Is the Nitto 1/20 BMW 3.5 CSL body accurate shapewise?

[Rob de Bie]

This model was handed down to me via two fellow modelers many years ago. The chassis was mostly built, but the body and glass were mostly untouched. There was no box, and not all decals were there.

 

I worked a bit on the body, and noticed that it started to look really nice. However, older Japanese car models can be hit and miss accuracy-wise. Therefore I made the following six photos of the body.

 

If there's anyone with a good eye for BMWs, can you please comment on the body's shape and accuracy? Many thanks in advance!

 

Rob

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JeroenS]

I really couldn't tell for sure as I'm definitely not the expert you're looking for, but as you said it looks really nice even if it's not accurate. Anyway from the pics that are available on the internet I would say it looks pretty accurate. 

[Matt Crane]

I didn’t print and / or measure the body, altough I did spend some time looking at them and compared photos with one’s of the real thing. The overall shape seems to be good, and there isn’t anything that would be absolutely wrong. If for some reason you’d choose not to build it, please let me know.

 

Best regards,

Matt

[Rob de Bie]

19 hours ago, Matt Crane said:

I didn’t print and / or measure the body, altough I did spend some time looking at them and compared photos with one’s of the real thing. The overall shape seems to be good, and there isn’t anything that would be absolutely wrong. If for some reason you’d choose not to build it, please let me know.

I hadn't thought about measurering the body, oops 🙂 Maybe it's not 1/20 at all, who knows.. But I'm not sure that I'll be able to find reliable dimensional data of the race car. Probably I'll have to work with the data of the street version.

In the mean time I collected some comments on the shape from other forums, plus my own observations, in the picture below.

 

 

Matt: I'm not 100% sure that I will actually start the build, it's a lot of work. On the other side it's an impressive car. If I decide not to proceed, I will contact you if it becomes available.

Rob

[Rob de Bie]

22 hours ago, JeroenS said:

I really couldn't tell for sure as I'm definitely not the expert you're looking for, but as you said it looks really nice even if it's not accurate. Anyway from the pics that are available on the internet I would say it looks pretty accurate. 

Yep, it looks really nice for a 40 year old kit! I took it out of storage to serve as a testbed for painting techniques, but changed my mind when I saw the nice shape and detailing.

 

Rob

[Rob de Bie]

While searching for  more information I  made an amazing discovery: the photo that inspired the box art! I found it in the 4th 1976 issue of 'Autozeitung' on Ebay. AFAIK the car was not raced in this set of markings.

 

Rob

 

[tempestfan]

Rob, the German mag Modell Fan occasionally had racing car drawings, but a better source may be SMI, which ran something of a series describing and drawing racing cars. No idea though if that body style of the 3.5 was covered.

[Rob de Bie]

10 hours ago, tempestfan said:

Rob, the German mag Modell Fan occasionally had racing car drawings, but a better source may be SMI, which ran something of a series describing and drawing racing cars. No idea though if that body style of the 3.5 was covered.

Yeah, I remember the race car articles in both, and I have a couple of volumes of each. But I don't remember an article on the CSL. Thanks for the tip anyway!

 

Rob

[tempestfan]

Thinking about it,  I‘m more and more certain there was something on a BMW in SMI.