1/16 scale Italeri Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing

[sjordan]

Great job on a tricky kit. Did you have any trouble getting the doors to fit flush?

I'd love to see more detail shots -- engine, front grille, etc.

[Richard Bartrop]

Construction shot of the engine:


And in the finished model:

The weathering is just a light dusting of Humbrol Dark Earth with an airbrush .

Getting the chassis into the body took a little finesse, but outside of that, I found assembly pretty painless. It's definitely not a Tamiya kit, but it is considerably better than the 1/25 AMT kit, and way better than the 1/12 Renwal/Revell/Monogram kit. I could have done a lot more in the way of superdetailing, but the object here was just to finish something as a break between scratchbuilding projects.

[sjordan]

How did you manage to disguise the front and rear body valance seams? That seems very difficult to do well, especially with metallic paint. Nice work.

Have you tried the Minicraft 1/16 version? The body is slightly more accurate and the wheels are better, but the Italeri has better overall detail - except for lack of a full space frame, which you'll never see -- and their use of chrome trim is a plus. (I noticed, though, that the Italeri uses the firewall from the 300 SL roadster, which has 2 coils instead of the 1 mounted sideways on the Gullwing.)

As you said, there is no perfect Gullwing kit in any scale, but I think swapping a few parts between the Italeri and Minicraft 1/16 would come close. Me? I'd choose the Minicraft/Entex kit and use the Italeri engine, interior and chrome badging, but I'm daunted by the chrome trim needed for the Minicraft window surrounds. The Italeri chrome (except for trunk badging) does not fit the Minicraft.

[Richard Bartrop]

I haven't built the Minicraft kit, and at the time I wasn't sure if the Italeri kit wasn't another reboxing. The kit was on sale for $24, so it was an impulse buy. I would say I definitely got my money's worth.

I used Milliput to fill the numerous sinkholes, because it doesn't shrink, and it sets hard. THe rear valence was attached with lots of liquid cement and pressure. the excess was sanded off once it was thoroughly dry, with some milliput in the gaps. the front valance had a noticeable gap, which I filled with some sheet styrene . Once everything was sanded smooth, I went over those spots with ultrafine sandpaper, followed by Tamiya rubbing compound, because, as you say, metallic paint picks up everything. The paint is Model Master German Silver as per the instructions, but I do think it has a little more depth, and looks a little more like silver car paint than what comes out of your typical bottle of "silver"

The interior is HUmbrol #60 Matt Scarlet, burnished with a finger to give it that leather look.

[hot ford coupe]

I just started this kit that I got from Amazon. Some of the engine detail is a bit ill defined so I'm adding some detail after I cut off a few pieces. Tonight, I spent about an hour making a 1/16t scale distributor out of some brass tubes and solder. I could have done it with just plastic but I wanted to give a nod to my brass teachers here. You all know who you are. HFC is back.