Well...One of these is wrong!

[MR2Don]

My bright idea is to build three Alpine A110s; one as '71 Monte (Tamiya), one as '73 Tour de Corse (Heller), one as '74 road trim (Tamiya).

Made a start by tidying up the Heller body, removing flash, sharp edges etc. - Tamiya body hardly needs it.

Looking at them, they seemed to be different, so I put a first coat of primer on the Heller and a Tamiya, so the moulding colour didn't interfere with examining the shape and form and look what I got!

 

Tamiya above, bodies lined up to back of the door. Heller is narrower across the top half of the body, because there is a more pronounced rollover at the top of the door, this makes the windscreen narrower. The whole front becomes shorter because the windscreen rake is less; the bonnet is further back as are the headlight housings and the front curve is less pronounced. Doesn't seem so bad at the rear, except the window is markedly smaller again.

So, as per the title, one of these is wrong! Wouldn't matter quite so much if I didn't intend to have all three sat side by side.

Edited April 10, 2021 by MR2Don
correction

[malpaso]

Interesting.  Though to be fair you could do the same comparison for Tamiya and Revell Mini Coopers and although closer they definitely look different.  And possibly surprised which one captures the classic Mini face better!

[Sabrejet]

I'd have to say that the Heller version seems to catch the aspect ratio of the car better. It's an interesting comparison.

[Vesa Jussila]

Interesting comparison. When I compare bonnet to photo in below Heller line looks more correct for Tour de Corse car. Now good question is how much car changed from 71 to 73. Race cars usually don't rest...

 

 

And car from Monte -71

 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Vesa Jussila

[keefr22]

There used to be a story, maybe apocryphal, that Tamiya San would have his designers 'exagerate' certain design aspects of his car models to more suit his taste - apparently this usually ended up with them being wider and longer. As I say I don't know how true that is and I've never bothered to check.....

 

Keith

[Six97s]

1 hour ago, keefr22 said:

There used to be a story, maybe apocryphal, that Tamiya San would have his designers 'exagerate' certain design aspects of his car models to more suit his taste - apparently this usually ended up with them being wider and longer. As I say I don't know how true that is and I've never bothered to check.....

 

Keith

 

I've also read that Tamiya body's proportions are changed to make them appear "correct" when scaled down.   To my way of thinking, it would appear correct if it were accurately scaled, but what do I know?

 

Here's the website of the designer of the Heller kit - while he says some of their kits were drawn from one or two photos, he did own an A110, so I'd imagine that one would be accurate:

 

https://www.tsrfcars.com/toys-heller.htm

Edited April 10, 2021 by Six97s

[MR2Don]

I'll have to stop this soon or I'll go nuts.

Latest checks:

Windscreen rake is nearer correct on the Tamiya, the Heller is too steep.

Front edge of doors. T is correct in curving them up to the screen level, H has a sharp right angle.

I'm able to check all this as there is one for sale near me. I could always go up there with a tape measure and say "I'm sorry I haven't got £70k, but can I crawl all over it and measure things". Don't think I will, somehow.

I think it would be better if I just built them and enjoyed the experience. It's not as if anybody that is likely to see them (family and maybe a friend or so) is going to say "That's wrong!".

[keefr22]

4 hours ago, MR2Don said:

I think it would be better if I just built them and enjoyed the experience.

 

Good plan!

 

K

[Paws4thot]

{Devil's advocate} How long does a GRP body buck last before it needs replacing? They could both be right! {/end}

[Noel Smith]

There was a late professional model maker who would very slightly exaggerate certain features on his models. The trick was not to over exaggerate and thus turn the model into a caricature.

[Dancona]

It is true that there is a scale effect, but more to do with surface character than proportion, generally on scale clay design models (normally quarter scale) surfaces were exaggerated slightly (a tad more curvature), when scaled up to a full sized clay  the surfaces generally needed to be flattened a bit to get the same "feel" as the scale model and stop everything from looking too inflated and bulbous.

Now clays tend to be milled straight to full size from cad data, much quicker and more efficient, but somehow less satisfying than doing it manually from a tape drawing !

[Noel Smith]

Further to my last post having thought a bit more, we have to accept that there will be differences between each manufacturers kit of the same subject.

 

A number of years ago I was talking to a Hi Fi enthusiast work colleague who was getting stressed about the balance of the head on his turntable. He said that he went back to another enthusiast friend of his who told him not to worry, tape a small coin to the top of the head and just sit back and enjoy his music!

 

The moral of this story is why not just accept the kit for what it is it you cannot do anything about it to correct it, and simply enjoy building it instead of pondering over its accuracy.

Edited June 10, 2021 by Noel Smith