The company Slotvision produces different chassis for scale slot racers. They have three 1/24 scale versions and one 1/23 scale chassis. I bought a Slotvision Mach2 chassis. I plan to use it for a Ford Focus WRC ’02 Heller Kit.
Slotvision Mach 2
Slotvision Mach 2
I started this new car in the meantime. A Aoshima Porsche 936-78 Twin Turbo Kit which was originally motorised. I got this kit for around €5,– at one of our German flea markets and intend to make it into a Slot Car. For this I got myself a “slotvision mach 2″ chassis. More about that chassis in a separate post. The body was cleaned and primed, then sanded, primed again and sanded again to appear in this condition:
Porsche 936-78 Twin Turbo
Porsche 936-78 Twin Turbo
Ok … I’ll tell you what happened. After all this sanding, priming and filling a made a “fatal” error. I used the wrong paint for the finish. Have a look:
Faulty Paintjob
Faulty Paintjob Detail
After a couple of evenings spent with filling, sanding and priming the body you should see something resembling this:
King Cobra Body
King Cobra Body
The Tamiya “King Cobra” is actually a “DeTomaso Sport 5000 Spider (Fantuzzi)” and is not affiliated with the Shelby “King Cobra” like the name suggests. The link between the DeTomaso and Shelby was created by the Tamiya slot car and because of rumours that Shelby wanted to buy some of the cars. The design of the original was by Peter Brock, Shelby Engineer, who delivered something similar in design to the 1964 “Lang-Cooper”, a special Version of the King Cobra.
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After the first layers of primer have been applied and removed again it is now time to fill some parts of the model. The filler used in this case is a 2 component filler used for car bodywork repair. Here you need to be careful again. It’s flammable and the fumes are not really healthy. Since the original windscreen is not available any more and instead a lexan windscreen is mounted the 3 mounting holes for the original windscreen can be closed.
King Cobra Body
King Cobra Body
After the first priming and sanding down I applied a new layer of primer and started to assemble the few bodyparts which need attaching to the body and then some filling to blend in properly.
Tamiya "King Cobra" Body
Tamiya "King Cobra" Body
I started preparing the body of the vintage piece already some years ago by disassembling it and then sanded it down a bit. Yesterday I applied some coats of white primer and now it’s time to smooth it up again.
Remember how it looked before and after priming:
Tamiya "King Cobra" Body before priming
Tamiya "King Cobra" Body after priming
I had half an hour time so I started cleaning the Hub inlays for the King Cobra. They are made of resin which by itself is a quite brittle material. Using one of my scalpels I first removed them from the workpiece containing 2 hub inlays a piece. Then I started cleaning them. There is still a lot of cleaning work to be done though …
Wheel Hub Inlays
Wheel Hub Inlay
A couple of years ago I found a quite intriguing slot car on a German flea market (car boot sale). A seller had a to me unknown vintage slot car. Having a look at it I found out that it was made by Tamiya, a well known Japanese producer of plastic kits and rc models. A bit of research online and in some books of mine did show however that Tamiya also tried to get into the slot car market back in the 70s. I know of 2 models they did produce and sell in the American market as kits although other manufacturers based some of their slot cars on Tamiya model kits like the slot car modelling faction does today.
Tamiya King Cobra - all parts
Tamiya King Cobra Body and Spoiler