Ten years of blogging: A summary

Where has the time gone? I just noticed that last month marked ten years of blogging about model car builds. 136 builds documented in 680 posts (including this one). Most of them are pretty decent but don't bear too much scrutiny; following are a few highlights, more or less in chronological order. I was hoping to limit it to ten builds but that has proven difficult. (WARNING: old guy reminiscing). 

Alpine A210: a very simple but well designed kit kit by Heller. A 1.3 litre Renault-derived engine and a light mid-engine chassis meant 3rd in class and 12th overall at Le Mans in 1966.

Abarth OT 1300, so-called 'Periscopio". My first Model Factory Hiro kit. Another 1.3 litre motor, this one hung out the back as the car was still based on the donor Fiat 600, was enough for 3rd overall at the Nurburgring 500 in 1966.

Datsun 510, an excellent kit by Revell as is the matching 240Z. After designing the Cobra Daytona Coupe, Pete Brock went on to form BRE, racing Datsuns in the SCCA sub-2.5 litre class. The team, which included driver John Morton, was unbeatable. 

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Mercedes-Benz 300 SL 'Gullwing'. The superb Tamiya kit, with Rudge wheels from Historic Racing Miniatures. 'Nuff said.

Lancia 037. An excellent Hasegawa kit, for which there are now detailed engine kits from the aftermarket people. The last 2WD rallye car, this featured both turbo and superchargers in an effort to keep up with the Audi S1. Driven by the great Walter Röhrl to first place in the 1983 Monte Carlo. 

BRM P83, a.k.a. H16. A 1/43 scale Model Factory Hiro kit. You'll need the desk magnifier for this one! The H16 engine consisted of a pair of stacked flat 8 motors and while it looked good on paper, it was heavy, slow, and the width of the motor interfered with rear suspension geometry. Jackie Stewart managed its only podium finish in this one, 2nd at the Belgian GP in 1967. First went to Dan Gurney in the Gurney Weslake (the only win for that car), with Chris Amon in 3rd in a Ferrari 312; I have MFH kits of these as well and will one day complete the podium for that race.

Aston Martin DBR1. My first resin kit (from Profil 24) and a bit of a learning experience. The paint is incorrect but that is because I didn't have an airbrush and was limited by available colours in cans. This one replicates the 1959 car driven by Carroll Shelby (yes, that Shelby) and Roy Salvadori to the win at Le Mans. Shelby's poor heart forced him to stop racing shortly thereafter, and he switched to hotrodding the AC Ace. The rest, as they say, is history.

Jaguar D-Type, another Profil 24 resin kit. What a shape...  this 1957 version, run by Ecurie Ecosse and wearing Scottish blue paint, was driven to the win by Ron Flockhart and Ivor Bueb at Le Mans. 

Montreal side-walk snow plow. And now for something completely different: 1/35 scale tank chassis, 1/25 scale Pontiac 421 supercharged motor, cab cut down from a 1961 Ford Falcon Ranchero, and snow plow from some AMT kit or other. Sadly the City did not take up my suggested modification to the 4-cylinder Diesel units currently in service.

Hudson Hornet. This is the excellent Moebius kit. I chopped the roof on this one, not as easy as it looks. The hot-rodded flathead 6 has discreet exhaust pipe peeking out from under the passenger door, and the chassis has been lowered. The Bare Metal Foil is not as nice as I would like and I am going to stick to silver paint to mimic chrome going forward. 

Citroen DS19. This excellent kit is from Ebbro and well worth the price. The colours, yellow with a dark blue roof, are correct for the car showed at the Paris Auto Show launch in 1955 but were never offered in a production version.

Mercedes Benz 300 SLR. This Revell kit is quirky and needs careful test fitting; the Tamiya kit of the  300 SL is much nicer. The SLR may look like the SL but the production-based inline 6 has been replaced with the straight 8 out of the Grand Prix cars. The chassis includes inboard drum brakes front and rear (necessitating drive shafts at the front as well), and a rear-mounted gearbox. The engine leans so far over that the driveshaft runs between the driver's legs. This car was Rudolf Uhlenhaut personal daily driver, and was sold by MB a couple of years ago for about $150 million. This hobby is saving me millions, I tell you, millions!  

Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ, later known as the TZ1 after the TZ2 was released. An excellent Model Factory Hiro kit. Roberto Businello and Bruno Deserti managed 1st in the 1.6 litre production class (13th overall) at Le Mans in 1964, making up for the fact the predecessor (the SZ) failed to finish in 1963. The classic Alfa twin-cam is very well modelled, although I suspect the race car had the twin-plug head.

1929 Miller 91 Packard Cable Special. Assuming you can find one, this resin kit by Historic Racing Miniatures is not for beginners. Leon Duray only managed 22nd at the 1929 Indianapolis but the car was a game-changer. A 2-litre, supercharged, twin-cam 8-cylinder and front wheel drive: sounds like 2019 specs. Miller, an Armenian immigrant, and his successors went on to dominate Indy and oval track racing through to the 1960s with the classic Offenhauser motor based on this car.

Cheetah! Another challenging (and rare) kit from Historic Racing Miniatures. Bud Clussereth wrestled this beastly, overheating but incredibly sexy Cheetah to 6th in class, 12th overall, at the 1965 Road America race. Ridiculously quick in a straight line, handling was said to be atrocious. Meant to be a Corvette-powered competitor to the Cobra, founder Bill Thomas was unable to get GM to back him the way Ford backed Shelby, and the company went under with only a dozen cars completed. Since then there have been hundreds of fibreglass replicas built by more or less unscrupulous operators, leading to lots of lawsuits by Thomas' estate.

 

1965 Porsche 356C Carrera 2000. This Fujimi Enthusiast Series kit is excellent, with superb engine detail. The last of the 356 series before the 911 took over.

1964 Falcon Sprint. The Trumpeter kit this is based on is excellent. I modified this to match online pictures of the Monte Carlo entry that finished 2nd overall, driven by Bo Ljunfeldt. In fact it finished first in terms of elapsed time, but a Mini was classified first -- the Holman-Moody modified 289 must have made the drive very entertaining indeed, but the rules handicap large displacement engines.A Saab 96 with an 850 cc 2-stroke motor was 3rd.  

MAZ KZKT-537L Tractor. The 1/35 kit of this military truck (Trumpoter) was augmented by a 1/35 Hasegawa kit of the Hitachi earthquake rescue equipment and a series of 1/24 and 1/25 bits (engine, turbocharger, resin White COE truck cab, etc.). Lots of scratch building.

BMW 507. A Revell Germany kit that is better than the average. This gorgeous car, with its lovely little V8, almost bankrupted BMW in the late '50s; it cost more to build than the 300 SL, and they only made about 225 of them (each one sold at a loss) before pulling the plug. The shape reappeared in the Z8. 

Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale. Mixed-media kit from Model Factory Hiro. What a stunning little beast! I've wanted one since seeing it in Road & Track in about 1968. Based on the Type 33 race cars with the 2-litre V8, Alfa made 18 chassis for road use. Seven were sent off to the carrozzerias for fancy bodies; at least one of these was rebodied several times so a search will appear to turn up more than seven cars. Most of the other eleven were sold to private buyers: of these two were Series 1 prototypes and the remaining nine were the late Series 2 version. I believe all eleven  cars still exist but they essentially never come up at auction, with Alfa having at least two in their museum.

1949 Ferrari 166 MM Barchetta. Multi-media Model Factory Hiro kit. The car that made Ferrari: Luigi Chinetti and Peter Mitchell-Thomson won Le Mans in this 2-litre car in 1949, virtually assuring world recognition. The modern big-bore V12 was a big part of this and confirmed Enzo's hunch that the engine would make his career. Chinetti, who drove almost the entire 24 hours due to illness of his co-pilot, went on to run the North American Ferrari importer as well as competing under the NART banner. All that and it's sexy too!  The founder of Road and Track had a Barchetta and a matching Berlinetta, the lucky devil. 

Toyota 2000 GT. An excellent Hasegawa kit with the optional engine detail. It's unfortunate Toyota didn't build more than a few hundred of this gorgeous little coupe, 5 years before the Datsun 240Z.

1961 Ferrari 156 "Sharknose". Model Factory Hiro kit in big 1/12 scale. Phil Hill won the championship in this car (shown here as it ran in the Belgian GP). A stunning kit of a gorgeous car that rewards added detailing. 

1959 Jaguar Mark II. An excellent Tamiya kit (except for the metal transfer bits). I once owned a Rover 2000 TC, and when they called it hte poor man's Jag, this is the Jag they were referring to. A common sight in British cop shows of the period.

Ferrari 315S. Model Factory Hiro kit. Shown here in Targa Florio winning livery (driven by the great Piero Taruffi), the 1957 315S (3.8 litre) and 335S 4.1 litre) were intended to stop the Jaguar onslaught at Le Mans. Instead the Italians tried too hard and as a result suffered repeated engine failures, especially on the larger 335S. In spite of more 50 more horses than the D-Type, Ferrari was never really able beat the British cars until Enzo gave up on drum brakes and moved to discs. After that, the better power of the V12 made all the difference.

1953 Unimog 401. A very rare kit by a company that made only this kit before disappearing. The first Moggie was essentially a road-worthy farm tractor.

1968 MG B GT. Resin body by C1 Models combined with the Aoshima kit of the roadster. A lovely and simple little sports car with a few flaws (the leak-prone Armstrong lever action shocks come to mind) that were easily remedied.   

1924 Alfa Romeo P2 8C 2000. Another 1/12 kit from Model Factory Hiro, featuring mind-boggling detail. The P2 won the first World Championship; prior to 1924, there were a number of Grands Prix run by various organisations but there was no real coordination among them and certainly no points system for crowning a champion at the end of the season. This car was driven to the win at the Italian GP by Antonio Ascari
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1957 Maserati 450S. Profil 24 resin kit. Another gorgeous but failed attempt by an Italian manufacturer to unseat the Jaguars at Le Mans using all the latest technologies except disc brakes. Jean Behra and André Simon withdrew at the 3 hour mark due to transmission failure or an accident (Wikipedia isn't clear).

1965 Cobra Daytona Coupe. Model Factory Hiro kit. Another competitor, along with the D-Type, for sexiest car on the planet. Bob Bondurant and Jochen Neerpasch drove this one to first in class (7th overall) at Nurburgring.

1955 Aston Martin DB3S. Model Factory Hiro kit. The paint is finally the correct metallic green for '50s Astons thanks to my new airbrush. Driven by Peter Collins and Paul Frère, his car finished 2nd overall, first in class in the 1955 Le Mans race, which was marred by an accident that killed a large number of spectators -- the Mercedes 300 SLRs were proving to be very competitive until their withdrawal halfway through the race.

What's next? Hopefully another ten years of interesting builds. There are another 165 kits in the stash and about 15 in various stages of completion, so lots to work with. Stay tuned!

Blog rearranging?

We are closing in on 10 years of blogging here. In March 2014, I posted three times about Tamiya's Alpine A110 1600; the build is still on a shelf and looks pretty good to be honest, in spite of the orange peel. 

The latest complete is the fiendishly complex 917K from Model Factory Hiro. Not for the faint of heart! The engine is mounted slightly crooked to the firewall, with the result that it all fits, sort of. I've come a long way, and I hope you, my faithful readers if any, have enjoyed the trip. 

But occasionally I find the search function is inadequate; I try to find a specific post and even I find it challenging sometimes. I see there are 203 builds on the shelf, some predating the blog; and I also see that there are 658 posts (including this one). So the first thing I did was to create an index in an Excel sheet. This has helped me find things. (Note the Labels at the top of the page can reduce the clutter, assuming my selection of Labels is of help).

But I also realized to what extent some kits took many years to build, with extended time on the Shelf of Doom. The Mosquito is still unfinished, having been first described in January 2017; MFH's 908/03, partner to the 917K, took close to 5 years to build. So tracking a build from start to finish has been challenging. 

I am therefore considering combing all posts about a given topic into one, so that, for instance, the 13 posts about the Mossie could be found in one location. New posts would come as edits to this 'master' post, and the others would all be deleted. 

Some cutting and pasting would be required which also leads to the possibility of copying it all to another platform, such as Microsoft Word; this would remedy my perhaps paranoid fear that Google will, one day, ditch the blogger.com platform as insufficiently profitable. This is worrisome because while I can save the blog to my home computer, it is as an XML file which includes all sorts of blogger-specific HTML code and which cannot easily be converted to something readable by humans. I'm thinking of posterity here... just in case my great-grandchildren want to read any of this. 

This will of course all take time, perhaps several months or more of on-again, off-again work. Your thoughts would be welcome.

Readership data

Hello, fellow modellers and readers of this blog! I've got some interesting data to share. 

From my first post, in February 2014, up to roughly July 2023, I had a total of about 55,000 views of pages of this blog, or about 450 to 500 per month. Some months the numbers were under 100, and there were occasional peaks at 1000 or 2000 per month. Although there are readers across the planet, few or none of these views were from Singapore. 

That all changed in August 2023. In the last three months, total views has surged to 107,000, driven entirely by 46,900 new views from Singapore alone.  

So: Who are you? What are your interests? What do you like about this blog? And most importantly, how did you find it? Drop me a line using the 'Comment' button; if you don't want it published, just say so and I'll keep it between us. 

I will point out this is not the first time there has been a surge from a specific geographic location; several years ago there was sudden interest from Russia which doubled total page views in a few months, then died down. But in any case feel free to initiate a conversation. 

Best, 

    Tom

Stirling engine: Introduction

And now for something completely different! The Stirling engine, invented in 1816 by Robert Stirling, converts thermal energy of a fuel to mechanical energy of a flywheel. In this sense the Stirling cycle is similar to the Rankine, Otto and Diesel cycles (steam, gasoline and diesel engines respectively). Like the Rankine cycle, it involves external combustion, meaning the fuel is burned outside the cylinders that convert the expanding gas to mechanical motion; but unlike the Rankine cycle, no high-pressure steam is generated. Rather the process is a closed-cycle loop involving a gas (air, in the case of early Stirling engines) which is in turn heated and cooled, pushing and pulling on a pair of pistons as the temperature is varied. 

This kit, produced by Böhm of Germany and sold by Lee Valley Tools, comes with all components machined and ready for assembly; it also includes a fuel reservoir and wick designed to take ethyl alcohol. (I may substitute propyl alcohol as it is available at 99% locally, versus only 70% for ethyl alcohol.) 

As the air used as a working fluid is at atmospheric pressure, there are no safety issues around potential explosions as there might be with a steam engine operating at high pressure; the only safety issues will be hot surfaces and an open flame. 

Stay tuned! This could be interesting.