1934 Alfa Romeo P3 Aerodinamica

I have had the Geodies body of the 1934 Aerodinamica for a couple of years and I was not sure how to progress it, particularly attaching the streamlined wheel fairings. Then fired up by a web site visit to a site with close up photos of the museum example I bit the bullet and started to modify the shell.



I scraped off all the bonnet louvres and started to build up the body with P38 filler. No going back now. This involved lengthening the rear end (otherwise the fairings would be hanging out the back), building up the front chassis rail fairings and significantly widening the body in the middle section. The cockpit shape was also modified.



Next was marking out the body lines and bonnet louvres. I also needed to check the look of the car and start to gauge the position of the fairings. The short PP chassis was trial fitted and some body mounts made up from plastic square section rod.



For the louvres I thought I’d try casting separate resin items and sinking them into the body.



I started with a fine cat comb from the pet shop and some of the blue and white silicone casting putty. The comb was simply pressed into the putty to produce the mould.





This is setting the cast louvres into the bodyshell. The gaps were filled with milliput and smoothed out.




Next was trial fitting the chassis and starting to fit the fairings using wire gradually built up with P38 filler.




At this stage I realised the fairings would also need reshaping to build up a round profile rather than square along the top and bottom edge.




This is trial fitting the exhaust after priming. The front axle is held in place by two short lengths of brass tube set into the front chassis rail fairings in order to get the front ride height as low as possible.

Today the body had a couple of coats of VW Flash red. Next is driver and detailing.