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Moynet LM 75, Le Mans 24h 1975


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As I was finishing my latest model last weekend, which was of course the Le Mans weekend with Radio Le Mans switched on in the background, I was toying around with a few of my unbuilt Le Mans kits while glued parts dried. So it happened that this one for some reason was harder to clear from the bench than some of the other; the Moynet LM 75, of course from Le Mans 1975, a recent 1/24 resin kit from Profil 24.

 

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The car was entered in the 2 litre class for the 24 hour race featuring three drivers; Marianne Hoepfner, Christine Dacremont and Michèle Mouton. The car didn't look like latest fashion in race car design of 1975; in fact it bore close resemblance to the Moynet MH 68 from 1968. The sleek and slightly updated Moynet body shell now covered a CG-Simca spare frame left over from the five or six CG light weight roadsters build in 1971-72 and a JRD built Simca based 2 litre engine.

 

The car qualified a good way down the field and there were problems early on in the race, like starter motor failures and the drive wire for the rev counter failing with no spare available, meaning the drivers had to judge all shifting by ear, not the best thing for a 24 hour race with a high revving small capacity race engine. So hopes for success weren't high. However, as the hours went by the car kept circulating with odd problems delaying them in the pits. But the competitor's superior spec cars had their share of problems as well, and with two hours to go the team found themselves leading the 2 litre class, keeping that lead to the end.

 

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That's an effort well worth a model. The content in the box is in a fairly straight forward P24 style; all resin parts, including the tyres in this one, some photo etch, clear resin lights, vac formed windows, decals and some basic instructions. This should be good.

 

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A quick mock up with the wheels under the body shell reveals the smooth little race car hiding in the parts.

 

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Work started earlier in the week with sorting out and cleaning up all resin parts and filling all air bubbles and other imperfections. I use 2-part automotive filler and for very small pin holes CA glue and resin sanding dust.

 

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Every part need more or less attention. It may seem strange, but I quite enjoy even this part of building resin kits.

 

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It's slowly getting there.

 

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There is something special with race cars having the engine visible through the rear screen. The detail may seem basic, but with a little aid it will be busy enough in the finished model I think.

 

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The engine is tilted right but the whole thing sits a little too far to the right, and too close to the exhaust heat shield for my liking.

 

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Moving it a little to the left and adding some stubs for the exhaust manifold looks better.

 

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It may look ridiculous like this, but anything more complicated won't be visible anyway.

 

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The oil tank got a little more detail added.

 

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Here we have the main interior parts test fitted.

 

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The special JRD head has twin spark plugs and the ignition system uses two coils. The distributor is well made but missing the post for the second coil. The coils are visible from the rear end on the real car. The instructions doesn't show any coils, however there are two different coil like resin parts supplied that are not in the instructions either, but they are different from each other. I dug around in my spare part boxes and found two useful coils.

 

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It's hardly visible here, but the post for the second coil has been added and all have been drilled out to accept the wiring. The cylinder head has also been drilled at the spark plug locations on both sides, which I forgot to picture.

 

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It will go together something like this. I'll probably use lead wire instead of the copper wire when the time comes.

 

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Mirrors, lights and race number lights ready. The long stalks will be cut after painting.

 

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Wheels and brakes cleaned up. Thankfully there were no air bubbles in the critical sections of the wheels. They are also some of the best looking wheels ever fitted to a race car.

 

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The tyres required more filler and sanding, but it's nothing complicated on small slicks like these.

 

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Time to cut and test fit all windows. I always want to have that done early on in case the body shell might need adjustments.

 

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In this case they all fitted very well after careful cutting and trimming. There's hope.

 

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All parts where pinned for painting yesterday and all the resin got a round of 2-part sanding primer sprayed.

 

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After sanding the primer today a final test fit of all wheel, axle and brake parts were made to make sure positions and alignment will work out. Again adjustments if needed are best done now rather than later. The car did show a surprising amount of air between the wheels and the openings especially at the front, so this should work OK.

 

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Then I sprayed the blue paint I had chosen, automotive lacquer base through the air brush. After the red paint and stripe decals it will get a thin coat of 2-part semi gloss clear.

 

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Five minutes after I finished spraying I was looking at the resulting blue shade and didn't like it all. I added perhaps 20% white to the blue and gave another round. This will be better I think.

 

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Great to see one of the lesser cars of Le Mans being modelled. Profil do tend to go for the unusual! Personally I liked the Spice cars - nice looking and colour schemes to suit all tastes. Just begging to be modelled.  

 

 

Dave

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An interesting story of an interesting (if forgotten) Le Mans racer.  You're making rapid progress, and I look forward to future updates.  Great work so far, and the colour is just lovely.

 

Trevor

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15 hours ago, PROPELLER said:

I enjoy to see this car, totally forgotten by... french people, thanks  for this another tribute!

 

Dan.

14 hours ago, CrazyCrank said:

+ 1

 

And I've found some reading material for those who understand French 24 heures du Mans 1975: Moynet Simca

Thanks, glad you like it. You're both right, it's surprising how forgotten the car and the efforts of André Moynet, an interesting man, seems to be.

 

 

13 hours ago, Fastcat said:

Great to see one of the lesser cars of Le Mans being modelled. Profil do tend to go for the unusual! Personally I liked the Spice cars - nice looking and colour schemes to suit all tastes. Just begging to be modelled.  

 

 

Dave

Thanks a lot Dave. If there were only enough kits available one could make an entire life of modelling fantastic cars from the background of Le Mans history.

 

12 hours ago, klubman01 said:

An interesting story of an interesting (if forgotten) Le Mans racer.  You're making rapid progress, and I look forward to future updates.  Great work so far, and the colour is just lovely.

 

Trevor

Many thanks Trevor, good to have you on. I'm not super fuzzy about the exakt colour shades, I think, as long as they give me the right feeling looking at the subject they will usually do.

 

11 hours ago, keefr22 said:

That's looking really good already Jörgen, another cracking model on the way! :)

 

Keith

Thanks a lot Keith, I hope I can make the subject justice.

 

10 hours ago, Vesa Jussila said:

Looks really good Jörgen and interesting car that I totally forgot. Good progress and clearly nice kit.

Thanks a lot Vesa, it's time the car and the team got some attention, good subject choice again by P24.

 

10 hours ago, Sabrejet said:

Lovely job! I do like Profil24 kits and this one is a corker. (just received the 2021 LM Toyota and have the Cunningham C4RK on back-order).

Many thanks! Yes P24 do some really nice kits. Rarely over complicated but always effective and with a little work put in them turn into some really nice models.

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6 hours ago, ElectricLightAndy said:

Excellent stuff, another great thing about following your builds is that we don't have to wait very long for excellent progress!

 

Andy

Thanks Andy for the kind words. It's just that sometimes it's very long between my new build threads 😎

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Work started in the morning with masking for spraying the front and rear sections.

 

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Red paint was soon applied.

 

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After masking off we have a red nose and tail. It looks a little odd like this but it will probably make more sense with stripes and decals applied. It's also interesting that my camera don't seem to handle the line between blue and red very well.

 

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The car had transparent green strips applied to the top of the windscreen and doors, so these were masked for spraying on the inside. This is another area where the restored car as it appears today differs from 1975.

 

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The result after spraying Tamiya clear green is this.

 

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10 hours ago, keefr22 said:

Nice paint! 👍

 

Keith

Thanks a lot Keith, Just need to sand the edges a little, then the stripe decals and some clear.

 

10 hours ago, Kitkent said:

Excellent work,and I just love any Le Mans car to be honest. Nice French racing blue as well. Chris.

Thanks a lot Chris. Indeed, anything Le Mans is very worthwhile!

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I wanted to get the body shell ready for clear coating. First I carefully sanded down most of the masking edges of the red paint with 1200 grit paper. On the left rear quarter I sanded it down completely as that area will all be covered by the decal stripes.

 

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The decals are lovely to work with and respond perfectly to Micro Sol and a little hair dryer heat. But applying a decal over a complex area like this rear quarter will never be easy. I made a few cuts to avoid stretching the decal too much and have distortions or other problems. Some touching up will be needed.

 

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The decal pieces melted together very nicely, and as the decals are printed on two sheets giving you spare stripes, I thought I try cutting strategic decal pieces to fill in my cuts.

 

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It worked very well, albeit taking some time, so in the end I used only a tiny amount of white paint to be done.

 

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The rear end caught me out at first, but yes, the stripes are not supposed to be centered, this is correct. I will leave this over night to dry out completely, then spraying clear tomorrow morning.

 

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Detail painting has also continued. The wheels were sprayed with Alclad Pale Gold, masked inside and outside with circles cut from Tamiya tape, sprayed Humbrol gloss black enamel followed by Alclad Highly Polished Aluminium, then some detail painting and a thin black wash.

 

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The chassis section has been sprayed all satin black and is ready for detail painting.

 

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13 hours ago, klubman01 said:

Great job of applying the decals.  Never easy over compound curves, scoops and intakes, etc.  Love the wheels as well.

Trevor

 

12 hours ago, keefr22 said:

Agreed about the decals - very neat! As are the wheels!

 

Nice work!

 

Keith

 

12 hours ago, Vesa Jussila said:

Nice work with decals. 

Thanks a lot gentlemen! When decaling goes like this it is one of the most enjoyable parts of building race car models. I just hope it will continue.

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I've not heard of this type before, what a stunning looking car!

You are as always making this into a stunning replica, will follow along to the finish line.

 

     Stay safe           Roger

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