Protar AJS 7R 350cc (1/9)

[paddy]

AJS 7R, 350cc single cylinder race bike from around 1959.

So here we have a Protar model motorcycle. Founded in 1963 in Bologna by Tarquinio Provini, a famous motorcycle Grand Prix racer , they produced a wide range of motorcycle kits of the era and later branching into GP cars.

Sold out to Italeri around 1970 the history gets sketchy. The original kits were multimedia featuring white metal and plastic parts. A lot of the cars were re released under the Italeri banner, but they were now all plastic which presented challenges to the builder as the replaced white metal parts are not really strong enough in plastic to do the job as anyoine who has tried to build the Fiat Mephistopheles, alfa 8200 or the fiat GP806 will know..

The motorcycles ? well here is where it’s odd because Italeri did issue some bikes like the manx Norton in plastic which had originally been multimedia i think but others like this AJS seem to be all plastic but…in Protar boxes. My guess is Italeri carried on with the protar brand but like the cars, they did away with the white metal which is a great shame. Nothing looks quite like metal than metal.

To further muddy the waters some of these kits are often advertised as white metal and in fact aren’t and never were. This is from the ebay advert where this one came from#

“With its authentic design and quality construction, this die-cast motorcycle is a must-have for anyone looking to add a piece of Motorcycle history to their collection”

Nothing die-cast in here mate. It’s a major failing of ebay that people just copy other people’s listings and sometimes even their pictures so if the original poster got it wrong then everyone else gets it wrong as well as we see here.



Anyway, do your own research as they say

This is my first Protar build….even if Italeri have had a hand in it

 

[paddy]

The box contents are pretty std, we have a rubber fret which is interesting as it includes parts for a Suzuki and a Kawasaki

there is an abundance of chrome though almost none on the original bike

and the rest is grey and black engine a frame parts

Another oddity is the instructions are for 2 different models. An AJS 7R and a Matchless G50, i will look into that but mabe the same bike just a different capacity

 

[moon puppy]

Good luck!

 

[Rhino]

Often I find that eBay sellers actually know little about models or the contents of the kit boxes. Or they don't trouble themselves to look into it all that much. The quick listing and quick buck are commonplace, in my view.
Caveat Emptor.

 

[Heavens Eagle]

Will be watching on this one Paddy. I always learn something from you builds.

 

[paddy]

Well i have retreated back into my comfort zone having got a bit of a bloody nose with WnW

My pre planning has gone out the window as looking in the box the wheels really are not too bad. My plan to lace them with metal spokes is on hold now. Normally the problem with spoked wheels on bikes is the spokes are way over size and whatever you do with them they just never look real. The common size on things like the Italeri Triumph 3hw, Harley WMA and the Manx Norton is 1mm spokes which as 1/9 scale would make them 9mm. In reality all the Italeri spokes are out of register L/R halves in the moulds so actually appear nearer 1.2mm. These spokes in this kit are 0.6 - 0.7mm so scaled up thats 6x9 = 54 and 5.4mm is pretty much spot on to real size and i would probably have used 0.5mm nickel silver wire.
My new plan now is to build up the kit wheels and see what they look like with metal spokes as a back up plan. There is a lot of work in metal spokes if they are not necessary but they do have the advantage in being separate from the rim and hub and its not unlikely the rim/hub/spokes/spoke nipples would all be different colors

 

[paddy]

Another protar kit i have has shed some light on the multimedia thing as there is an advert leaflet in one of the boxes

Notice this list contains "plasica" models and ""Metallo" model motorcycles but it also creates more confusion because for example under Metallo models is a NS 500 Freddie Spencer 1983 so thats 13 years after Italeri took over...so did Italeri really design new models in Multi media after they bought Protar bearing in mind they converted other metal models to plastic like all the cars.