Lots of adventures to report. This 1/12 scale kit, weighing 1456 grams as delivered, leads to a nice build of a particularly quirky little race car weighing in at a hefty 853 grams.
Door hinges are nice and strong compared to some past flimsy MFH designs involving 0.8 mm rod and some folded photo-etched bits. But they still need to be bent to fit and I am not sure that I've gotten it entirely right.
The dashboard includes decals for all the switches -- did Le Mans drivers really need a turn signal? Perhaps the Goup 6 regs required this -- as well as an ignition key and fob. Putting in the dashboard (along with the windshield) required some filing and shoehorning, and hides the connection for the steering column which needs to be made by feel. A certain amount of horsing around is needed as it should slide in under the door hinge structures, but these clearly need to be put on earlier.
The front inner fenders have dowels on them socketing into holes in the underside of the nose cone, but there is no way you can see what you are doing when trying to line up the nose cone. More horsing around ensued, culminating with the amputation of said dowels. Lots of CA glue and some flimsy aluminum rivets keep it lined up, but it all seems to hold together.
The hinge for the rear engine cover, modified as described in an earlier post, works well as long as a bit of slop is left in them to allow it all to move around as it closes up.
Overall the paint won't win any prizes, but I am happy with the results. Little hub caps and tire valves remain to be added once the last paint touchups dry.
Little details like the engine cover latches and 0.5 mm (0.020") aluminum rivets holding various sheet metal bits on are neat and were relatively easy given my long experience with MFH kits, but a beginner might find the whole thing frustrating.
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