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Hasegawa Celica ST185 Tour De Corse


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After I enjoyed my last build of a Tamiya Impreza WRC so much, I thought I'd tackle another rally car. This time the Celica ST185.  Despite being the car in which Sainz won the championship, the somewhat haphazard 1992 Repsol-Marlboro livery is a lot less well remembered than the subsequent (and lot more coherent) Castrol livery. Big red blobs are not part of Marlboro's brand identity *or* Repsol's. Nonetheless it's a good subject for a build. I can already see this one's not going to be straight OOB like the Tamiya Impreza was. For one thing, the Marlboro decals are missing and I'm going to have to source some. I wonder what the deal is with tobacco decals. Early issues of some Tamiya kits have Camel, Rothmans, Silk cut right there in the box and later editions, all gone. 

 

In addition this Celica kit shares the same mould with both Hasegawa's road Celica GT-4 and it's Safari Rally one, and they all have the exact same suspension. Which for this type of rally (Tour de Corse) is much too high. The illustration on the box is nice and squat and having seen some completed ones on the internet, they're not. They moulds also all have a road fuel filler cap, which isn't right either.  There are some P/E parts and seatbelts in the box which is great.

 

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Some things to be opened up and/or removed.

 

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Lots of mould lines to be removed too. And the first of what turns out to be several layers of filler to fill in the panel lines of the road-car fuel filler door.

 

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After the first coat of white primer I've filled in all the panel lines with a 0.03 permanent marker. At the moment they look dark and cartoonish but subsequent layers of white primer and gloss will dull these off to a more realistic grey.

 

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Filling in the sink marks on the rear wing.

 

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This is the natural ride-height of the kit, as assembled with non-permanent blu-tack.

 

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I've seen at least three methods of lowering cars online in the past. In this instance, moving the hub on the strut seems to be easiest, as it does not involve fiddling with any other suspension geometry. It's not 100% realistic but the change is buried inside the rims anyway. Now I just have to repeat all this rigmarole at the back end of the car and I'll have something that should look as squat and planted as the box-art and reference photos.

 

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Before I start gluing down the suspension and transmission, I add some grime to the underbody. No mud on this rally but it's not going to be showroom clean.

 

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Unusually the skid plates are red and some photo I found of Carlos Sainz going over a jump seem to confirm it's not a mistake in the painting instructions.

 

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Needs pegs to glue properly. Fit is OK enough but not super-perfect.

 

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And here with wheels the new corrected ride height, now matches the box-front and the photos of the real thing on the box sides and online.

 

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The exterior of the car has now had both it's white undercoat and Tamiya rattle-can "Pure White" topcoat. Polished up nicely and ready for decals it now resembles..... white plastic 😀

 

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A few years ago I bought a Tamiya Corolla WRC with a bodyshell squashed beyond repair. It's been a very useful mine of parts ever since.  For this build I'm taking at least it's "engine", it's fans and later, it's steering wheel.

 

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A bit of hacking about and the Corolla's fans are in place.

 

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The decals are very matt. I hope they don't react to clearcoat, which they certainly need. These first blobs are likely to be the most tricky ones and they went down well. 

 

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I did most of the rest of the decal work last night, and then today by lunchtime the Marlboro decals came in the post from modelworks; I've just added them.

 

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The pictures don't quite do it justice but the clearcoat over the decals has polished up nicely.

 

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And on the inside, mesh. And the Corolla's engine.

 

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Quite a few things were done between the photo above and the one below, including all the window rubbers, the door handles, the fuel cap, door mirrors and then finally as it was a bit warped, the rear wing pegged in place whilst they glue dries.

 

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Meanwhile back in the interior, since no pedals were supplied in the kit I've taken some from the spare parts box, mounted on some T-section plastic strip.

 

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And into the dashboard. On the left-  the kit decals. On the right, extra detail added - button labels, that red handle and the cable.

 

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I'd say 9/10 of the photos I've seen of this car have the roof vents open, so I've decided it's more interesting to do the same

 

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Aside from a few decals on the glass, the exterior is complete.

 

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I can't remember where I first saw this technique for removing seamlines off slicks and putting miles on them, but it's a good one.

 

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Underside complete, aside from wheel decals.

 

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Adding hoses to the fuel tank.

 

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Interior comes along

 

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Now adding a battery taken from the spares box

 

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The interior is complete now. The seatbelts were done last as I find all that threading very fiddly and annoying - and in rally cars it's twice. The PE parts were part of the kit, and the belts.  There's a tyre spanner inside - I had one spare from some garage parts and  saw one in one of the ref photos I found of the real thing. There are quite a few other extras/scratch built in there including the nuts & bolts on the pillars..  It was a mistake to assemble the roll-cage entirely before adding it,, even though the instructions said to do this. Lesson for next time. The seats foul the roll cage a little also - more a fault of design for that than assembly. As the chassis and exterior were more or less complete it did not take long to finish them off - so there will be Ready For Inspection photos later today or tomorrow.

 

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Another one here who hates roll cages (not a massive fan of seat belts either, but there are worse things in this hobby). Shame the cage caused fitment issues, unfortunately that seems to be par for the course with them. Bit on the bright side, this is coming along very nicely.

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Ooo I love a good roll cage ! 

I tend to build roll cages sides first , then add rear sections and add roof last . I glue each section as I do this , then , once all secure wrap in masking tape to hold it all tight until the glue sets . 

 Good detailing on the interior.  Nice . 

 Gary .  

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