Hello Everyone,
Here's the project I've spent most time on over the past two years. About a decade ago, I got some simple Modelltec S.E.S 1/87 Trabant kits, they were a set of five cars that I built right away. My lack of skills back then had me put one together very badly, and another ended up in a vacuum cleaner a short while later. So I was sitting there in late 2009 and wondered what the heck I should do with those wrecks. As I've been a huge fan of the Group B rally monsters of the 1980s and always wanted to tune a model car, I decided to combine those two things with my Trabant wrecks and got to work. Using a tube frame, this car shall get a turbocharged 1.8 liter inline-4 Lada powerplant with around 300 hp, as put in the never-to-compete Lada Samara EVA rally prototype.
Of course, such a project needs a name: Trabant Sport 601 T16
Scratchbuilt roll cage and the first body with the structural base of the widebody kit:
This was then shaped with putty, applying it at least 5 times...
...and sanded to smoothness:
The second body also received a bodykit, albeit a tad larger - that one will be the "Evolution" model
Meanwhile, the interiors were prepared (all modifications were scratchbuilt)
Of course, an interior is pointless without a dashboard, so I scratched one and applied instruments that I cut from a 1/72 Revell Germany Hurricane IIb's instrument panel decal and some cockpit decals of a 1/144 An-124 I had to scrap because a friend rushed the build too much.
Also, the bodies finally received their spoilers. A lack of stability at high speeds on narrow roads.. somehow, that's not what drivers would like. Here's what the bodies and everything below look like now after the acquisition and adaption of two sets of aftermarket Herpa wheels.
The original windows of these kits cannot be reused - they're far too thick to even fit them in with a roll cage, so I'm now preparing to do some vacuforming. No idea if these copies created using air-drying ceramic modeling clay will be any good for that, but they seem to fit in nicely.
Comments, Criticism, Suggestions: all welcome as usual!
Thanks for looking,
Val
Here's the project I've spent most time on over the past two years. About a decade ago, I got some simple Modelltec S.E.S 1/87 Trabant kits, they were a set of five cars that I built right away. My lack of skills back then had me put one together very badly, and another ended up in a vacuum cleaner a short while later. So I was sitting there in late 2009 and wondered what the heck I should do with those wrecks. As I've been a huge fan of the Group B rally monsters of the 1980s and always wanted to tune a model car, I decided to combine those two things with my Trabant wrecks and got to work. Using a tube frame, this car shall get a turbocharged 1.8 liter inline-4 Lada powerplant with around 300 hp, as put in the never-to-compete Lada Samara EVA rally prototype.
Of course, such a project needs a name: Trabant Sport 601 T16
Scratchbuilt roll cage and the first body with the structural base of the widebody kit:

This was then shaped with putty, applying it at least 5 times...

...and sanded to smoothness:


The second body also received a bodykit, albeit a tad larger - that one will be the "Evolution" model

Meanwhile, the interiors were prepared (all modifications were scratchbuilt)


Of course, an interior is pointless without a dashboard, so I scratched one and applied instruments that I cut from a 1/72 Revell Germany Hurricane IIb's instrument panel decal and some cockpit decals of a 1/144 An-124 I had to scrap because a friend rushed the build too much.

Also, the bodies finally received their spoilers. A lack of stability at high speeds on narrow roads.. somehow, that's not what drivers would like. Here's what the bodies and everything below look like now after the acquisition and adaption of two sets of aftermarket Herpa wheels.

The original windows of these kits cannot be reused - they're far too thick to even fit them in with a roll cage, so I'm now preparing to do some vacuforming. No idea if these copies created using air-drying ceramic modeling clay will be any good for that, but they seem to fit in nicely.

Comments, Criticism, Suggestions: all welcome as usual!
Thanks for looking,
Val