks Trevor! I hope I will get away with only the kit parts and a little work on this one, but time will tell. I always try, when remotly possible, to build scale models of my own, my father's or possibly some friends cars. Thank you very much Jeroen! Black BBS are never wrong in my world, so as they where available it was an easy decision. I must admit that I'm lucky in some respects of life and I do get away with a whole lot in the way of 1/1 cars, not only as mrs is a lovely person, but also shares my passion to a large degree. But I wonder what she would say if I came home and told her; "I just had to get this AE500 Magnum, I always wanted one and it's in such good condition..." Well I've got the kits so we'll see... Not that much progress on the build to report I'm afreid. I've cleaned up some suspension parts, but nothing worth a picture so far. The real thing made it's debute in snow and slippery roads yesterday, we had a flawless and enjoyable 160 km drive in the misery.

That's very nice and the colour suits it very well, here on the finished model it really falls into place.

Indeed, only having to deal with the wide arches would be great.

Thanks a lot! Yes I've noted that Tamiya spray, it just beats me how it should create the right finish from just that single can given how the real finish is made. I haven't seen it used in real life though, only on builds on the web, not quite convincing me. Also I'm not sure what year Mazda changed from "Soul Red" to "Soul Red Crystal" (they do look different), if it was before or after the first ND was introdused. But we'll see, I'll have to do some spray testing before it's time for the bodyshell. The real thing is very different from traditional metallics with almost no "flake effect" to be seen. I may be in for problems, but it will be an interesting excursion. I hope... Ah, you've got that orange edition; sweet you need to start building the model Then you should have the same 184 hp 2 litre as I have, it's got more of a torque peek and rev-happiness than the first 160 hp 2 litre from 2015-19 had, although it's still supricingly forgiving at low revs. I haven't compared with the 1,5 litre though. But again, just as yours this is the daily 365 day entertainer, and so far a very impressive compromise. For open top summer time bashing of windling roads the -90 NA and -98 NB 1,8 are more than happy to serve . But I'm looking forward to next summer and testing the new ND on some of my well known local curvy special stages roads for a comparison. I think Tamiya just made slightly small rims in this kit, as the ordinary 16" 8-spokes from the first convertible edition of the kit measures out to under 15,5". We'll see what happens, but so far I don't think it will be a problem. Thank you very much! I hope I can make it justice and reach the expectations with my work

Interesting conversion and very nice work!

Any chance we will see this front end? Hoping a build of the first Supervan is getting a little closer... https://www.truckanddriver.co.uk/latest-stories/the-original-transit-supervan/