Post by Bernard Kron on Feb 23, 2019 16:05:22 GMT -8
1959 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Corto Passo
My one and only Ferrari build, from 2017, and not even a race car at that! Even though I know a fair amount about sports cars and road racing, up to then I’d focused entirely on hot rods, dry lakes and drag racing subjects, and customs. To get started in this area I thought it would be advisable to avoid building a high dollar kit and was fortunate to be able to obtain a copy of the much-maligned ESCI/AMT/ERTL version of the iconic Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta quite cheaply on eBay. It’s an odd kit, criticized for its inaccurate body shape and sometimes poor detail. Certainly the body is not accurate, and the wheels and tires are just plain horrible, but the chassis and motor are quite nicely detailed and with some TLC can be made to look quite presentable. But, despite the full detail motor you need to cut open the hood which is molded in place and the kit is missing some odd details like a battery, despite the full detail motor, and coolant hoses. The intake stacks on the carbs are pitifully small and out of scale, and some parts that you thought would be chromed, like the knockoff spinners (despite the fact that the wheels are chromed), fender mirror and the exhaust tips, are bare plastic. But overall parts fit is excellent, instructions quite clear with only a few minor errors and, with some attention to detail, can be built into a pretty fair version of this famous classic.
My approach was to stick to the instructions wherever possible and keep the project as straightforward as I could with minimal modifications to the kit. But correcting the more glaring faults, like the terrible rolling stock, the un-chromed trim parts, and, with the hood cut open, doing something about those wimpy intake trumpets, required some extra work. The wheels and tires were replaced with a set of exquisite hand-laced Borranni wire wheels and correct tires from Fernando Pinto, a Portuguese master modeler who sells his wares on eBay under the name crazycar19. They were expensive but the improvement to the look of the model is well worth it IMHO. The intake stacks were replaced with a set of aluminum Weber stacks from Detail Master. I wired the motor using a pair of Morgan Auto Detail pre-wired magneto caps to represent the Marelli distributor caps, and I made my own ignition wire guides from plastic rod. Unfortunately all that work is hidden under the big aluminum cold air box on top of the carbs!
Paint is Duplicolor Silver Acrylic Lacquer sealed under three coats of Duplicolor clear. The Italian tre-colore racing stripe, the Cavalino shields on the fenders, and the Modena license plates were all done with homemade decals. The chroming chores were handled using Molotow Liquid Chrome, which I must say is quite impressive stuff.
Overall it came out better than I had thought it would and was sufficiently satisfying to convince me to branch out to sports car and road racing subjects.
Thanx for lookin’,
B.
