Lancia Delta S4: Complete (#18 for 2021)

Well, not one of my better ones; but it will do.

 

 

This is the car driven to second place in the 1986 San Remo rallye by Cerrato and Cerri. Of course Henri Toivonen wrecked a similar one in the Tour de Corse that year, killing himself and his copilot, Sergio Cresto. Along with an earlier fatal accident involving spectators in Portugal, this contributed to the end of the Group B rules which allowed monster cars with their mid-engine, 600+ hp motors -- the S4 had both a turbo and a supercharger and was known to be a bit of a handful. 

 

It's a very well done kit and a better job could be made of it. The dress-up kit was very complete, although some items were not at all obvious. The various radiator screens and wire mesh were very nice, but the decals simulating carbon and glass fibre were a pain. 

No idea who Totip, the primary sponsor, was; Wikipedia says it was an Italian gaming totalizer. A bookie shop maybe? All in all a nice addition to the Lancia club.

 

What's next you ask, apart from that painful GT6+? Not sure, but I seem to recall committing to a VW build of some kind for one of the Facebook groups for about mid-January, so maybe I should get going and pick one. Stay tuned!

Lancia Delta S4: Interior

The interior is done here and I am reasonably happy with it. 

I made the coiled wire for the radio from a length of 0.020" spark plug wire, wound around a pin. I'm quire pleased with the results. The rest of it is the excellent decal set that came with the kit.

I chose not to use the aftermarket seatbelts but chose to go with the decals, as the decal sheet had gotten wet. I'll but the aftermarket bits away for a rainy day. 

On to the bodywork. Given that most of the exterior will be covered in decals, I was hoping to get away with no paint but a larger than expected seam has required putty, so it's off to the paint booth. Stay tuned!

Speaking of Lancias: Resin versus 3D printing

As my faithful reader knows, I do enjoy building up oddball stuff and getting my hands on aftermarket bits from a range of sources. One favourite upgrade is putting an engine into a curbside. 

 

A while back I got my hands on one of the Lancia Delta HF Integrale kits from Hasegawa. Unlike the gorgeous Delta S4, which is currently stalled on the bench, the HF is a curbside. I have had a resin underhood kit from USCP, essentially a tray with a few bits to dress it up, for quite some time now. 

But I recently came across a complete engine produced using 3D printing by GPModeling. So of course I had to order it. 

Quite the difference. The USCP kit is simple and really just fills the hole you get when you cut off the hood. But the 3D printing bits show how the new resin printers work. Of course deciding what is sprue and what is part will be challenging. Once the S4 is complete I'll tackle this. Or maybe I'll tackle the new Flaminia resin kit first... there are far too few kits of pre-Fiat Lancias out there. 

Stay tuned!