I have always been a big fan of the Porsche 917 and the Airfix kit of the 917K (also released in the U.S.A. by MPC) has long been one of my favorite 1/32 scale kits; I know I'm not alone in my regard for it. The Airfix kit not only builds a beautiful 917, it also provides many suspension, brake and transaxle parts useable on other similar racers of the period. Some slot racers even prefer it to the FLY 917K body but there I cannot agree. All of the Airfix clear parts are visibly too thick: I much prefer FLY's more scale appearing windows and light covers. That is not to say that the FLY 917K body is perfect: I think the nose is too long and pointed in front of the headlights (easily reshaped if re-painting is in order or ignored if not) and I also think the front wheel opening should be smaller, closer to the tire. I suspect the latter is a minor concession to slot racing and is likewise not something that concerns me all that much. They are each, in their own way, excellent models of the real car and I am glad to have two to choose from.

While there are now many different versions of the 917 available, the original "langheck" (long tail) prototype is not among them except for a French Scalextric version cast in soft plastic which, unfortunately, I have never owned. I started a conversion of the Airfix kit using sheet styrene for the tail many years ago but it did not go well and was abandoned fairly quickly. I bought one of the Classic fiberglass langheck bodies but frankly didn't much care for that either - some of the Classic bodies are outstanding but this isn't one of them. I found a Nitto Japanese kit of the 917 LH on ebay, hoping to simply re-body the Airfix kit, but the Nitto body was way too narrow (1/4"+) and pretty crude.

Searching for something else entirely, I came across the Nitto kit in storage after the last move and hauled it out to take another look. Comparing it to the FLY 917K body, I realized that the size and shape of the roof was nearly the same on both bodies, despite the other differences. Checking plans for the car, it was also evident that the tail and wing area was nearly correct. The major problem was widening the body from behind the rear wheel openings forward to match the Fly body width at the back of the cockpit. I acquired a white FLY 917K, removed the trim and stripped the paint in preparation for the conversion back to the 1969 prototype.

The Nitto body upper half was cut at the joint at the cockpit. The lower half of the tail and the tub sills were removed from the chassis plate and the trim tabs from the nose. The sills and the tail were removed from the FLY body along the joint lines and the extra parts set aside with the unused Nitto pieces. I sanded the nose to a blunter shape and narrowed the outer corners of the fenders a little without disturbing the light covers: there is plenty of material there so don't worry about sanding through. The small openings on each end of the main radiator opening were filled and the main opening reshaped. The radiator outlet on top of the nose was divided and mounted much closer to the windscreen so the original opening was filled with a piece of styrene and new radiator vents taken from the Matchbox 917-10 were trimmed to fit openings cut into the upper corners of the nose panel. The louvers on top of the front fenders were filled with styrene sheet and sanded flush. The lower nose panel was cut free of the Airfix tub and glued to the upper body. I used the lower sills from the Nitto kit to widen the Airfix tub 1/16" to match the width of the FLY cockpit area. A new bulkhead was made to fit the new body and glued to the tub to mount the frame, engine and suspension bits to.

The Nitto tail was checked against the FLY bulkhead and cuts made along the tops of the fenders towards the outside all the way to the tail. 1/8" styrene strip was inserted into the cuts to wedge the fender out to the edge of the FLY body from the leading edge through the wheel opening, taking care to keep everything parallel side-to-side and straight up and down. Small triangles of styrene were cut and inserted into the remaining tapered opening back to the tail. When the tail was the right width, I glued it to the body and added 0.020" styrene strips to the outside of roof, blending the joint at the bulkhead and doors into a smooth fit. Gluing strips were added to the inside of the joints behind the doors and tail panel.

The outer curves of the Nitto body didn't quite match the FLY cockpit area so FLY's more accurate NACA ducts were cut in to the rear fender from the joint back past the ducts to the center of the wheel openings. I had a lot of trouble with cracking joints between the styrene of the Nitto kit parts and the FLY high-impact material but using Plastruct's Plastic Weld cement for ABS finally allowed me to finish the bodywork. The lower half of the tail was widened to suit and added to the body, then everything was sanded and primed and the panel lines re-scribed as necessary. Quite a bit of filling and sanding were required before everything lined up exactly right.

New panel lines were scribed everywhere. Almost the entire engine area is visible through the rear window so the chassis, engine and suspension components were assembled from a combination of Airfix, Matchbox and FLY parts. Specifically: the engine, injectors (less turbo piping), lower A arms, rear uprights and shocks are by Matchbox, the intake cover and fan from FLY and the half shafts, transaxle and brakes are Airfix parts. The engine framework is by Matchbox with a number of additional chassis tubes (styrene rod). Front suspension and brakes are all Airfix, tipped back at the top to center the wheels better in the body openings.

The cockpit: seats, dash and driver, are by FLY - the battery and all of the electronic gear behind the small seat are from the Airfix kit. Please note that nearly all of the forgoing parts were modified in various degrees to fit together properly; this is hardly a "shake the box" conversion. Note too, that the two fuel fillers are moved forward of the doors from the original location. Wheels and tires are FLY units with the hubs cut down to fit under the body - the orange wheels with polished rims are unique to this car, unfortunately: all the others used black wheels. The car is painted pale blue and orange to match publicity photos announcing Gulf's sponsorship of the John Wyer Porsche 917 racing efforts for 1970. The Gulf cars were not actually raced in this particular long tailed form or color scheme but it makes a very colorful addition to the 917 stable and looks marvelous parked next to FLY's Ferrari 512S Coda Lunga. I have only seen black and white photos of this car so I must confess that it still looks strange to me in color.

A minor thing perhaps, but a very visible one; I'm very pleased with the locking details on each side of the tail. A narrow groove was cut vertically across the tail joint in the proper location and then carefully squared up using a miniature rectangular file. A strip of 0.040" strip was cut to length and glued into the slot set back to the inside of the body about 0.020" deep. The long slender parts of the locks are etched stainless part connector strips. The metal parts were glued to the body using clear enamel paint which is far easier to deal with than super glue. I think these improve the looks of the car a great deal.

Markings are a combination of commercial and home-made. "Gulf" Logos are from a Recambi sponsor sheet but are available from other sources as well, including the recent Airfix kit re-release. The "Porsche" side stripes are copies of white lettering on a black background. Scanning and inserting them into Word allowed me to re-size them. I printed out the reduced copies, then copied them on to clear film so only the black appeared, allowing the blue body color to show through the letters. Narrow strips of plain black decal film complete the stripes. The orange panels are also decal film made by Super Scale International as I have far better luck with decal film than masking off panels for painting. I carefully drew the shapes on CAD and printed them out to scale: one fine line for the orange film, one with a much wider line for the black surrounds. The fine line drawing was copied twice onto the back of the orange film and the wide lines once on the front of a sheet of clear film. Small pieces of orange film covered the radiator vents but I discovered that two layers of film were a different color than one so all of the nose and tail markings have two layers. After the orange film was completely set, I added the black surrounds, meatballs and numbers on top. Both upper and lower parts of the body were clear coated with Krylon Crystal Clear for protection before final assembly. This car could be also built from scratch or modified pretty extensively from the Top Slot '71 LeMans 917 langheck but the most difficult part would be the rear window panel - vac-forming a new window or perhaps using the "glass" from the Classis langheck if still available would seem to be the only answer to that. The cars were raced at LeMans in 1969 in this configuration by the factory (but not in these colors) so if you want one, you'll have to roll your own unless FLY comes through with this body in the future.

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