1959/1960 Ferrari 250TR by Mike Sells

This is NOT the NINCO version of this car. The NINCO model is a 1957 'customer' car produced by Ferrari for sale to private sports car racers. The model shown here is a works team car raced in 1959 and 1960. The Fantuzzi bodywork is quite different even though the cars were mechanically very similar. The famous 'pontoon' fenders - mostly there to provide better brake cooling - are gone, replaced with full envelope body. A short wheelbase version of this car was raced with a V-6 Dino engine in the small bore classes.

John Bacon's fiberglass body lies somewhere between the two: perhaps a little short for the V-12 but not quite short enough for the Dino. I was fortunate enough to see one of the full size cars at the Portland Historic races some years ago and photographed it 'just in case'. I have boxes of those sorts of photos but when you need them, they can come in very handy. John's bodies need finish sanding and I lost some of the hood panel line detail during the process. Rather than re-scribe the lines in the by-now rather thin body, I cut the hood out entirely, cleaned up the edges and glued in a new hood made from styrene sheet. A hole was cut through the new hood for the visible carburetor stacks mounted on a second styrene sheet glued in side the body. Strips of sheet and strip stock were added to the lower edges of the body all around to provide material for the lower body curves. Super glue works fine to join styrene to fiberglass and regular model body filler seems to work as well.

Pre-NINCO wire wheel castings are 1/24 scale Monogram Ferrari Daytona rims, turned down in a drill press to fit 1/32 scale tires. While not as good as the NINCO wheels, they are better than anything else I'd found up to that time. The cockpit is plastic sheet panel with 3/32" Evergreen rod chassis bars visible below the doors and on the floor. Seats are casting from the TOMY Porsche Speedster kit painted bright blue to match the 1:1 car.

Hood and deck hold-down straps are also resin castings of small 1/32 scale seat belts. Exhaust pipes are evergreen rod and tubing gently bent to shape and glued in place. The clear carb cover is a unique bit of adaptation: it's a 1/72 Airfix Mustang P51 canopy cut off at one end. All of the window surrounds have been sanded and then polished off of the outer surface and it's perfect for this application.

Grill mounted running lights are the off road lamps from 4 wheel drive truck kit which all goes to show that you should keep your eyes open to the possibilities.