McLaren M8B by CDW - Accurate Miniatures - 1:24 Scale

[CDW]

My friend Lou (Imagna) reached deep down into his collection of model race car kits and generously provided me with this beautiful Accurate Miniatures kit of the McLaren M8B CanAm Group 7 race car. There is at least one other modeler, Landlubber Mike, who will also eventually build this very same model in a build thread here on MSW. Mike gave me the go ahead to get started while he finishes tying up a few loose ends on build threads he currently has in progress. 

Without further delay, I got started on my kit tonight. It all starts with construction of the engine and transaxle assemblies.

 

First, here is the kit box/box art:

 

 

Here is the assembled engine with transaxle in bare plastic

 

 

Here is the assembled engine with transaxle painted in semi gloss black

 

 

 

 

I'm hoping Lou will chime in and provide some of his considerable knowledge about the history and highlights on this venerable vintage race car. He deserves the credit for making this build thread happen, as I may have never gotten my hands on one of these kits to build had it not been for Lou's generosity. The company who produced this kit has been out of business quite a few years now and these kits will soon be very hard to find without paying a large, premium price for one. Thanks Lou! Hope you enjoy the build and hope I can do it justice.

[CDW]

Accurate Miniatures put excellent molded detail into their kits, much higher quality than you will see in typical Revell or AMT kits. Because it has such good detail, decided to highlight it by giving the engine and transaxle assembly a dry brushing with neutral gray in order to bring out those molded in details. When it's all dry, will give everything a black wash to tone it down a bit. You can see the depth the dry brushing gives.

 

[Old Collingwood]

Looks almost Resin - its that good.

 

OC.

[lmagna]

At last I get to see what a master can do with this model/car. It is far from being the easiest kit on the market.

 

The McLaren M8B is the 1969 variant of the previous M8A and a direct descendent of the M6 cars of the years before. Driven by Denny Hulme and Bruce McLaren with the third orange factory car sometimes being driven by Dan Gurney or Chris Amon. There were 11 Can Am races that year and the M8B won every one of them. Bruce and Denny traded off who was going to win with Denny winning 5 races and Bruce the other six. Most times the factory cars won both one and two and I believe 1,2,and 3 a few times. The Can Am series of races had already  became known as "The Bruce and Denny Show", but the M8B virtually made it fact. Out of 24 starts McLaren only had 4 DNFs, the rest were wins. An enviable record in anyone's book.

 

In addition to the factory cars built by McLaren, they contracted out and also produced almost identical chassis for other drivers as well as selling "Last years model" to the competition. This model comes with decals for the car driven by German Immigrant and avid McLaren fan, Lothar Motschenbacher in 1970. The kit is identical to the 1969 bright orange factory cars driven by McLaren and Hulme with the high wing. But in late 1969 most of motor racing, including Can Am, that at that time had relatively few rules, outlawed the high wing as well as the adjustable wing both innovated by Jim Hall on his Chaparral 2E and 2F cars in 1966 and 67 and  pretty much copied by everyone until outlawed. Bruce McLaren avidly avoided the wing concept until the advent of the M8B in 1969.

 

The only problem with doing the Motschenbacher livery with a M8B is that I can find no evidence that he ever drove a McLaren configured like the kit. In 1968 he drove a McLaren M6B and in 1969 a McLaren M12, both without wings. In 1970 he did switch to the M8B, but it appears that the car he bought was a converted M8B that was the #2 1969 McLaren factory car that had been converted from one of the 1968 factory M8A cars! So in fact was an updated 1968 M8A. In addition, when raced by factory McLaren in 1969 it had the high wing just as in the kit. But in 1970, when owned by Motschenbacher these wings were outlawed so he lowered his wing down to where the lead edge almost touched the rear fenders. It appears that unlike the M8D Factory cars of 1970, he kept the strut mountings, just shortened. The M8Ds of 1970 had a fins added to the rear fenders to hold the wing, also low to the body.

 

As a side note the testing of the M8D was what killed Bruce McLaren in an accident that was almost as unnecessary as the crash in 1966 that killed Ken Miles while testing the piece of junk Ford J car. But that is another story.

 

I sent this #11 car to both Mike and Craig, as I had WAY TO MANY in my stash and I truly wanted to see what talented builders could do with them. They are highly detailed kits but a struggle to build if done out of the box. I kept my factory decaled M8B as well as another kit that is in a plastic zip lock bag that may or may not be complete. I always thought it would make a good M8A or D or possibly even an F from that kit. But at the rate I am doing any building at all mixed with everything seeming to either break or fall apart on my body in the last couple of years I am beginning to wonder if this is the only way I will ever get to see some of my favorite models built.

 

For those who don't know much about the Can Am series of the sixties and early seventies it was pretty much a no holds bared cowboy kind of racing that as a side note was VERY lucrative for the racers. Winning a Can Am race could bring $60 to $80.000 to the winner, PER RACE! Placing second place in a Can Am race usually paid better than winning in many of the longer European sports car races. Eventually Most of the drivers and teams went over to NASCAR racing when Can Am finally somewhat regulated itself out of existence. Here is a bit of footage to give some of the feel a Can Am race produced:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXjZYIzKGCM

 

I'm REALLY looking forward to this build.

Edited February 23, 2021 by lmagna

[Edwardkenway]

I'm in Craig, I'm sure you'll do your usual brilliant magic!

[Jack12477]

Me too, Craig ! 

[Canute]

I'm in. I've become an IMSA fan of late. Up to four classes running at the same time in 1 race. This model looks like what is now called a Daytona Prototype or LeMans Prototype. Cool.

[Egilman]

9 hours ago, lmagna said:

Here is a bit of footage to give some of the feel a Can Am race produced:

Kindred spirits brother.... (as a young man living in Vermont at the time)

 

Yep McLaren's and Lola's settin' the pace... The last of the seat of the pants racers....

It's was a drivers series in the truest sense of the ideal... Much much more that Formula 1 ever thought of being....

I'm in.... McLaren's  always looked nicer than the Lola's in my opinion, doing away with the high wings took something away from the looks of the car....

 

If we could only turn back the clock, Bruce's loss really set back racing.... More than Miles loss did....

[mtaylor]

I'm in also on this. I well remember those cars.

 

BTW, Lou...  I saw this in your post:  But in 1070, when owned by Motschenbacher these wings were outlawed.   The year gave me a chuckle... 

[lmagna]

I gave my secretary twenty lashes for that typo! Sometimes though this part of my life seems like it was 1070.

 

Not much racing going on in 1070, more like rebellion and revolutions everywhere you looked. The Byzantine Navy had some pretty fast ships back then. About a hundred oar power?  

[CDW]

That was a great video Lou. Jim Hall raced a giant hoover vacuum machine.

[CDW]

Did a little more work on the engine tonight. The kit provides soft molded vinyl hoses and ignition wiring. You can see some of the hoses attached to the engine and some loose ends that will attach further along in the assembly sequence. The powerplant is a Chevrolet 7 liter V-8, the fabled 427 ci "rat" motor. Aluminum block and heads.

 

 

[lmagna]

Yes, the J car was pretty much his last attempt at ground effects. It had a separate 45HP snowmobile engine to run the fans. That was it's Achilles heel. They never got the small engine or extra mechanics to last a full race. With the vacuum running the system developed a little over 2200 pounds of down force. The car weighed about 1800 pounds. Jim Hall offered to stick it on a wall for a commercial but it was never made. when ever the fan engines were started the car would visibly suck down two inches. Jim Hall was still recovering from his injuries in the Chaparral 2G in 1968 and was not driving  competitively but was test driving the car during it's development. He said that the car could do corners at over 1.5 Gs without the tires braking loose and the he personally was never able to properly judge just how fast the car could brake coming into a turn. In his opinion Vic Elford was the only driver who ever even came close to running the J car properly. It was probably never pushed to it's limits. Jackie Stewart came to America to drive the 2J at Watkins Glen. Normally Hall couldn't afford Stewart but Jackie wanted to drive the car so badly he made Hall a special one-race deal. He qualified third. "The car's traction, its ability to brake and go deeply into the corners, is something I've never experienced before in a car this size or bulk," he wrote in his book Faster!. "Its adhesion is such that it seems to be able to take unorthodox lines through turns, and this, of course, is intriguing."

Hall said that if anything ever happened to the main engine, the suction system was powerful enough to move the car at almost 30 miles an hour back to the pits.

 

I believe the J car was the only car that beat the McLarens to the pole position in 1970 season and by the end of the year it was clear  that it was the fastest Can Am car on the track........... When working! If it had been allowed to come back in 1971 racing history could have possibly been broken again by Jim Hall. The car was called a number of things depending on who was talking, but the most common was "The ground effect car" "Vacuum car" "Kirby car' and "Sucker car" to name just a few. There were also comments to the effect that it was the only car on the track that raced in the box it was shipped in.

 

Many people, including the people who protested many of Jim Halls innovations, considered this the beginning of the end of the Can Am series. One of the concepts of the series was to encourage just what Jim Hall, Dan Gurney, and Bruce McLaren were doing. Exploring ways to make racing cars go faster, and new restrictive rules continued to come faster and faster each year until there seemed to be almost no avenues of innovation left open anymore. 

[CDW]

Great insight into the J Car, thanks Lou!

 

Very nice looking set of multi-piece headers come with the kit.

 

[lmagna]

Did you find the vinyl wiring harness hard to deal with? Looking good. 

[Old Collingwood]

That is looking so life like  - really sharp paintwork.

 

OC.

[CDW]

Just now, lmagna said:

Did you find the vinyl wiring harness hard to deal with? Looking good. 

 

Make sure to use a fresh scalpel blade to trim away the flash. Very soft and rubbery, so it's easy to work with. Use superglue to cement it in place.

 

Just now, Old Collingwood said:

That is looking so life like  - really sharp paintwork.

 

OC.

 

Thanks OC

[CDW]

Since Mike is going to be building this same model, I am going to try to give him a heads-up on the little idiosyncrasies that might help since I am walking point on this mission.

 

Notice on each side of the engine at the transaxle bell housing there are braces that attach and lead forward to the mounting panel at the front of the engine. One brace goes beneath the headers while the upper brace weaves it's way through the header pipes. The instructions call for installing these braces first, then fitting the header pipes around the brace on each side. It's much easier if you install the headers first, then fish the brace through the header pipes second, exactly opposite of what the instructions say. Just my 2 cents. 🙂

 

 

[CDW]

Something else I forgot to mention: Notice that the engine has no typical oil pan reservoir . Rather you'll see a pair of hoses attached at the bottom of the engine crank case. Those are oil lines. This engine is what's commonly called a "side oiler dry sump". The engine oil pump is located externally from the engine and oil is fed and returned through those two lines and connections you see at the bottom of the crank case.

 

Just as an FYI on racing engines.

Edited February 25, 2021 by CDW

[popeye the sailor]

never had the pleasure to build an Accurate Miniatures model...I see I'm missing something    the engine looks really neat!  tagg'in along as usual  

[CDW]

In these photos, the remainder of the engine/transaxle/suspension/brake system components have been painted and assembled.

If you ever have the pleasure of building one of these kits, I recommend super glue for most of the construction of this entire assembly shown. While it's a well detailed kit, it's not a shake and bake kit. It does require a little coaxing to get everything into position and stay there. Super glue greatly aids this endeavor.

 

[lmagna]

Definitely starting to show the semi stressed engine design of the M8A/B. The engine bolted directly to the rear of the monocoque chassis with a small relatively light frame around the transaxle to hold the rear suspension with the whole thing joined by torsion bars. Simple, light, and effective.

 

[CDW]

Here is more engine detail added including the ignition system and fuel tubing for the injectors. I left the fuel injection lines disconnected for the photos just so you could get a visual image of the "bird's nest" that's involved.

I made up my mind to use everything from the box, no aftermarket or home made parts, before I started this project. In retrospect, this could have looked much better with some aftermarket wiring and fuel tubing. The kit instructions do not recommend painting the soft vinyl wiring/tubing, but I may try anyway before it's all done. I think it needs a little color to break it all up a bit.

 

 

[lmagna]

Detail on top of detail. The kit that keeps on giving. You seem to have it well in stride though Craig.

 

I have seen pictures of a couple of other builds and I think I agree with you. While much of the engine and stuff on the real cars were either black or at least dark there would have been silver braded lines and probably colored spark plug wires and possibly some color coded plumbing for other things like brake lines and such, say metallic blue braiding instead of silver. Even the magneto could be two tone instead of just plain dark.

Edited February 26, 2021 by lmagna

[CDW]

I think the problem might be having paint that sticks to the vinyl without peeling away. I'll give it a try once I get finished handling it. Handling it will probably be the biggest threat to peeling paint on the vinyl. Maybe I can use colored markers since that's ink and won't peel.

 

[Egilman]

How bout a look at the real thing?

McLaren M8B....

Engine....

Basically Chevy black but, lots of different peripheral colors under the hood there.... (particularly the bare aluminum heads?)

 

Lots of opportunity for superdetailing...... Stainless hose wraps yes with colored fittings

 

EG

 

[lmagna]

The only problem with that is almost all we have to go with today is pictures like you posted of the RESTORED surviving cars. A lot has been done to most of them to return them to racing condition for running in a number of historical events each year but in many ways they have also been restored as show cars with a little extra attention to the bling factor here and there. They are also limited to the look of the parts still available. This is most often seen in the tires they have to run.

 

Here is another modern picture of a M8D

[Egilman]

No question Lou, shame that no one has held one of these in historical condition..... (probably have just not on public display)

 

Beautiful cars none the less....

[lmagna]

I didn't say that there was no effort on historical preservation. At least not these days.

 

Probably when they were first sold by McLaren to other racers they did what they needed to do to keep them legal and competitive with little thought for history, but eventually they were sold into the hands of collectors and amateur classic racers. By that time they were beginning to go up in value again. These people went about restoring the car back to one of it's original configurations probably documenting the whole process and establishing how much of the present car was still original based on the serial number. In the case of your photos, the car is possibly one of three cars manufactured in 1969. One of those cars was actually converted from a 1968 M8A so only two were M8Bs from the ground up. All three of those cars were converted to low wing M8Cs and Ds when the high wing was outlawed at the end of 1969. It gets a little confusing without the actual serial numbers and records but it is certain that all of the existing cars today went through this process and to return them to Historical Condition would require a reversal of that process. Each car has a log book that should include any and all owners, races, drivers, and modifications ever done on the car.

 

The same thing applies to even Chaparrals which Jim Hall never sold after the original Chaparral, (1s). The 1969 Chapparal 2F sits on one of the original 1965 Chaparral 2 chassis. The same goes for the 2D. The original of two 2Es was built onto the single aluminum 2C chassis, and one of the 2Es became the 2G. The Chaparral 2H and J car were unique one-of-a-kind, as was the Indy Chaparral 2K years later.

 

One set of cars that comes to mind that are an exception would be the cars raced by David Piper. He kept almost all of his green racing cars of the 60s and early 70s. So his green Ferrari 250 LM, as well as his Lola T70 MK 3B, Ferrari 365 P2 and Porsche 917K are all pretty much as he raced them in his driving carrier. I think I read somewhere he recently sold his 917K after rebuilding or replacing the engine that was destroyed in 2009 by a missed shift when being driven by freelance car journalist and race car driver Mark Hales. It ended up costing Hales $174,000 in repair and legal fees when Piper sued him and won. But that is another story as the saying goes.

[Javlin]

On 2/24/2021 at 1:25 AM, lmagna said:

Exploring ways to make racing cars go faster, and new restrictive rules continued to come faster and faster each year until there seemed to be almost no avenues of innovation left open anymore. 

Sounds like Guberment all sounds interesting will be popping in Craig/Lou Kevin