Lancia Flaminia: Overview

The moniker GT in the name of a car originally meant Gran Turismo, or Grand Touring. By definition, a GT had a high-performance engine and state of the art handling and braking; but some ultimate level of performance was sacrificed to make it spacious and comfortable enough to consider spending a week in one with one's lady friend (because only men bought GTs... but I digress) exploring the Cote d'Azur. The term has come to be applied to a lot of cars that don't have either the performance or the comfort, and in some cases have neither. Today's Bentley Continental is a great example of what the true GT ought to be, which would feature Ferrari levels of performance if it didn't have the extra weight due to the cabin luxury and trunk volume that few Ferraris can match. 

Prior to its acquisition by Fiat in 1969, Lancia offered the Flaminia Coupe GT as its entry into the GT class. It had very classy and subtle styling combined with a decent 2.5 or 2.8 litre V6 with up to three carbs and a rear-mounted transaxle driving a de Dion rear axle. Brakes were discs and it rode on Pirelli Cinturatos. A large trunk and luxurious interior made it into a true GT, perhaps somewhat more affordable than a Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso or a Maserati 3500 GT. Perfect for a high-speed run down the autostrada to Cortina d'Ampezzo for a week of skiing. Wikipedia claims a total of 2865 cars were made, including a convertible and a 2+2 on a longer wheelbase, from 1957 to 1965. There were also some delectable Zagato bodies, which fetch large amounts at auction today.

Sadly very few kits exist of pre-Fiat Lancias. I have Profil 24's D20 in 1952 Le Mans trim; and I once sold a 1/20 kit of the D50 Formula 1 car that was sold to Ferrari because I didn't want to branch out into yet another scale. So when I stumbled across this kit of the Flaminia by IT Models, I had to have it. 

 

First impressions are of a very well made resin kit, with excellent photoetched detail. Decals are only fair, however. The V6 is not modelled, sadly, but it will have to do as there are no alternatives. 

I have painted it in AS-5, which Tamiya calls Luftwaffe Pale Blue but which certainly looks green to me. While not likely to have been a factory colour, it is certainly period-correct. As it is a matte colour, I polished it with Tamiya compounds, then applied a gloss coat; it still doesn't shine like a modern car but is surely pretty decent compared to period paints. I used the same colour in my BMW 507, another GT, where it looks great. Perhaps I should source some other pastel '50s colours...

The interior will be Tamiya TS-33 Dull Red, with flat clear on the floor and gloss clear on the seats.

A very classy GT from another era... should be complete fairly soon. Stay tuned!

Triumph GT6+: Complete (#19 for 2021)

Build a crappy kit they said... I put this one aside with only an hour or two of work require to finish it, in disgust at how poorly the doors and hood fit. But hey, maybe I can clear it off the Shelf of Doom and get a 19th built in 2021. 

Recall the primary issue was the thickness of the windshield A-pillars. I opened that up and as a result had to make a new windscreen. This in turn affected the fit of the dashboard, limiting how the multi-part body would fit. When I finally got the body on over the chassis, the first thing that became obvious was that the door hinges weren't clearing the dashboard. Next came some fairly brutal work with the Dremel, the details of which which I will spare you. 

After that the body went back on OK, but with the top of the firewall unglued from the left side panel. Some 'encouragement' was necessary to get it all to stick. The car may need to be posed with the right side door permanently opened; failing that there may be a role to play for the CA glue.

 

 

Then came the hood hinges. Urgh. Never seen anything so fiddly and unlikely to succeed. Again the car will be posed wit the hood open, if only to showcase the Webers. And the rear roll pan just sits there, with no tab or anything to hold it in place. 

 

But in the end perseverance paid off, and while far from my best build, I'm pleased with how well it turned out given the starting point.

 

What's next? Hard to say! There isn't anything else on the Shelf of Doom likely to be finished in a couple of days, so that appears to be it for now. Stay tuned!

2021 overview: 18 built.

A decent build rate this year. At the current pace I've got 14 years to go before I run out, if I count the stalled projects on the Shelf of Doom.

Lancia Delta S4 rally car. A decent kit from Nunu, but the upgrade kit wasn't worth it in my opinion. The lovely little motor, with both turbo and superchargers and two intercoolers, gets buried in the back under all kinds of ducting and air intakes.

Allison-powered Thunderbird, with the canopy made from a plastic spoon from Costco. I had a lot of fun with this one. Take it to warp, Mr. Sulu!

A Profil 24 resin kit of the Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 as driven in the 1939 Le Mans by Sommer and Biondetti. They didn't finish, but it wasn't for lack of style. The beginning of the concept of all-enveloping bodywork, replacing fenders sticking out in the breeze.

 

 

I'm counting the F100 and Cobra as two kits, even though they came in the same box with a trailer (which I haven't finished). Two classics. The racing numbers are not for any particular car; the Cobra is the old AMT molds that need a lot of cleanup, and I dug into the aftermarket bin to find a decent set of Webers for it. The F100 is decent and includes a lot of bonus parts such as oxy-acetylene welding kit which required some tubing from the spares bin.

 

Profil 24 resin kit of the Aston Martin DB2 driven to 3rd overall (1st in class) at Le Mans in 1952 by Macklin and Thompson. The idea was to build it in 24 hours, corresponding to this year's 24 h race, but I would up needing 36 hours mainly due to paint issues; the kit has no motor so it would be difficult to build it faster. Just a few short years after the 1938 Alfa and the full-fendered bodywork has become the standard.

OK, so here's a weird one. The original Unimog 401, in a very rare kit by Lassen Project. This agricultural little 4WD had a ~30 hp diesel with gearing that made for loads of torque at the wheels, but a fairly low top speed. Ground clearance was enormous due to tractor wheels and portal axles. The Mercedes dealer where I worked in 1975-76 had a 406 which was only slightly less agricultural. 

 

From the ridiculous to the sublime: Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato, an early Model Factory Hiro multi-media kit. Just gorgeous. This one reproduces a specific car that had slightly flared fenders; my preference would have been the road car but beggars can't be choosers. Did not finish at Le Mans in 1961. 

 

 

A later MFH kit, this one the Ferrari 315S that won the Mille Miglia in 1957, but not Le Mans where it was beaten by the D-Types and their disc brakes. An absolutely superb kit of a gorgeous car. Maybe I'll just stop here and drool for a bit.

 Having wiped the silly grin off my face, it's on to Tamiya's very well detailed Jag Mark II sedan. While Tamiya kits are 'easy', this one responds well to an experienced hand. For example, the decals mimicking the wood grain are complex and can easily be torn. Patience is a virtue.

This resin kit of the Porsche 917 PA was produced by a fellow named Allen James, now sadly passed away. I built it as a tribute. As driven by Jo Siffert in the 1969 Can-Am series, the flat 12 eventually acquired turbocharging which spelled the end of the McLarens and their 7-litre V8s.

 

Speaking of 7-litre V8s, a fellow named Gentleman Jack Sears, in a not-so gentlemanly tactic, brought a Galaxie with a 427 to England to run in club races against Jag sedans (half the displacement) and Cortinas (a quarter of the displacement). Prepped by NASCAR race car builders Holman & Moody, the thing was a total brute and you can find video of it sliding all over the track in classic races at Goodwood today. The Jags were able to keep up in corners but once Sears got the Galaxie pointed more or less in the right direction and nailed it, it was all over until the next corner. The kit is the old '63 AMT kit with modifications guided by photos off the Interweb. This was great fun to build, including adding things like the oil cooler.

 

From the ridiculous to the sublime, once again: The prototype Countach, which no longer exists as it was slammed into a barrier to prove crash-worthiness, had a very clean shape. Sadly the rear-mounted V12 needed lots more cooling air than Bertone allowed for, so even the first production version had started to acquire all sorts of scoops, vents, slots and tabs that would make every single one of them look like a teenager with too much makeup. Sad because the original shape is so nice. I modified the excellent Fujimi Enthusiast kit to reproduce the prototype, covering up slots and vent as needed.What a clean, radical shape!

From the sublime back to the ridiculous: I cut up this AMT kit of the Corvair to fit a 3D-printed V12 in a mid-engine format. This required moving the rear axle backwards and widening the whole thing to take a donated Porsche 956 chassis from the boneyard. Lots of cutting, puttying, gluing and filing. I like the slightly dachshund shape to it, like it's ready to lunge; It would be a rocket if anyone ever bothered to build one.

 

1960 Plymouth Fury wagon, an old Johan kit, with a mopdern Viper motor stuffed into it. I was going to insert the entire Viper drivetrain but decided it wasn't worth the the effort, partly because the Viper is so much wider and shorter, so the Viper chassis went back into the boneyard.

 

1970 Abarth 1000 TCR, a resin kit by Italian outfit Arena Modelli. Race records are not available online to verify the claim by Arena Modelli that it ran, or indeed finished, at the 1970 Trento Bondoni hillclimb. A proper little bit of Abarth lunacy, with 145 horsepower hanging out the back of a Fiat 600 that might have made 35 hp in stock form.

Next is a lovely example of the classic Grand Tourer concept (as opposed to the sports car): the 1963 Maserati 3500 GT, in a pretty awful period kit by Aurora.Opening doors are nice but a pain to get right. I found pictures online of a particularly nice one, which is where the paint scheme came from.

Finally the 18th build is this VW Caddy, a resin kit from C1 models which requires sacrificing Revell's excellent Mark 1 Rabbit. I dug through the aftermarket bits for a turbo 16V from a later GTI, along with fat little wheels and tires. 

So what's next in 2022? Hard to say! There are a dozen kits on the Shelf of Doom so that might be one place to start. Stay tuned!

VW Pickup: Final assembly (#18 for 2021)

Number 18 for 2021 is a nice addition to the collection of Exceptionally Silly Little Trucks (ESLT): the C1 Models resin transkit of the VW Caddy, with a turbocharged version of the 16V engine from Clearly Scale and various other enhancements from the aftermarket (brakes, wheels and tires, seats) or the scratch-building supplies (shock tower braces, exhaust system, etc.). 

(Note the Lancia Delta S4 was not #18; somewhere back there I skipped a number or two.)

 

As always there were a couple of last minute fails which I will not point out; and I'll thank you for not pointing them out, either, should you spot any. 

 

Other entries in the ESLT category include a Subaru Brat that has had the nose lengthened to take a full WRX engine, and a couple of Suzuki-based hot rods going back some ways. 

This was built as part of a group build (theme: VWs) for the Ottawa Model Car Group on FB. I won last year's group build, which gave me the right to pick the theme for this year. This is a nice build but not show-winner nice, so I don't expect a repeat.