FINISHED - Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder by CDW - Italeri 1:24 Scale

[CDW]

For reasons I don't recall, I let this project die on the vine. While I'm waiting for paint on my next project, decided to move forward to finish this little Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder.

 

Here is where I left off. Much of the sub assembly construction has been completed. Just need to put it all together for the most part.

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Love the looks of this car.  What a beautiful convertible!

[CDW]

1 hour ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Love the looks of this car.  What a beautiful convertible!

 

And this is the only kit I know of for this particular version of Ferrari, the 250 GT California Spyder. This kit went out of production a long time ago and I had two of the kits for well over 20 years. They were not new when I bought them, probably made in the 80's. 

[lmagna]

I was wondering what had happened with this build. Going to be great seeing what you do with it.

[CDW]

Chugging along with the chassis:

 

[CDW]

On 2/15/2021 at 2:42 AM, lmagna said:

I was wondering what had happened with this build. Going to be great seeing what you do with it.

 

I boxed it up and shelved it when I left to take our daughter to live in New Hampshire last summer (June). I ended up taking the rest of the summer off from modeling while working on other projects around the house. Never got back to it until now. 

[Egilman]

8 minutes ago, CDW said:

Never got back to it until now.

It's called Lifus-Interruptus and it afflicts us all from time to time.....

[Landlubber Mike]

Looks great - love the interior colors.  The flocking came out fantastic.

[CDW]

3 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Looks great - love the interior colors.  The flocking came out fantastic.

 

Thanks Mike. 

 

Later today I installed the exhaust headers, then the exhaust pipes and muffler assemblies.

 

 

Then installed the engine well inner panels

 

 

Installed the interior door panels

 

 

And last, did my first body-to-chassis dry fit. Everything looks promising. No major fit issues so far.

 

[CDW]

One of the more decent-looking sets of molded plastic wire wheels I've found in a kit. Think I'll go with these over the aftermarket aluminum wire wheel sets I have on hand. The aluminum ones are a bit too narrow and I do not have a set of tires that fit the wheels properly. Not exactly crazy about the look of the kit stock tires, but they will have to do for now.

 

[lmagna]

I agree those wire wheels look pretty good in their own right especially for kit supplied wheels. What's wrong with the Dunlops?

Edited February 17, 2021 by lmagna

[CDW]

My first "fit issue" has cropped up, where the dash rides higher than it should (I think). There are locator holes/pin arrangement that pre determines the height of it, but they seem to be off. Going to play with the dry fitting a bit more before I perform surgery on it, but the surgery should not be a problem if needed to lower it a bit. 

 

Here's what it looks like with the tires and wheels in place.

 

[Old Collingwood]

2 hours ago, CDW said:

My first "fit issue" has cropped up, where the dash rides higher than it should (I think). There are locator holes/pin arrangement that pre determines the height of it, but they seem to be off. Going to play with the dry fitting a bit more before I perform surgery on it, but the surgery should not be a problem if needed to lower it a bit. 

 

Here's what it looks like with the tires and wheels in place.

 

Does the engine cover close to it mate  -  wonder if thats the reason?

 

OC.

[CDW]

Just now, Old Collingwood said:

Does the engine cover close to it mate  -  wonder if thats the reason?

 

OC.

 

It's completely unrelated to the engine cover.

Back when Italeri/Protar were producing these Ferrari kits there were several versions produced, including the 250 GTO and this 250 GT SWB (Short Wheel Base). Doing things on the cheap, they shared some common components in the kits rather than retooling for specific parts as it should have been. In this case, some of the interior pieces are not correct for the SWB and do not fit properly without modification. I'm also just now discovering I need to slightly modify the interior door panels as well. It's all good, it will get there. It's not a shake and bake kit like the Tamiya, Aoshima, and Hasegawa ones. Plus this kit is more than 30 years old. 

[CDW]

Performed some surgery and reconstructed the dash and door panels. I believe the adjustment will make this work out okay. The windshield frame is dry fitted with blue tack to check the fit against the dash.

 

[Old Collingwood]

Thats looking better mate   - I get you know.

 

OC.

[CDW]

The little California Spyder begins to catch her stride once the little chrome bits begin to be added.

 

[lmagna]

That's  funny. All this time the color you used looked black on my computer unless I looked really hard and emitted deep thoughts of BLUE. Now all of the sudden as you start adding the chrome it really is looking a deep midnight blue all on it's own. The spell is finally working!

[CDW]

7 minutes ago, lmagna said:

That's  funny. All this time the color you used looked black on my computer unless I looked really hard and emitted deep thoughts of BLUE. Now all of the sudden as you start adding the chrome it really is looking a deep midnight blue all on it's own. The spell is finally working!

 

That's because of my high tech Dollar Tree LED lights in the shadow box. 😄 

[Egilman]

Looks nice, the wheels look fantastic, but she could use a trip to Les Schwab to trade in the RV tires....

 

I know, you bought her that way..... {chuckle}

[CDW]

7 minutes ago, Egilman said:

Looks nice, the wheels look fantastic, but she could use a trip to Les Schwab to trade in the RV tires....

 

I know, you bought her that way..... {chuckle}

 

I'm going to do a deep dive into my spare tire stash. I have a box full of nothing but model car tires somewhere, I just have to find it. There's bound to be something that looks better, even if they don't say Dunlop (which is the correct brand for that year Ferrari). 

[CDW]

That dark blue shows up every speck of dust like it's lit up. Can't even see it until after I've taken the photo. Will hit it with my anti static brush for the final photos. 🤔

[Old Collingwood]

Love the new avatar by the way.

 

OC.

[CDW]

28 minutes ago, Old Collingwood said:

Love the new avatar by the way.

 

OC.

Thanks. That's me on the left and my brothers on the right. I could not squeeze my other brother into the crop. It cut him off.

[CDW]

The kit bumpers had huge sink marks in both of them. I had to strip the chrome and fill the sink marks with putty, sand them down, then repaint them with chrome. To keep it looking uniform with the bumpers, I stripped the chrome from the windshield frame as well.

At first, I primed the stripped parts with Tamiya gloss black, then shot them with Alclad Chrome. I didn't like the way that came out. Looked too dark.

 

 

I decided to take apart a Molotow chrome marker and use the ink from it in my airbrush. I reshot the bumpers and windshield frame with Molotow chrome and am happier with the outcome. Will give this a day to cure before I handle them. Molotow chrome ink is alcohol based and takes longer to cure than Alclad, a lacquer based paint.

 

 

[Egilman]

1 hour ago, CDW said:

Molotow chrome ink is alcohol based and takes longer to cure than Alclad, a lacquer based paint.

Yeah, but you will be happier in the end....

[Canute]

Something to keep in mind on the base color. You may look at a dark gloss gray instead of the black. Scale passenger car painters  say the black base is too dark for the the Alclad chromes and some shades of stainless. May require some testing.

[CDW]

Just now, Canute said:

Something to keep in mind on the base color. You may look at a dark gloss gray instead of the black. Scale passenger car painters  say the black base is too dark for the the Alclad chromes and some shades of stainless. May require some testing.

 

Thanks for that Ken. I'll try that out with gloss gray as a base. I never had good results with Alclad using a gloss black base. Maybe that's why?

[CDW]

I bought 2 big refill bottles of Molotow chrome ink (I know that's not the proper term, or is it?) that should have been delivered today, but they stalled in the main post office here in Tampa instead of going out for delivery. I got impatient and took a pen apart to rob the ink. I can relace it when my order gets delivered. It's a waste of $$ to open a pen just to use the ink. A refill is a lot more economical, but still not cheap.

[CDW]

46 minutes ago, Canute said:

May require some testing.

 

Ken, I was thinking about your model railroading hobby today when I visited the south side of town today with my wife. We used to own a house over on that side way back 40 years ago and there used to be a landmark model railroad shop just a couple of blocks from our old house known as Chester Holley's model railroad shop. He had everything you could imagine in that shop with a full line of Marklin and Lionel trains. Wasn't too far from MacDill AFB. Old fella passed away and I guess no one from his family was prepared to keep the business going. A shame, a wonderful thing of the past now gone.