1/43 Felday 4 - BRM, Jim Clark, Brands Hatch 1966

[klubman01]

This is my most recently completed model.  It's the Felday 4 - BRM as driven by Jim Clark in the 1966 Guards Trophy race at Brands Hatch, August Bank Holiday 1966.

 

 

Lotus boss Colin Chapman was keen for his driver, Jim Clark, to experience 4WD, and the opportunity arose for him to drive Peter Westbury's Felday 4 in the Guards Trophy.

The Felday 4 was designed and built by Westbury.  It featured a 1.9 litre BRM V8 mounted back to front and delivering power to all four wheels though a Ferguson 4WD transmission system.  In the race, Clark won his class in the first heat, but was black flagged for dropping oil in the second.

 

I started with a set of 1/32 scale drawings from the July 1966 copy of Model Cars magazine.  I reduced the scale to 1/43 and made several copies of the drawings.  The skeleton was constructed by glueing the longitudinal and lateral shapes to 30thou plastic card.  The card was cut and sanded to shape, suitable slots were cut, and the parts cemented together.

 

 

The internal shapes of the wheel arches involved cutting away some of the plastic, and installing appropriate shapes from 20thou card.  Plastic tube cut to half width were then added so as to locate the axles.

 

 

The external skin was made from 20thou card for the flat and single curvature panels, with Milliput filler for the compound curved areas.

 

 

 

The chassis plate was made from 40thou card, with the remaining structures made from 20thou card.  The roll hoop was made from copper wire, with brass tube for the exhausts.

 

 

The instrument panel, engine structure and radiator were made from various thickness pieces of plastic card with brass mesh for the radiator core, and Tameo intake trumpets on the the engine.  The rear view mirror was made from scraps of plastic, with a copper wire support and lens from the spares box.

 

I made the wheels by using a pair of SMTS Brabham BT19 front wheels as masters, and then casting resin copies.

 

 

 

I vac-formed the windscreen, side windows and headlight covers from masters made from Milliput sanded to shape, and then polished with finer and finer grades of paper to get a nice smooth finish.

 

 

 

The spoiler was a left-over from my Matich SR3 model, and the tyres are 018 Automodelli Studios. The seats were made from Milliput, sculpted to suit.  The headlights and tail lights were AM items.  Paint was Humbrol enamels throughout.  Tyre sidewall decals by Marsh Models.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The numbers and roundels are by Virage, the Firestone decals are from the spares box, and the J. CLARK stickers were made from Letraset on Tameo white decal with blocks of red and black decal for the Guards logo.

 

To finish off, I painted a Denizen white metal figure to portray Clark as he raced that day.  Decals (few that they are) are from an AM decal sheet by Best Balsa Kits.  The figure was mounted on a BBR display base, along with the car.

 

 

 

This was a lengthy build.  I started in November 2016 and only finished it a few months ago.  This was mainly due to me having to work out how to approach each stage once I got there.  There was no great master plan to its construction!  

 

Thanks very much for looking.

 

Trevor

[Bengalensis]

That is seriously good! Fantastic work, I really like it. Very well done!

[klubman01]

Thanks Jorgen.  From a master modeller such as yourself, that is a great compliment!

Trevor

[Pete in Lincs]

Trevor, A little beauty, beautifully built and there's a figure of Jim Clark. Total win win!

[klubman01]

Thanks Pete.  It was a lengthy but ultimately satisfying build.  And of course Jim Clark was the best driver ever (IMHO), and a childhood hero to me.

Trevor

[Sabrejet]

That is really lovely: great skills! Any chance of doing Westbury's hill climb car?

[klubman01]

5 minutes ago, Sabrejet said:

That is really lovely: great skills! Any chance of doing Westbury's hill climb car?

Thanks very much.

 

Which hill climb car do you mean?  He was very successful with a variety of cars.

Trevor 

[Toftdale]

Superb work, if you hadn't shown the build photos I would have not believed that it wasn't build from a kit 👏 Andy 

[Vesa Jussila]

Fantastic work. And thanks for sharing also some construction pictures. From those is possible get some good ideas.

[Sabrejet]

34 minutes ago, klubman01 said:

Thanks very much.

 

Which hill climb car do you mean?  He was very successful with a variety of cars.

Trevor 

 

The Felday Daimler! Recall seeing it at Shelsley several years ago.

[klubman01]

2 hours ago, Toftdale said:

Superb work, if you hadn't shown the build photos I would have not believed that it wasn't build from a kit 👏 Andy 

Thanks very much.  Sadly, there is no kit, hence the scratch build process.

 

2 hours ago, Sabrejet said:

 

The Felday Daimler! Recall seeing it at Shelsley several years ago.

Oh yes.  Maybe, one day.  Peter Westbury was someone whose career I followed with interest.

2 hours ago, Vesa Jussila said:

Fantastic work. And thanks for sharing also some construction pictures. From those is possible get some good ideas.

Thank you.  I didn't do WIP because it would take too long!  I hope I have provided some inspiration.

 

Trevor

[keefr22]

That's fantastic Trevor - really lovely little model! I was expecting you to say what kit it was but instead we  got a great tutorial in scratchbuilding - terrific stuff and thanks for sharing your techniques!

 

Keith

[JeroenS]

That is seriously good stuff. Thanks for sharing some details regarding your building methods. I can see why this took you a little while! 

[klubman01]

Thanks guys, you are very kind.

Trevor

[Kitkent]

This is a fantastic piece of modelling,no Felday kit so make your own! Very very impressive stuff Trevor. Jim Clark has come out well too,you must be a real Clark fan then? Chris.

[klubman01]

Thanks Chris.

Yes, a huge Jim Clark fan.  I think he was one of the most accomplished drivers of his era, possibly of all time, although it is difficult to compare different eras.  His ability to excel in so many different categories underlined what a versatile driver he was.  F1 world champion 1963, British Saloon Car champion 1964, F1 world champion and Indy 500 winner 1965!  A great loss - April 7th 1968 was a dark day.

Trevor

[Kitkent]

This is a snap taken at the start of the RAC rally 1966. In a hotel car park just outside Heathrow airport. I took a picture of the picture with my phone,so it's not very high quality here! I was also at the six hrs.race at Brands Hatch in 1968 and everyone heard that Jimmy had died. He was supposed to be driving the Ford F3L prototype at Brands instead of being at the F2 race. Chris.

[klubman01]

The RAC rally - another demonstration of his versatility.  And IIRC, he took the Lotus 38 indy car to the Ollon-Villars hill climb.

 

It was a different mindset for drivers in those days.  They raced in a variety of categories because they could.  Clark was driving the Felday because Colin Chapman wanted his feedback on 4WD.  Chapman thought 4WD could be useful in F1.  

 

Trevor

[Pig of the Week]

Jim Clark, there's a name from the past !..as a nipper I got to go to lots of race meetings in that era, my step father was with BP on the racing side of things and was sent to these, we got access to the pits too which was great fun for a young lad ! 

We also had a very nice expenses paid holiday to the Isle of Man one year to cover the TT races.

Fab model you've made there, great to see some proper old fashioned scratch building.. 👍

[klubman01]

Thanks very much, indeed.  I'm rather jealous of your "access all areas" youth!

Trevor

[keefr22]

1 hour ago, klubman01 said:

I'm rather jealous of your "access all areas" youth!

 

You're not alone in that Trevor!

 

Keith

[spaddad]

Tasty

[Pig of the Week]

2 hours ago, klubman01 said:

Thanks very much, indeed.  I'm rather jealous of your "access all areas" youth!

Trevor

It was brilliant, you can't imagine them letting you do stuff like that now tho, I doubt anyone could get near the pits for instance!

....provided you used common sense, and didn't get in the way, the guys were very friendly and showed you all the kit, I even remember sitting in a couple of the cars on occasions..happy days

[Spiny]

Great work on this one, as many others have said it's hard to believe it's not a kit. You've produced something from nothing which looks better than I produce from a kit.

[Roger Holden]

Great work and so rare to see something scratchbuilt in 1/43 scale.  I've still got a pile of Model Cars mags that my dad bought in the 60s and the plans articles in them were

always very inspiring (even if some of the shapes occasionally looked a bit 'off'). Even better was the short-lived 'Miniature Auto' magazine, which had more detailed plans.

Both were great documentation of the 'golden age' of motorsport.

 

Completely agree with your comments re Clark.