[driver#8]

A bit of an indulgence, this one, but Jean Alesi at full chat in a Ferrari was always one of my favourite sights. Those years in which he was doing battle against cars which, while often gorgeous, were never worthy of his talents were probably the last ones when I could call myself an F1 fan, so I thought I'd give Scaley's old 643 a makeover.

1: Take one old Scalextric Ferrari 643 (original livery) and rub the racing numbers and Fiat decals off with nail varnish remover (washing and rinsing quickly to stop eating the paint away too!).

2: Remove driver and paint him up (flat red overals, gloss white and French Blue on helmet).

3: Apply decals - a combination of 1994 Ferrari 412T for the crash helmet, nose number and 'Marlboro' driver name plates, with Ferrari F1/87 decals for the rear wing numbers and Fiat decals - both from Patto.

4: Varnish

5: Go racing!

The decals aren't quite right, because none of them are from the actual car. That said, I'm pretty happy about the finished product... you can almost smell the 'special brew' Agip and hear the big V12 bursting into life!

 

[Dopamine]

QUOTE (driver#8 @ 23 Jul 2011, 12:39) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>... you can almost hear the big V12 bursting into life!
You mean like THIS?!

 

[driver#8]

Oh yes! That's the stuff all right!

All this palaver about what the new 'green' engines will sound like... everyone's forgotten that, next to that racket, the 2.4 V8s already sound like Julian Clary trying to out-sing Tom Jones.

I remember reading a piece about the development of the Ferrari V12 in 1988 by Nigel Roebuck. He said that when it first fired up there were tears in the eyes of the old hands. Pretty credible I'd have said!