Achtung Spitfire! (Part 2)

A couple of years ago, I blogged about my old Spitfire (above) and detailed the build of an Airfix Supermarine Spitfire to fly over the track.  Having still not found a model of the Triumph Spitfire MkIV, I concluded that the MkII was the closest I'd get, and my mother bought me the kit from Pendle for Christmas.

What's particularly nice about the kit is that the windscreen and bumpers come as separate chromed pieces to attach after painting the body.  I supplemented this with some more realistic headlights and swapped the driver's head for one without a helmet.

I primed the body in grey and then cut a card insert to fit over the interior before spraying in as close a yellow I could find to the Mimosa Yellow of my Spitfire.  I then painted up the driver, the lights and picked out the chrome bits with silver.  A lovely little car that drives very well.

 

Alfred Neubauer

Alfred Neubauer was the racing manager of the Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix team from 1926 to 1955, famous for his tactical skill and effective pit management.  He must have cut quite a figure on the circuits.

A model of Neubauer has recently been manufactured by the cutely-named Immense Miniatures.  It is nice to have real characters on the circuit and a refreshing change from figures who are average height, average weight and white (although I have already ensured that my figures are a bit more ethnically diverse).

I spotted a painted version of the model at the Swindon Swapmeet back in January.  I liked the figure but the paintjob wasn't perfect, and after dithering about for a while, found that it had been sold when I went back to buy it.  When we got home, Andy then revealed that he had bought it for me - which was rather sneaky but very kind too.  I finally got round to re-painting the figure this weekend.

And here he is on the track...

Down the hatch

After a number of years clambering up and down a shaky old aluminium ladder, I decided to treat the loft to a new enlarged hatch and folding ladder constructed from larch.

Before	After

The new ladder is rock solid with wider and deeper treads, so much safer as slot car racers approach their advancing years.  The hatch is now much bigger at 700x1100mm but is pretty discrete once painted up.

Inside the loft I installed another handle to match the first one, which by a happy coincidence is the same colour as the rails on the ladder.

Wish I'd done this years ago...