1/43 Lotus 25

[RabRoberts]

Hi folks, another older build from me, this is one of Tameo's WCT series which are all World Championship winners and all feature removable panels with more detail than their standard kits.

Tameo's are pretty much the gold standard for F1 models in 43rd, the fit is generally excellent and they actually provide proper instructions.

The Lotus 25 was a revolution in F1, although not the first monocoque racing chassis, it was the first in F1 and with Clark driving, it dominated the 1963 season with Clark taking 7 of the 10 races as well a 7 poles and 6 fastest laps.

I've included a few in progress pics too to give you an idea of what goes into a slightly more detailed 43rd kit.

 

Kit contents, plenty of white metal and photo etch, no resin parts here.

Photo etched pedal box

 

Rear of the dash with a somewhat ham-fisted attempt to paint the brackets. The tube thingy in front of the dash was scratch built, I'm not entirely sure what it is, but it was really obvious in the photos of the real car, but missing from the kit.

 

Front suspension assembly, the upper arms are white metal, polished then lacquered, the lower are photo etch.

 

Rear suspension, turned metal dampers and loads of photo etch for the arms, links and anti roll bar.

More rear suspension showing the white metal driveshafts with tiny, moulded universal joints and turned exhausts.

 

Cockpit shot showing the large coolant pipe running alongside the driver, the insulation was just masking tape wrapped around the pipe and painted.

 

Unusually for Tameo, there was a issue, the rear wheels were too narrow, a wee sandwich of plasticard solved the problem.

 

I love how delicate this car looks, I'm in awe of the men who drove these things at such speeds with little safety equipment, there aren't even seatbelts.

 

There were a few obvious cables in my reference photos, so they got added.

 

Lovely yellow plug leads.

 

I wanted to be able to display the model with the body on or off, so a simple stand, made from mains wire was soldered together.

 

The finished article. The straps for the stand are just insulating tape with Renaissance seat belt buckles.

 

This is a very nice kit and if there're any bigger scale guys thinking of dipping their toes into the 43rd pool, I heartily recommended Tameo, the build experience is probably the closest you'll get to a 24th Tamiya where you have full instructions and pretty much everything actually fits.

 

Cheers - Rab

 

[klubman01]

Very nice Rab.  Such a delicate thing.  I've never built a Tameo kit, so it was a delight to see how they go together.  BTW, the "tube thingy" is the fuel filler cap and feed pipes to the tanks in each side of the chassis.

Trevor

[RabRoberts]

16 minutes ago, klubman01 said:

 BTW, the "tube thingy" is the fuel filler cap and feed pipes to the tanks in each side of the chassis.

Doh! Of course it is, thanks Trevor, I've wondered about that for ages and now you say it, it's obvious. 

 

Tameo are generally excellent kits and many of their kits have removable panels and engine detail.

 

Cheers - Rab 

[keefr22]

That is superb, really beautiful model!

 

Keith

[Kitkent]

Beautiful result there Rab,you now need a 'complete' car to put next to the one on display in the pit lane! 

Hope you don't mind me adding a Jim Clark picture that I took a long long time ago..1966 RAC Rally,before the off. Chris.

[stevehnz]

I'd not been aware of that before. Found a rather nice write up here.

Steve.

[RabRoberts]

Thanks folks.

 

12 hours ago, Kitkent said:

Beautiful result there Rab,you now need a 'complete' car to put next to the one on display in the pit lane! 

Hope you don't mind me adding a Jim Clark picture that I took a long long time ago..1966 RAC Rally,before the off. Chris.

 

Photos of Jim Clark are always welcome, especially personal ones like that.

I've got Clark's Lotus 33 and 49 in the stash, as well as Lotus Elite that I plan to build as the car he drove at Le Mans and at my home town's hillclimb in 1959, that might be a wee diorama of him lifting the inside front wheel as he charges into the courtyard.

 

He set the track record that day in the Lister Jaguar.

 

Cheers - Rab

[Kitkent]

Lovely picture of the Elite,one of my favourite cars. 3 more pictures of Jim Clark below from the same event,RAC Rrally 1966. I cycled there, a Heathrow Airport hotel and it was freezing! Hope you like,Chris. 

[Roger Holden]

Remember buying that kit when it came out in the early '90s and thinking it was a big step forward in Tameo's evolution (although I still haven't built it). The WCT series went from strength to strength, although I think they have now become too expensive to produce.  Although I have many of Tameo's kits, I kind of have a love/hate relationship with them.

The WCTs and historic cars are mostly great, but the contemporary cars he produced vary enormously, because I think they were rushed out and based on very little data.  The shapes of some of the 89-95 cars he did are way out when you compare them with Tamiya kits, (like the Jordan 191 for example).