The Elan has always been a favourite of mine, even if at 6'0" I have a hard time getting into one. (The Miata is a better fit but just doesn't have the cachet of something designed by the master himself, Colin Chapman). Years ago I built a Gunze Sangyo kit, which was disappointing as it was a curbside kit without that lovely little twincam motor. This kit, also by Gunze Sangyo, is one of their so-called High-Tech kits, and so has a lot of detail.
First is the chassis which is made of a fairly thick photo-etched sheet and spun-cast white metal parts packaged in a large number of very small baggies. The PE sheet is very thick, and the scoring for the folds is not very deep, so some care has to be taken to get it straight.
Once folded, though, the classic sheet metal backbone is very well done and looks the part. The white metal crossmember and lower A-arms will require some cleaning and paint.
The first pass at primer, using Tamiya's fine surface primer, was not successful, with the paint pooling in creases rather than sticking. Perhaps I hadn't cleaned up the white metal properly, so it all went into an acetone bath; this was followed by two coats of Dupli-Color Sandable Primer, which I have used successfully for white metal in the past.
Now I just have to keep my grubby mitts off it while it dries. Stay tuned!
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