MGA 1600
A lovely car , must do one of these. Kits available in 1/32nd scale are Aurora, and Lindberg - the Lindberg's simpler, but that's the one I've got.
So here's the 1/32 kit, pretty basic, just a dozen parts! Also in the picture are some of the components I'm going to use to turn it in to a slot car - MRRC Cobra chassis, Mabuchi motor & Scalextric prop shaft, rear axle & contrate. Also, Airfix slot car 'wire' wheels & MRRC tyres, plus an Airfix/MRRC Ackermann steering unit. And a couple of decent slot car spare headlights.
So here's the chassis & floorpan - in the foreground, the kit floorpan has been cut out to allow for the motor, and a 'bridge' built between the central floor and rear valance bit; this also reinforces and stiffens everything up. The yellow bit is where one of the screws that joins chassis to floorpan goes. In the background, the MRRC chassis has had the Mabuchi motor added, and the propshaft shortened a bit to fit. Standard nylon bushes and a Scalextric rear axle / contrate. The rear wheels are two parts of Airfix wheels - an inner bit with the axle socket in having had the outside face sanded off, then an outer face with spokes with the back bit sanded off. The chassis has also had a box section built at the front to make a mount for the MRRC/Airfix Ackermann front steering axle. The front wheels are standard Airfix ( old E-type Jag or Ferrari 156 Sharknose ). Still got to find a way to get the motor wires through to the front - drill some holes maybe, or they'll go through down the gaps at the sides of the motor.
Cockpit - if you look at the last picture, the original kit interior is really basic - a flat dashboard, no details, and a solid blob of seats, sides & rear. I hacked everything out, separated the seats & rebuilt the missing sides. I added a new back panel, and door panels detailed with a cutout and door pulls and levers. To the floor pan I added a gear lever and handbrake. There's also a complete new dashboard, detailed with knobs, switches etc. The steering wheel has a larger boss.
Chassis and floorpan fitted together. The propshaft fits through the transmission tunnel - just !
Dropped the bodyshell on to get an initial view, and check the set of it 'on the road'. As for the Austin Healey in the background of this and the previous shot, it's one reason I'm doing the MGA - the Austin Healey is just so much fun to drive ( with front mounted motor, skinny tyres giving real tail-out motoring ) that I decided to do the MGA in a similar fashion as a companion to it for racing.
Another shot of the interior detail, with driver added, made up from various slot car driver & military model parts.
From the front - computer-printed numberplate, which will go on the reinforced white block under the bumper. Slot car spare headlights, and the headlight/sidelight blocks have been glued on and the join filled; the sidelights have been reduced in thickness; the original solid plastic 'bubble' headlights have been removed & the holes filled. The original bumper has been replaced with plastic card strip, new overriders made up, and location bolts added ( plus a hole for the starting handle ). The MG badge bit at the top of the radiator grille has been rebuilt / reshaped. Stretched sprue has been used to create the seal lines that run between the wings and the bonnet section. The two oval intakes on the bonnet that are such a feature of the car were not on the kit, so they've been made up & added. Windscreen - the original was just a bare open frame, and a bit narrow; the frame was widened with new side uprights; windscreen glazing was cut from the screen of a scrap slot car (with the right curvature - Scalextric New Beetle); just in front of the screen, a black plastic strip has been added to represent the rubber sealing strip between body & screen.
From the rear - the original bumper has been replaced with plastic card strip, new overriders made up, and location bolts added. Computer-printed numberplate, mounted on black plastic card, including a number plate light at the top. Stretched sprue has been used to create the seal lines that run between the rear wings and the boot section. The original rear lights have been removed, and new ones made up from profiled sprue, stretched sprue, white plastic card and the red lenses made from clear red rod ( taken from the lighting parts of a scrap slot car ). The beige circle next to the nearest rear light is the fuel filler cap. The MG badge on the bootlid was taken from and old, unsalvageable Airfix MG 1300 car kit. Around the cockpit, and in front of the boot lid, various hood mounting points have been added. And just behind the windscreen, screen demister air vents have been added, plus a rear-view mirror; also a pair of struts that go up the the windscreen frame - these act as support for the screen, and also as hand-grabs.
To the left - the interior has been painted at this stage. I then glued the body top & floor pan together. The join has been scraped and sanded flat, with filler as necessary. The door panels have been rescribed, with a lower bottom edge and rounded lower rear corner. The wheel arches have been reprofiled. Note also that the originally red plastic wheels have now been Bare-Metal foiled, and black-washed to bring out the spoke detail; I've also added two-prong knockoff hubs to the rear wheels.
Finished -
The shell was keyed with fine-grade sandpaper, undercoated with matt red enamel, topped with two coats of red acrylic, then glossed with 3 coats of Klear acrylic floor polish. Bare-metal foil was used for the chrome, plus chrome paint on the fiddly bits. Note particularly the dashboard, fully detailed. The driver was painted with matt enamels.
Front to the left - note slot car spares headlights and sidelights. The radiator grill has been black-washed to bring out the detail.
Rear to the right - note that the MG lettering on the boot badge has been picked out, also the exhaust, and also the 'GB' sticker.
And finally a small tweak - didn't like the screws visible on the front wheels, so re-engineered to hide them by bringing them in from the back of the wheels instead, then adding a matching knock-off hubs as per the rear wheels.