The Paintshop - Slot.It Porsche 956 for the Group C Championship

The next feature on the "Paintshop" is the car which replaced the Porsche 956 "Marlboro" that I painted considering a future participation in racing (as I told here). However, I kind of felt bad about racing that model, so I decided to paint a brand new model (the Marlboro had some woes, ias the chassis and body were used).

While searching for a different livery for the Porsche 956, I was browsing the Racing Sports Cars Archive when I found a nice looking and mostly unknown Porsche 956 that contested the 1984 Le Mans 24 Hours, the #21 "Rollei Cameras" from Charles Ivey Racing, this one:
Since this is also a quite simple color scheme (and I had the silver and black spray cans!), I decided to paint my model based on this car. So, here's the result:
The black section was painted in first place, since the silver paint never dries completely and for that reason, I prefer not to use mask on silver painted sections. I missed the masking on the mid body air outlets and some black "smoke" entered (better seen on the top-down view). If this was a model for the shelves or if I had some extra time to paint the car, I would have corrected this. Since it's a racing car - what the heck, no one will notice it when I blast around the track with it!

After painting the black rear, I allowed it to dry overnight before masking it and apply the silver section. Then it was time to remove the masking tape and apply decals. I chose the #7 in detriment of the original #21, I have this belief that 7 is my lucky number and all my racing models bear this number (well, I was born on a day 7, maybe that's where this superstition comes from). Decals were chosen from assorted letfovers of 1:43 decal sheets I have laying around. I do need some big logos to fit the wings and wide sections of my models, as it brings up the looks on the model quite considerably.

After applying the decals, I painted the black sections (this time with brush...), mainly the dashboard under the front windshield and the headlights housing. The details like fuel inlets ad exhausts were painted in silver. The pilot was also painted on this occasion (I used the replacement Porsche interior from Slot.It). After all dried up, I started covering the body with thin layers of clear varnish and allowed it to dry overnight after some 3 or 4 very thin layers were applied. Then, on the next day I applied a couple "normal" layers of varnish, and allowed it to dry again overnight.

After applying all plastic detail parts, the car was ready to hit the track - only 2 days before the scheduled 1st race! Since this was a very long painting process, I had to resort to a "T-car" I had, the less performing Porsche 956 KH, just to get the mechanical side working. In the end, this car had an astonishing 1st race result, scoring an unexpected 2nd place. But that will be stuff for a next article...

Until next time...

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...