Monogram 1/24 scale 1984 IMSA Ford Mustang GTP car

[pnance26]

Great work, Joel!

I find it so hard to believe that Revell or Monogram would make the kind of mistakes described in this build log. That is just unheard of from such prolific kit makers! (He says with tongue planted firmly in cheek... both have sucked for so long, we now consider it de rigeur for them!)

[Joel_W]

Patrick,
At least they got the right make of car.

joel

[Joel_W]

  Time for another update, which is a little of this and a little of that as I’m trying to make some progress on more then one front at a time.

  1st priority is getting both the upper and lower body shells primed, painted, decaled, glossed, polished, and waxed. Only the upper body shell will have the main White color, while the lower shell will only have the Ford Motorcraft Dark Blue on the tail along with the back clip of the upper body shell.

  Monogram did an outstanding job of molding the upper shell as all the details are crisp, and all the recessed panel lines are recessed. I did have to deal with a little flash but mold lines along the fenders from the front to the back were some of the largest, ok, the largest I’ve seen. Took a good deal of sanding and polishing to get the body ready for primer.

  With a White molded body, and the base coat being White, using Tamiya’s White primer was out of the question. So I went with my home made primer of equal parts Tamiya Gray and White primer, thinned 1:1 with Mr. Color’s #400 Leveling thinner. This way I could see where I primed, and where I didn’t, as well as a aid in applying the White color coat. I gave the body shell 48 hours to dry and cure, then a very light rubbing out with Tamiya #3000 sponge wet. The primer coat was just smooth enough yet offer grip to the color tack coat. No picture of the primer coat as the pictures all look like dull white exactly like the body shell, nothing like what it looks like in person.

  I’ve lost track of just how many different bottles of White I have from Gravity, Zero, Scale Finishes, Tamiya, Mr. Color, and MCW paints. For some reason I decided to finally try the MCW lacquer paints as I’ve them for literally years. Glass bottle, metal cap with treated cardboard seal, and a steel ball when I started to mix it up.

  Air brushed with just my usual method, and the body looked great. 3 days to cure and then I lightly polished it with 6,000, 8,000, 12,000 emery cloth. The picture is the upper resting on the lower shell which hasn’t been prepped yet for the Dark Blue color coat.


Now comes the fun part. The chassis which is Kelvar, and the lower shell for 1984 is Carbon Fiber, was painted a Dark Grayish/ Brown. Not sure why, but in most of the pictures of the real car I have it sure looks like just plain old Dark Gray. But all my written references clearly state the Dark Gray/Brown. Only trouble is I didn’t have a single bottle of paint that came close to it. So I just made my own. I used Tamiya XF-69 Nato Black mixed 1:1 with Tamiya XF-10 Brown, and once again thinned 1:1 with Mr. Color #400 Leveling thinner. The color is dark, but you can see that there’s a Brownish tint to it.


The Chassis





The transaxle, and rear suspension are just upper halves molded to the chassis, so I hand painted it using various shades of Meng Metallic Acrylic paints.



With the upper and lower shells dry fitted here’s a peak of just how little of the rear you can see through the rear deck window. With the restricted view, the upper half works to fool the viewer’s eye. There’s still the cockpit bulkhead to install and some tubing.



And the full cockpit yet to come.



  And now it's on to masking both body shells 

joel

[tatocorvette]

Hi Joel,

Nice progress. That transaxle looks good. Did you apply a wash to it?

Thanks,
Ismael

[Joel_W]

Ismael,
Thanks for stopping by and liking my progress to date. As for a wash, yes, I used Tamiya's Black PLW and just lightly wiped of the excess to keep the shadows as well as the grime effect.

joel

[Boreham]

Very interesting build. Great photos of the WIP.
I Picked up a few of these over the years, Complete sealed kits and some as part built/gluebombs with the view to use the engine in other ford race cars that use BD series turbo engines(Zakspeed Capri, Escort RS1700T etc.)
Looks like it'll build up as an interesting model in it's own right.
would be very interested in seeing engine bay reference photos and any other 1.7 and 2.1 engine information.


sodo-moto.com/listings/1980s-zakspeed-ford-motorsport-gtp-engines/

[Joel_W]

When I get to the engine I'll try to post a few pics that I have in my files.

Right now I'm working on my next update as I've completed the complex and taxing decaling progress.

joel

[Joel_W]

  Finally, I've accomplished progress for another update.  When I reached the point of air brushing the Dark Blue, the best paint match I could come up with was Tamiya's XF-8 after I've gone through more then a dozen different color choices from Tamiya, Mr. Color, Gravity, and MCW lacquer paints. Masking just seemed to take forever as I had to get the demarcation line right so that the decals would work, and at the same time match one side to the other so that it looked correct.  Standard Air brushing procedures that I always use, so I won't bother repeating them
over and over again.
 
  Any spots that will be over painted such as those side grills, I didn't bother with as they would shortly be painted a metallic color.





  For the few weeks as time has allowed, I’ve been working on decaling both the upper and lower body shells with AM decals from Indy Cal. The decals seem to be even thinner then previous ones I’ve used, and do require a very gentle touch as not to rip or damage them. For the most part I now let the decal solutions do nearly all the work, and only roll a Q tip over them when they’re almost dry.

  One issue I had is that the main rear wing decal came with a beautiful finger print embedded in it. I reached out to Michael at Indy Cals and he’s said that had to have happened during printing, so he’s replacing the decal, which I hope to have sooner then later. 
As it stands right now I still have small paint issues to deal with, which are slowly but surely disappearing.
  
At this point it’s just the decals on the paint, no gloss coats as yet.

Here’s a few pics of where the build stands as of now. The lower body shell is just loosely dry fitted so there’s slight gaps .













  And this picture is for my good friend Ismael the Corvette guy:




joel

[tatocorvette]

HA!  the answer is "No I haven't. Why would I? "  

Waiting for you for a shootout 



Looking good Joel! But I'm particularly impressed with the decal work over the hood grilles. Those look FABULOUS!
Keep up the good work!

Thanks,
Ismael

[arcticwolf]

I'm impressed too. Those fender louvers drove me nuts when I did mine. Looks great Joel.

[Joel_W]

Ismael & Paul,
Thanks guys for stopping by and checking out my build to date. It's greatly appreciated.

the front fender vents were nearly impossible to decal. Remember that I had tried to make make the vanes look like vanes and not a staircase laying on it's side which is exactly what they looked like. What I created is the need for a longer decal but didn't realize it as the Nunu 935s I built kit decals worked perfectly over their correctly molded vanes. So as I worked the decals down with a ton of Solvaset, they eventually would crack as I was asking to much of them. I just continued to work each vane the best I could, then let the decal start to dry enough that i could cut each decal at the lip so it folded down over the previous vane. Worked ok but I had those splits, cracks to deal with. I just let the decals cure for a few days, then I hand painted them with highly thinned out Tamiya XF-8 Blue. One coat, then let the dry for a few hours, then another coat and let that dry. That went on till the coverage blended into the decal. Since the paint is Matt and the decals have a slight sheen, that's the last issue to deal with. And that will be taken care of with the gloss coats, or so I hope.

joel

[tatocorvette]

Well worth the effort!

[chrissmith]

Looking fantastic Joel! I’m so glad to see you back at the bench . It’s good for the soul. Hopefully there will be more to come.
I can completely understand dealing with medical issues can take a toll on all involved. It’s nice to get back to some sort of normalcy. Looking forward for more updates

[sam]

I had this kit as a kid and had no idea what kind of race car it was. It just looked cool on the box art. Never did finish it. I think I used the wheels on another build and the body for a slot car. You, on the other hand, are really doing it justice.

[Joel_W]

Ismael,
My family was always in the Ford camp. I'm a huge Hyundai guy. We're on our 5th one and the wife is getting a 2023 Sonata V6.

Progress has been kind of slow even for me. Just to many family and personal issues to deal with right now, but progress is still progress.

joel