Ferrari 312P

I love the shape of this 1969 car. The Aurora 1:32nd slot car is one I have always wanted but never managed to find. So when my good friend Mike Sells cast a fibreglass body for me I was delighted. I have quite a number of projects to do but somehow this went straight to the top of the pile which was for one reason only; the release of Fly's Ferrari 512. Their car is gorgeous and those wheels and tyres have a lot of scratch-builder possibilities. Looking at the Fly car again I thought I could use the windscreen and the wiper as well. So I started opening up the fibreglass shell. The wheelarches were easy but then the windows were not! I decided to use the Fly windscreen cut down which works but has to be done very carefully. The shell had to have a small lip removed to enable the windscreen to fit properly. I then filled the rear wheel arches to flatten off the top of the openings like the real car. I also modified the headlamp area and made a better seating for the windshield. This filling process took ages to get it right.

I then installed the body mounting posts using plastic tubing glued to the inside of the shell with reinforcement added. This time I used self taper screws and to get them to seat in the tube I just added a bit of heat from the soldering iron. For the chassis I cheated. The Fly chassis fits and would have enabled a full interior but my friend John Jude has had some stainless steel chassis' made up for the 312P open version he does. It is his car that can be seen next to mine. John doesn't normally sell the chassis' on their own but he is a good friend! This chassis accepts the SCX motor and looks great. The rear wheel bearings were sleeved with brass tubing to fit the Fly diameter back axle and gear. As I said, as an alternative, the whole sidewinder Fly 512 chassis could be made to fit very easily.

Fitting the wheels was the turning point as the car started to look like something. The body was then painted using readily available acrylic car paints. Once that was dry the body lines, scoops and vents were painted matt black and the windshield was glued in with white glue which sets clear. The side windows were from the Fly 512 as well, the headlamps are beads with clear vacuum plastic covers. Reference for the 1:1 car is fairly readily available. I detailed mine to be the 1969 Le Mans car #18. #19 was sadly involved in the first lap accident that claimed John Wolfe's life. The decals were mainly from those superb Ricambi sponsor sheets though the numbers were modified and reduced onto decal sheet. The net result is a lovely looking slot car. I hope you agree.