11 October 2009

The Paintshop - Porsche 956 "Marlboro"

"The Paintshop" is another new section to the blog. In this section, I'll present some of my painted slot cars, either from scratch or just modified. In fact, this is not a 100% new section, as I've already shown you some paintwork before, with the "Liqui Moly" BMW 320i (here). So, to officially start this section, I'll present you my Slot.It Porsche 956 painted with the color scheme of the Marlboro brand.

The color scheme was based on the #8 car that contested the 1983 Le Mans 24 Hours race, driven by Klaus Ludwig, Stefan Johansson and Bob Wollek. The trio brought the car home in 6th place, on a race where the legendary "Rothamans Porsche" team scored 1-2 (check the results and photos here). The #8 Marlboro Porsche paintjob suffered a bit throughout the race, as can be seen from the pictures:

So, this is my interpretation of the model:


This was a "leftover" bodywork that lied around in the GT Team box of spares. It was exclusively used for testing for the annual National 24 Hours Race, that used the Group C cars a couple years ago. The respective clear parts and exhausts, fuel caps and radiators were lost, so I had to resort to another model that was left behind, a "Kenwood" Porsche 956 that ended its days in the spares box (that's why the windshield bears the "Sonauto" logo).

The bodywork was fairly simple to paint. The usual Tamiya Spray white primer was applied before the next steps. Using Tamiya masking tape, I covered all the white areas you see on the model, and then passed some thin layers of Tamiya TS-36 "Fluorescent Red" Spray, which is the color that best matches the Marlboro red from the whole Tamiya catalog. After passing some layers and a thorough pause for drying (a whole weekend), I removed the masking tape and applied the decals from some old sheets I had for 1:43 models. Then, I applied gentle layers of Tamiya Clear Spray (TS-13). After passing 3 or 4 very thin layers and allowing them to dry, I finished the model with a normal passing of Clear Spray again. The black details (headlight housing, window borders and radiators) were brush painted before the final assembly of the bodywork.

The final look could be better if I had the adequate Marlboro decals, this is the best I could do with my 1:43 sheet. The Dunlop and #8 numbers were also available from old sheets too, and that's what I used mostly.

Still, in the end it's a very easy to replicate color scheme that should look great on any model, not just the Porsche 956. To finish this post, just a small addition: this model was actually painted to race, but now it sits very well on the shelves - so I bought another "white body" Porsche 956 to attack the incoming Group C series. I've already checked for some easy-and-good-looking color schemes and I assure you that painting is in progress. So, keep an eye out for news...

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