Bandai 1:16 Mercer Raceabout & Bugatti T41

Paul H · April 11, 2020

Some more from the archives... The Mercer was completed at the start of 2006, and the Bugatti that summer. Both were built straight from the box and I still have them although a few repairs are needed due to their size and several house moves...

The Mercer went together very easily, but painting all those black stripes took a lot of care and patience. The Bugatti however was an utter pain, as the floorpan / wings wouldn't sit in the right place on the chassis, and also the bodyshell was badly warped which caused issues with both the fit of the doors and also of the body to the floor / wings. At one point, just when the body and doors were all fitting correctly, the model took a plunge and rolled off my workdesk. The impact then snapped the already much straightened and thus very delicate B pillar as well as one of the C posts around the wheel arch. I managed to repair them, but the joins are quite visible. I nearly gave up on this body, which is the Binder Coupe de Ville (a poor copy of the Coupe Napoleon) in favour of turning it into the Esders roadster...

The Mercer is not a small model - however it is dwarfed by the Royale!

Compared to1:24 models...

And completed.

In addtion to all the doors opening (hence the body rigidity problems) even the trays on the division are hinged... In this pic, the door hides the mangled B post - once cemented in place, the division was holding that area together.

Unlike the Mercer, which was a pleasure to build (& thus why I bought the Bugatti kit from the same series) I think the Royale was one of the few models I was really glad to finish & just have out of the way. It turned out ok in the end, and certainly looks good as shelf model in the display cabinet but I'm not sure I would want to build another.