MENG Mclaren MP4/4 1988 (CS-007) 1:24

[Mike]

Mclaren MP4/4 1988 (CS-007)

1:24 MENG via Creative Models Ltd

 

 

McLaren are named after their founder, Bruce McLaren, who began the team in 1963 competing in Formula One, with their first Grand Prix win in 1968 during a four year period where they dominated F1.  Bruce McLaren was killed during testing in 1970, but the team continued to do well under new management, merging with Ron Dennis’s team in 1981, under whose management they have gone from strength-to-strength, expanding their range into production cars in more recent years.  During the 1988 season drivers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost dominated almost every race of the season, achieving a 1-2 in the Detroit Grand Prix, Prost coming in 38 seconds behind Senna, powered by turbocharged Honda engines that were outputting immense levels of power, part of the reason for the change to normally aspirated engines by the governing body the FIA for the 1989 season.

 

The MP4/4 was arguably one of the most successful overall designs in Formula 1, using a V6 Honda engine that displaced only 1.5 litres, but output 675hp at 12,000rpm thanks to a substantial boost from the turbocharger while they still had access to its benefits, deleting the turbo intakes briefly due to aerodynamic concerns, which proved to be a mistake that was rapidly corrected.  The car ran almost unchanged for much of the season, with a reclined driver position keeping the centre of gravity low, allowing it to corner at high speeds, and with the reliability of its engine, its retirement was limited to only four races of the season, and it achieved a great deal of success and many podium positions.  Their worst placing other than retirement was 6th at Portugal, although both Senna and Prost had Nigel Mansell in his Judd snapping at their heels, which perhaps spurred them on to greater things.  Senna placed 10th in Italy after retiring from pole in a collision with another driver he was lapping, who unexpectedly regained control after locking his wheels in a corner.  In preparation for the 1989 season, an altered MP4/4 chassis was fitted with a 3.5L V10 normally aspirated engine for testing to ensure they were ready for the following season in conjunction with the new chassis that was under development.

 

 

The Kit

This is a new tooling from MENG in my preferred vehicle scale, and it’s also from an era when I regularly watched F1 before I took on an old house that needed total renovation, and my free time evaporated.  The kit arrives in one of MENG’s typical satin-finished top-opening boxes, with a painting of the car on the front, against a stylised backdrop.  Inside the box are four sprues and a bodyshell part in light grey styrene, a clear sprue, a small fret of Photo-Etch (PE), four flexible black tyres, two sheets of self-adhesive chrome stickers, a sheet of pre-cut woven material in black, three sheets of decals, and the instruction booklet, which has a painting guide in colour, sprue diagrams and a paint chart with MENG AK and Acrysion codes, plus the names of the colours in four languages including English.  Detail is excellent as expected, and the inclusion of the afore mentioned extras creates a model that can be built by most of us without the need for aftermarket.  The PE is trapped between two sheets of adhesive film, as it has been etched with no equivalent to sprue-gates, so once the sheets are removed the parts will be loose, as I found out when I forgot about their way of doing things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with the Honda V6 engine, the block of which is made from seven parts, with a Honda logo decal applied in the centre of each bank of piston heads.  The air intake trunks in between the banks and the fuel injectors are installed on pegs in the centre of the block, fitting additional pipework to the ends, the first-motion shaft on the rear, and a pair of exhaust manifolds on the sides.  The transmission is built from two long halves that project from the rear of the engine, adding a pair of braces for the bodywork panels, and inserting two driveshafts on the sides, then applying decals to the backs of the body panels before plugging them into the sides of the transmission.  Two pairs of wishbones are fixed to the top and bottom of the transmission assembly, adding more linkages and a turbo intercooler radiator over the top, then creating the rear wheel hubs from a two-part brake disc and callipers that give it the prototypical venting between the two layers of braking surface.  The discs are attached to the front of their bearings with a poly-cap allowing easy removal of the wheels at any point, gluing each one to the wishbones on pegs, and mating the engine and transmission together into one.

 

The monocoque chassis of the vehicle was laid-up from carbon fibre, which was still relatively new at the time, here depicted by the main shell with two lower sections and a front bulkhead that are spot painted, using white for a small section that is seen through the outer bodywork panels, fitting bulkheads at the rear of the side pods, then attacking it with carbon-fibre decals that are found on the large sheet.   A similar process is carried out in the cockpit, which starts as a single curved tub that has decals applied all around the seat, fitting some small ancillary controls into position after decaling, moving on to create the lap belts from the black fabric sheet, threading the PE buckles through according to the diagrams, and adding a circular quick-release to one of them.  The shoulder belts are each two fabric parts that wrap around a U-shaped assembly at the top, with PE adjustment buckles linking the two sections of each belt together, finishing them with more PE buckles.  The completed assembly is fitted in the cockpit on the rear lip, and a pair of Boss advertisements are applied from the decal sheet in a prominent part of the upper belt where it went over Ayrton or Alain’s shoulders.  A logo decal is applied to the belt holder on the lip, subtly letting everyone know which chassis and variant it is.  The cockpit is mated with the shell from below, applying another small decal to the shell behind one of the cut-outs in the nose, fitting the dash into position at the front of the cockpit, using decals for the instruments, and painting the many buttons appropriate colours according to the key nearby.  The relatively simple steering wheel with two red and green buttons is attached to the dash via a short column, showing just how much steering wheel technology has come on, the modern wheels costing hundreds of thousands to make, as they contain complex computers, and are covered in buttons and often have a screen built-in.  A control box is decaled with another Honda logo and fixed onto each side pod, making up two radiator assemblies per side with their own feeder hoses and supports, installing them on the angled rear sides of the pods after detail painting them.  Air-intakes are made from two handed parts each, fitting a cylindrical assembly to the rear, and installing them across the face of the rearmost radiator, making sure that anything needing painting is done before you start applying glue.

 

The undertray, or lower surface of the body is almost flat at the front, with splitters near the rear that guide the airflow out from under the car, creating downforce that sucks the car onto the track, with a lot of help from the upper aerodynamic fixtures.  The inside is decaled with carbon-fibre and reflective stickers, applying paint to the other areas, then doing the same to the underside, painting crucial parts of the undersides a wood colour, which are the FIA’s guide to whether the vehicle is obeying the regulations regarding its height from the ground.  Additional decals are applied to the sides of the splitters at the rear, and a set of wishbones are glued into the nose, adding three pedals and a small tank in the driver’s foot well.  Another set of wishbones are attached to the top of the monocoque’s nose, bracing them with additional damping rods before bringing the two assemblies together, and applying another two decals to the sides of the nose once the glue is set.  The front discs and hubs are made in the same manner as the rears, and are glued to the wishbones in the same way as at the rear, with a steering linkage applied to the front bulkhead, wrapped in a protective shroud, which has three small reservoirs applied beneath it. 

 

The sloped rear behind the driver has two assemblies fitted on pegs, followed by the roll-over hoop, building up the remaining hoses and ‘conch’ shaped turbo housings to link them and the engine to their outlets in the underside between the splitter plates, which allows the engine assembly to be fitted, assuming everything is painted and decaled at this stage.  Two engine mounting brackets link the monocoque to the motor, and a large cylindrical reservoir with filler cap is fixed to a peg at the front of the transmission.  The plenum chamber that is sited over the air intake trunks between the piston banks is made from three sections, with an FIA logo decal applied to the cylindrical assembly at the front, locating it on four pegs at the top of the trunks after painting, then adding waste-gate cooling hoses between the intakes at the rear of the side pods.  The nose cone and rear wing supports are both covered in carbon-fibre decals and installed in their respective places at either end of the vehicle, painting the four parts of the wing red and white before applying decals over their inner and undersides and assembling it so it can be installed on the supports at the rear.

 

A brief interlude to make the wheels is next, using the flexible black tyres, which have a seam around the centre of their circumferences.  These can be removed by ‘scrubbing’ the contact surface with a motor tool or other sanding material to replicate the scrubbed wheels that were usually fitted before the race so that the car got maximum traction for the start, providing the tyres were also warm.  The hubs are single parts, and like their full-sized counterparts, they are attached to the car by a single stud, which in this case slips into a poly-cap rather than screwing in.  Dymag decals are provided for each hub, two per rim, and if F1 isn’t your thing, you’ll need to fit the smaller, narrower wheels to the front axles for maximum traction at the rear, which will stop your more knowledgeable friends from laughing at your mistake.  The completed wheels slide into position and are held there by the poly-caps, whilst giving you the flexibility to remove them whenever you need to.

 

The front wing provides down-force to the wheels, and much of this assembly is moulded as a single part, adding a small section under the nose, and two end-caps, after painting it all white and applying carbon-fibre decals to the inner faces of the caps.  Another carbon-fibre decal is applied to the full width of the wing on the underside, consisting of three separate sections to make it a little easier to wrangle.  The main portion of the bodyshell is moulded as one, adding the small windscreen to the front of the cockpit, and a pair of intake inserts to the holes in the side pods, marked L and R to ensure you fit them in the correct position.  The wing mirrors are each single parts, using two small chromed stickers to depict the mirrors, and mounting them either side of the driver on their short supports.  The bodyshell and nose cone can then be lowered over the car to complete the build, or you can make up two A-frame trestles from four-parts each to keep the body off the floor using a similar method used by the mechanics during maintenance, showing off the details of the chassis.

 

 

Markings

Mclaren Honda were sponsored by the Marlboro brand of cigarettes in 1988, while such advertising was starting to be banned in many countries, and MENG have used the name McLaren on the rear wing, which IIRC was the case in some countries that had already moved to ban advertising of cigarettes and tobacco-based products.  You shouldn’t smoke, vape, or drink too much, but you know that already, so I won’t go on.  Two decal options are supplied as you’d expect, with just a small decal on the roll-over differentiating between Senna and Prost, the drivers for that year, plus their numbers on the nose and sides of the rear wing.  Shell and Honda also get a look-in, with their logos also found on the sheet.

 

 

 

 

The stickers are chrome, but look blue due to the reflections in the photobooth.  You can see your face in them, although there's a little distortion.

 

Decals are printed in China to a high standard, and have good register, sharpness and colour density.  There are no decals included for the Marlboro red stripes that make the car stand out, but instead you are given a slight step in the surface of the bodyshell to mask against, and I’m unsure if that will work.  The step is infinitesimal, but is the additional layer or layers of red enough to make up the difference in height?  Will subsequent layers of clear gloss after decaling encourage the steps (and the carrier film on the decals) to disappear?  I’m not sure.  You can of course sand away the step, which shouldn’t be too onerous, as there are only short lengths on the body.

 

 

Conclusion

The old McLaren MP4 was an impressive machine, and this new kit does it justice.  The hardest part will be choosing the correct shade of red, although Zero paints have probably got a shade in their range already, followed by a little patience applying the many carbon-fibre decals, and deciding what to do about the step mentioned above.  Overall, it’s a cracking kit though.

 

Very highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of

[kapam]

Thanks for the review - I didn’t know about this kit!

I’m probably in the minority but I’m keen on F1 subjects in 1/24.

 It means they can go side-by-side with my other race car builds, for a realistic size comparison.