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Heres another build in my occasional series from the 1967 BOAC 500. The BOAC 500 and its descendant BOAC & BA 1000km races ran from 1967 till the late 80s, bringing World class sports cars to the UK. The first race was arguably the best, with famous victories for Chaparral in the race and Ferrari in the World Sports car Championship, who finished 2nd in the race.
But it wasnt Chaparral or Ferrari who sat on pole position on a typically grey July afternoon at Brands Hatch, it was the white and green Sid Taylor Lola T70 Mk3 driven by Hulme and next to it was the red and white Lola of Surtees that lead the race away from the grid. The T70 Mk3 was derived from the Mk2, an open top car which had won the 1966 Can Am series with Surtees, so much was expected of the Mk3 in 1967. It had an excellent power to weight ratio with a 5.5 litre Chevrolet engine.
What happened next set the scene for the Mk3 T70 over the coming years. The Surtees car came into the pits on lap 2 with flooding carbs, lost 4 laps with frequent returns to the pits and never figured in the race, while the Hulme car led the race for a big piece of first hour but was sidelined first by a broken rocker then by clutch trouble. In 1968 the Mk3 T70 became basically a customer car and was eclipsed by the Ford GT40 of JWA and the works Porsche 907/908 team. Its Mk3B derivative finally came good at Daytona in February 1969 when the Roger Penske team placed first and second with their beautiful dark blue models. All in all it was an opportunity missed nice car, shame about the race.
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This model was adapted from a Top Slot resin body of the 69 Penske Mk3b, as models of the earlier car are impossible to find or at least they will be until the mystery manufacturer mentioned by MRE in their recent reports comes up with a new model! The Mk3 is superficially very similar to the Mk3b but there are very many detail differences and the biggest by far are the front lights and the width of the body. Tyre width increased a lot between 1967 and 1969 and this lead to big increases in body width at the axles, not only for the T70 but also for the GT40 and the Porsche 908. Heres an early plan of the Mk3, a shot of the Top Slot body and my primed body.
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As ever, the first month was spent scraping away in some places and building up others.
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I soon found out that my scraping at the wheel arches was removing them completely so I started to build up extra body on the inside. This time I tried using Araldite resin glue, as Id run out of regular resin. The end-point was bizarre Id built whole wings and headlight areas out of Araldite. Heres an example every clear bit has no original body left.
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Here it is ready for the top coat
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.. and the end product
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Heres a few details.
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I wanted to use a Fly Lola Mk3b as a donor car but its way too big around 1/30 instead of 1/32, so I had to do a fair bit of surgery on the chassis. Even after all that, the only way it fitted was with reduced width tyres chopped down rear wheels fitted with MRRC Cobra rear tyres, which are pretty much spot on for scale
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Note the shortened wheelbase (in progress in this pic) and reduced chassis dimensions every edge needed trimming. Here are the two cars compared
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A few parting shots with and without the Chaparral 2F (wrong number should be 1!).
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Hope you like it
Andy
March 721x Peterson by matra2011, on Flickr
March 721x slot car by matra2011, on Flickr
March 721x slot car by matra2011, on Flickr
March 721x slot car by matra2011, on Flickr
March 721x slot car by matra2011, on Flickr
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no spraying indoors
