Hasegawa Porsche 944 Turbo Racing 1/24 By Peter Merrick IPMS QLD

In a fit of auto building and while I was on holidays, I went to Frontline Hobbies in Newcastle and they had a stack of kits on their many closeout tables in the store. On one I picked up this kit for $12! I quickly added it to my pile and continued browsing (being in there for 2.5 hours!)

Getting home and opening the kit, I found that it was very detailed including full engine with vinyl hoses, photoetch buckles and a plastic fabric(?) for belts, chrome parts, and the option to build either the racing or street version (although the instructions don't have this, the full seats are included).

Construction starts with the engine and this took a bit of time to put together correctly and to make sure it was all lined up and painted correctly.Things then moved onto the chassis and wheels. There were no major dramas here, though fitting the engine in took a bit of time to align properly, but once in was OK. Next came the interior with my hurdle being the buckles and belts. Never having done this before, I crossed my fingers and dived right in almost glueing my fingers in the said crossed position, by a leaky super glue tube! t took what seemed forever (at least 2 full nights) just to get this done and I was fairly happy with the way it turned out, though if I was to build this again, may go about it slightly differently. The rest of the interior and the roll cage go together well.

Before adding parts to the body, I painted this in an offwhite colour to try to match the decals and original paint job. Once dry this was coated in clear to give the decals a nice place to settle down on.The lights and glass was then added. The mirrors were left until the end. I placed the body on the chassis and the fit was a dream, no drama here! Now came the fun part - the multi layer decals! Hasegawa have thoughfully number the decals so that the lowest go on first as these will be under other decals. The site of all those pink spots to place on the car almost made me swoon, but once inot it went smoothly along. Decal solution was used to pull them into the complex curves of the car. The next layer came with the stripes and then the number decals. The sponsor decals were the last to go on and overall look pretty good. Be prepared to spend a few evenings though as there are a lot here, but the results are worth it.

This as a great car to build a looks really good sitting between a 1957 Corvette and a 1/72 Panther D (see I build lots of things!). The decals are a challenge, but with patience you will be rewarded by a classic looking racer.