Works 956s in 82 and 83

[IanB1]

Had a couple of Tamiya's 1/24 Rothmans Porsche 956 '83 LM kits for a while. Was planning to do the 1st (Haywood) and 2nd (Bell/Ickx) place cars, but been given a free St 27 decal set for the 1982 version of the car. So, I could make the winners from 82 and 83 instead. Or could I? I have a sneaking suspicion that the Rothmans works cars from 82 and 82 might have more differences than the decals and the internal stuff that wouldn't show up on a kit - got a feeling I've even heard about a trans-kit for the 82 car available at some point. Pretty sure both 82 and 83 had the long tail (but was it the same long tail?)

Does anyone know enough about these cars to give me any info?

Cheers in advance.

[TMC_Sherpa]

The '83 cars don't have the rear wheel extractors like the '82 but after a quick poke at some pics I don't see anything obviously different in the body work department so I think you should be OK. Even if there was a major difference made to the monocoque that were built in '83 (which I don't think there was) the winner was chassis #003 which finished 2nd in '82 so....

Stuff does start to get messy later on with the privateer teams (various combinations of sprint and low drag parts depending on the race) or, heaven help you, IMSA "Drag be damned we need more downforce" 962s.

Sherpa

[IanB1]

Thank you Sherpa. Good news.

Looks like it's an 82-83 winners pairing then.

Strange that I have a vague memory of a trans-kit though, perhaps it was for converting the 956 long/low-tails Tamiya makes into short/high-tails used in sprint races. My (simple) understanding is that all Tamiya's 956s are long-tails and all the 962s are short-tails (which is why they do the Repsol 90 Le Mans car as it was a rare ocurrence of the short tail racing at LM).

I have three kits of the New Man 84 winner ready too - one will be converted to the 85 winner (when I find the decals) and later another to the 86 Taka Q where the same chassis was going for the treble.

Then it'll be a case of finding models of the 86 and 87 Rothmans 962s (anybody know if they've ever been released as kits?) and maybe the 88 Shell/Dunlop cars (among the best-liveried cars ever to show up at LM, imho). Trouble is, as I know from my diecast collecting, there are just too many fantastic 956/962 liveries - would like to do a Jagermeister one someday, and the 'Spirit of America' stars and stripes one at LM 86, and and and... But the caveat, as you say Sherpa, is that there appears to have been a lot of chopping about with bodywork and wings from the privateers especially.

But, I gotta cool down because I haven't started yet. I think starting with the LM winners is maybe the best way to go because there's no problem accessing pics and so on. Will have a trawl through this site later and see if anyone's done the same cars.

Edited August 29, 2012 by IanB1

[TMC_Sherpa]

If you haven't found these kids yet....then I should probably apologize for enabling your addiction

http://www.racingspo...oto_lemans.html

Sherpa