1/24 Tamiya Renault Alpine A110 - Monte Carlo 1971

[Desertfish]

Got three mini's on the go, but all three builds are currently on hold waiting delivery of paints. So in the mean time, I decided to go trough my stash and crack open this box:



Maybe not one of the most famous cars, but for those following the WRC and it's history, this is still one of the more iconic ones...

The Renault Alpine A110 took over from the Mini Coopers on the Monte Carlo stages. Where the Monte was the domain of the Mini's during the '60s, the Alpine A110 was the car to beat during the early '70s. Only Porsche was able to mount a bit of a challenge on the WRC stages, but generally Renault was too strong. In 1971, Renault took the first three top spots on the Monte Carlo podium. In 1973 they repeated this performance and even went on to win the WRC.

Renault kept occupying the top spots on international rally stages until the Lancia Stratos came around in the mid '70s.


Considering the roughly €40 price tag of this kit, there is surprising little plastic inside the box compared to other kits in its price range. The decals look like they are high quality though, and there's even a little decal sheet in the box with some metal stickers for the various badges that need to be put on the body work.










There's only a few mould lines on the body work, but they are on some nasty places, close to some finer detail, and do take a little patience to remove.

Body work ready for sanding:




Body after a first coat of primer got applied and sanded:




Also made a start on the construction of the chassis. It's a little different than what I'm used to from a car kit.

All the black parts are basically Alclad black primer that I left bare. All the other metal finishes are also Alclads, with a few hand painted details using Tamiya paints and some colours from my Lifecolor "Black Rubber Shades" paint set.

[rodrant]

Some nice kit here ! And will be in good hands .

Should give a nice model , interesting model in the 1/24 scale range from Tamiya .

[Tomtom12]

Great start nice to see something differant from all the planes and tanks

[UKguyInUSA]

Nice looking car mate and great start so far!

Cheers

Martin

[Twokidsnosleep]

Great start, things are coming along. I like the body paintwork very much
Good to see more cars projects

[Desertfish]

Managed to make a little headway on this one:

The wheels where sprayed in Alclad semi matt aluminium and mounted to the framework. Also completely sanded the bodywork and gave it a coat or two with Alclad white primer. It's now completely sanded smoothly and ready for spraying.

The instructions are calling out to spray the body in Tamiya TS-59 which is a blue similar to the original Renault Alpine blue of the early '70s. I got a bottle of Zero Paints "Alpine Renault A110 Blue" however. Kinda thought it would be nice to try and paint the thing in it's original colours.

Also managed to complete a big part of the interior. According to the instructions, most of the interior should be painted in Tamiya XF-18 (Semi gloss black), but I thought it would be a bit bland to do everything with the same paint. So I sprayed everything in Alclad black primer then started playing around with gloss, satin and matt varnishes to get a bit of variety in the interior. Still have the decals and details to do on the dash, finish the steering column and the steering wheel. I'm kinda in two minds weather or not I should invest in a set of seatbelts for this kit though. There aren't any included in the kit and neither are there any decals for them.








The engine block was painted in Alclad aluminium (ALC-101) while the manifold was done in Alclad... erm... "Exhaust Manifold" (ALC-123). The blue parts are Tamiya X-13. The distribution belts were hand painted with some of my Lifecolor "Black and Rubber Shades" set.









Body completely primed in white.





Also done a bit of a dry-fit to have an idea how she's going to look once everything is fitted.







Now for the next step... spraying the body in the original '70s Renault blue.





Quick dry-fit of the interior.

[Desertfish]

Some more progress was made, unfortunately with a few mishaps...

The bodywork got painted in the Alpine Blue from Zero Paints, then all the decals got applied. I did manage to make a serious mistake on one of the door numbers by putting way too much Micro Sol on the decal. I'm not sure how to recover that one... Maybe I'll try to cover up the mistake with some weathering. Displaying the model with the bad side facing backwards is another option.

I also tried to put some BMF around the zide windo styles. Quite a painfull process due to the shape of the side windows and all the tight corners. In retrospect, maybe I would have been better off masking the window styles before decalling and spray paint them with Alclad. Better luck next time I guess.









Massive mistake made due to the use of excessive Micro Sol... The pic also shows the sloppy work I did with the BMF.

[Twokidsnosleep]

You are being very hard on yourself, which is a good thing as it makes one strive for perfection.
From the sidelines, your build looks fantastic. The chrome looks good and paintwork is fabulous.
This is a rally car, born to be dirty, so a bit of mud and weathering and the decal will no longer be an issue. Model is just presenting you some options!

[Desertfish]

You are being very hard on yourself, which is a good thing as it makes one strive for perfection.
From the sidelines, your build looks fantastic. The chrome looks good and paintwork is fabulous.
This is a rally car, born to be dirty, so a bit of mud and weathering and the decal will no longer be an issue. Model is just presenting you some options!

I'm always hard on myself. It's not easy being a perfectionist But you're right. I am being presented with a few options here. I just couldn't see them a few days ago. This build was progressing so quickly compared to my other ones that I guess being stuck with my nose so closely to the model for a few hours/days in a row made all the tiny mistakes stand out like an eyesore. Sometimes you just have to put a build on the sideline for a couple of days or a week to recharge your batteries. Anyway, I might be doing some more stuff on this one the coming weekend. See how it goes.

Thanks for the heads up though. Much appreciated.