Tuesday 14 January 2014

Jimmy's little green racing car...

As regular readers will know I am not specifically a model railway modelmaker.  I am more of a painter on a broad canvas.  I have to be in order to earn my crust at the game.
The great bulk of my work in recent years has been making patterns for slot car resin bodyshell kits.  I've done nearly 50 now and a LOT of F1 cars, despite my not really being interested in the overpaid pansy mob who have done that side of motor racing for decades now.  But I always liked the look of the tiny 1 1/2 Litre cars of the early to mid sixties.  I have now modelled most of those and always wondered why the most famous and successful of them all had never been done, or at least convincingly.  That it is almost universally considered the most beautiful (I don't agree) made that fact even stranger.

Jim Clark was for ever connected to the Lotus 25.  In 1963 he won so many races that there could never be any doubt as to his World Championship that year.
He started to make that clear a year earlier, by losing the championship to Graham Hill in a BRM (my favourite) at the last race when a bolt fell out of his Coventry Climax FWMV-8 sump and he lost all his oil when leading the race.

This model, therefore starts the "stream" of Lotus 25s that I am doing for Mel Ault's PreWing series of cars that didn't wear those ugly aerodynamic devices that spelled the death knell of elegance in motor racing.

We will go through the run from this, the Aintree 1962 British Grand Prix winner, through the iconic 1963 car to the last gasp 33 model which was a slightly developed 25.  That should keep everybody happy.

2 comments:

  1. I, too, love these cars. I saw Jim Clark at Oulton Park a long time ago, then Graham Hill...had a scalextric model which you no doubt did the masters for! I loved the Vanwall and of course the Ferraris...great days.

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  2. No, never did any masters for Sca;ex, iain. Different kettle of fish altogether. Actually ony three companies ever did a 25. Monogram...almost acceptable, Supershells...laughably unidentifiable, Dave Jones...nice if you want an early version that's half an inch too long! Scalextric did a Lotus 21 in their Formula Junior series, which were never popular and now suddenly are. They did a Cooper to go with the wee Lotus. Airfix did a decent Vanwll and Nostril nose Ferrari 156.

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