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Porsche 935, Matchbox, 1/32


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Picked up this one for a decent price on eBay because it was started. The body had been glued together (incuding sticking the engine cover down) reasonably sturdily, but was a bit messy and yellowed by now. Everything else was OK, apart from the two engine halves being joined without the bit that's supposed to fit between them being put in place. I'm not sure why the previous owner had given up... none of these things seemed too hard to fix...

 

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First job was to get the engine cover off, and deal with the gaps that were left, and then fill the joins around the lower edge of the body.

 

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Removing the chrome resulted in a bit of a surprise. Despite its strange appearance, the plastic sticks perfectly well, and it's tough. I thought the translucence might help with the fan casing, which is a weird fibreglass in real life.

 

engine-built-2.jpg

 

engine-built.jpg

 

Rubbish photo, but all I had to do to recover from the previous owners error was spring the barely glued seam in the transmission end, and slip the axle into place. 5 minutes and the build was back on track.

 

distributor.jpg

 

I wanted to wire the distributor, but I knew there was no way I could drill 12 holes in the top of that 1/8" cylinder. So then I had a brainwave. I drilled a small hole centrally, then a larger one, and glued some rod into the inner hole, leaving me with a circular gap all around the perimeter. I figured I could get a lot of wires in there, superglued in.

 

wires-in-distributor.jpg

 

And I did. Not quite enough, but more on that later.

 

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On the left, the part Matchbox give you for the airbox/plenum. It doesn't look like any picture of a 935 engine I can find. This is an early car with a single turbo engine, and they seem to have had a sort of horseshoe airbox. It should actually be more tapered in the "legs", but I need it to glue on top of the stacks that Matchbox have provided. So, some heavy plastic card.

 

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Some carving and sanding later, and it looks a bit more like the real thing.

 

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The wires go six to each side, and then three to the upper and three to the lower plugs. I used heat shrink tube to bundle the wires, which gave me the opportunity to sneak in a couple of extra ones that don't actually come out of the distributor. It'll be hard to spot the deception, I hope... 😜

 

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This one will also get a driver. I've picked up some Penelope Pitlane resin figures intended for slot cars. The one destined for the Bugatti 59 just wasn't going to fit, whatever I did to him. This guy has been slimmed down and trimmed to fit more snugly into the seat, and his legs bent more toward the pedals.

 

body-primed-and-refilled.jpg

 

Body primed with Tamiya TS-101 to cover up the grey filler on a white car problem. That revealed some more areas that needed a second pass, as you can see. I've glued on the door handles and mirrors, to be sure of a good plastic to plastic bond. They';; need painting black at the end, but there's a fair bit of black detail painting to do anyway.

 

engine-test-fit.jpg

 

Test fit of the airbox, which looks more or less as I want it to. The compressed air duct from the turbo was originally designed to connect to the front tube of the original plenum part, which is obviously no longer there. It should actually disappear backwards alongside the fan housing, so I replaced the plastic piece with some conveniently 2mm diameter aluminium wire, which is flexible enough to adjust to fit when everything is joined together (the brownish turbine is glued to the pointed end of the exhaust output you can just see under the middle of the transverse engine mount bracket.

 

Time to paint the the "plug covers" and drill them for the wires.

 

best,

M.

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The engine is done. There'll be a bit more "gizmology" in the bay around it to connect it up a bit (coil packs, wiring and some random tubes).

 

engine-done-from-right.jpg

 

engine-done-from-rear.jpg

 

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engine-done-from-left.jpg

 

engine-done-from-top.jpg

 

Now I need to find a decent photo of the cockpit...

best,

M.

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1 hour ago, Pete in Lincs said:

So not Joan Collins with mechanic Leonard Rossiter then?

Mind, those adverts were a loooong time ago.

And that advert was for Cinzano, yet everyone remembers it as Martini.

 

It's still used as an example of a failed advert on branding courses today.

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I think they were late 70s/early 80's. It's amazing how everyone remembers them as Martini. Cinzano must have been livid as every time a campaign ran, their sales did increase, but Martini's increased more!

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Engine complete and test fitted:

 

engine-in-test-from-left.jpg

 

engine-in-test-from-right.jpg

 

engine-in-test-with-cover.jpg

 

underside.jpg

 

The front suspension is pretty detailed, but does all fit together remarkably well... if you use actual plastic cement that allows a bit of "wiggle room" as it sets...

 

cockpit-assembly-2.jpg

 

cockpit-assembly-3.jpg

 

cockpit-assembly-5.jpg

 

cockpit-assembly-4.jpg

 

And yes, it is going to be Jacky Ickx at the helm.

 

best,

M.

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Got the the body and chassis together. The decals emphasise pretty strongly that they shouldn't be touched after they've been put on, so I figured I'd wrestle with the bodyshell while it's still white (ish... there are some mucky areas that need cleaning up!).

 

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Annoyingly, putting the interior into the body popped some ofthe 20-year old glue on the front valance, seam but it was pretty much self-inflicted because of what I'd done at the back...

 

back-open-together-1.jpg

 

back-open-together-2.jpg

 

Look closely, and you can see at the bottom that I've made the unequal paired exhausts using aluminium ferrules cut and mounted to the ends of the plastic parts. To the matchbox engineers credit, both lined up with the centres of the moulded "pipes" (which were both the same size). But on the real thing, the narrower pipe comes through the bumper, while the big turbo exhausts though a cutaway. I drilled the moulded pipes out, enlarged the holes and cut away below the big one. And was rewarded by the narrow pipe slotting into the smaller hole, and the big ferrule centered in the cut out. Not bad for a pre-CAD design that's not been built quite the way the designers intended...

 

Taking a break now while the nose repairs set...

best,

M.

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Decals from Patto's Place going on. Excellent printing and thin carrier film, and very easy to use. The only issue is that they are deigned against a 3D model of the real thing, not a specific kit. In this case, the gotcha turned out to be that Matchbox put the NACA ducts on the rear wings/fenders too far forward...

 

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That's the majority of the decals on. Still a few small ones to track down, and once they are all set thoroughly I can see that some work needs doing to bed the stripes in around the compound curves. Final clean up and detail painting to do, and she'll be ready for beauty shots... but not for a few days because we're off to Paris for the weekend...

best,

M.

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