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 Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Hello all,
This will be my HISTORIC F1 BUILD ENTRY
I am building Ebbro's 1:20 'Gold Leaf' Team Lotus 72c from the 1970 season.
Quite a tragic season as the driver of this car - Jochen Rindt - became the first and only posthumous winner of the F1 championship after he was killed during practice for the 1970 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Prior to his fatal accident he had gained four consecutive victories in the Lotus 72c at the Dutch, French, British and German Grands Prix, along with another win at Monaco though that was in the older Lotus 49c. By the time of his death he had accrued a season best of 5 wins including 3 poles and 45 points in the championship which wasn't overhauled by any other driver by the season's end. A very sad season indeed and the loss of a formidable driver. I think he would have gone on to become a multiple F1 champion had he survived. I wanted to build this particular car as a tribute to Jochen Rindt and also because it was the beginning of the Lotus 72's domination of F1 for the next four years, a car which was so good it just kept winning races even when competing against newer designs in it's later life!
So, on to the kit. This was the first of Ebbro's forays into 1:20 F1 car kits and though some of their later offerings have improved on their first, this is still a very nicely detailed kit and builds into a superb model. I also have their 1:20 1967 Lotus 49 and their Lotus 72E 'John Player Special' in my stash with intentions to buy both of their versions of the Tyrrell 003 and more besides. I can highly recommend them to all.
One negative for me is that the main sprues containing the body parts are moulded in a really naff red plastic which I hate, but that will be primed after building anyway so no worries. The rest of the sprues contain some beautifully detailed and very finely moulded parts. there are extra parts included to make different versions of this car such as later airboxes and wings, etc. The 'Chrome' parts are all on one sprue but that horrible super shiny chrome will be stripped and repainted a more realistic shade. The tyres are pre-painted with the 'Firestone' logos and a beautifully thin gold line around their edges with some nice tread detail and minimal mould lines. Lovely jubbly!
Strangely the seat belts are only represented by a decal which doesn't quite match the quality and detail in the rest of the kit. I will be replacing them with a Tamiya aftermarket set. The decal sheet is large and comprehensive but is missing the 'Gold Leaf' part of the sponsorship. I have a couple of aftermarket sheets to rectify this. Besides the two marking options on the kit sheet it does contain decals to model other 'Gold Leaf' Lotus 72s including those driven by Emerson Fittipaldi in 1970 and 1971 along with various other drivers. I have also purchased the set of 99.9% colour matched paints from Zero paints for accuracy and their '2 Pack Clear Coat Diamond Finish' to finish it off nicely.
As this is a tribute build I have also purchased a 1:20 figure of Jochen Rindt to stand alongside the finished car which will be displayed on a simple base on a section of tarmac. Made by 'Elan' the figure has a very good likeness of Jochen including his rather 'Romanesque' shaped nose and some superb decals for his racing overalls. The decals allow either a 1969 or 1970 version with the added bonus of other sponsor patches that were never used by Lotus such as 'Elf' etc., and which can be used on future builds - a nice touch which is very welcome. I will be building car #2 which is the bottom scheme on the instruction sheet and represents Jochen's car at the 1970 German Grand Prix.
I will make a start on this build in the next day or two but also need to get my 1:32 Lancaster finished by the end of July for the 'RAF100' competition, so that will take priority over the next couple of months and updates on this will be sporadic until I've finished the Lanc, but I will press on with this build after that.
Thanks for looking, all comments and criticisms welcomed  
Kev 
ModelMania attached the following image(s):
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 looks a nice kit and good luck in the comp and dont forget you will need a good clear cote to bring out the real colours of the Zero paints Current builds:-C57,Zero, Lamborghini Countach, Caldercraft HMS Agamemnon,Robi,R2-D2, MFH Cobra .
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Great to see another entry underway
Good luck!
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Tomick wrote:Great to see another entry underway
Good luck!
Thanks for that Tom, very much appreciated.
Kev
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Forgot to mention and you probably already know about wearing a face mask when spraying the zero paints and clear-cotes Current builds:-C57,Zero, Lamborghini Countach, Caldercraft HMS Agamemnon,Robi,R2-D2, MFH Cobra .
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Very nice set of parts Kev. Looking forward to seeing that come together.
Good luck with the competition.
Malc.
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Very nice Kev, look forward to this one. Good luck in the competition, Mark
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 Rank: Master      Groups: Registered
Joined: 07/07/2015 Posts: 1,292 Points: 3,928 Location: Allentown PA
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That’s a really nice looking kit. Can’t wait to see how this turns out.
DeAgostini kit builds:
Millennium Falcon: 18% Complete
Shelby GT-500: 28% Complete
Thunderbird 2: 13.75% Complete
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 Rank: Superelite  Groups: Registered
Joined: 10/05/2010 Posts: 2,608 Points: 7,519 Location: Lincolnshire
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Worthy tribute Kev, I think this will make a cracking build. Good luck in the comp. Regards Gray
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Thanks for looking in and your nice comments guys, very much appreciated.
Kev
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Good luck with your entry Kev, can already see you're off to a really nice start.... Look forward to seeing how it all turns out.... Regards Alan
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Rank: Administration    Groups: Registered, Forum Support Team, Administrators, Global Forum Support Team, Moderator, Official Builds Joined: 09/11/2012 Posts: 8,285 Points: 23,943 Location: East midlands
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Good luck Kev, Don`t think I`ve seen an Ebbro kit built before, so will follow with interest. Regards delboy271155 (Derek) COME BACK GUY FAWKES "YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU"
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Nice start Kev Current builds:-C57,Zero, Lamborghini Countach, Caldercraft HMS Agamemnon,Robi,R2-D2, MFH Cobra .
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Rank: Super-Elite  Groups: Registered
Joined: 19/06/2013 Posts: 4,588 Points: 13,553 Location: West Yorkshire
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Great start Kev good luck with your build. Al
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Thanks for looking in and your kind comments Alan, Derek, Andy and Al, very much appreciated.
@ Derek - These Ebbro kits are very good, with excellent levels of detail and good quality with accurately fitting parts and not much clean up needed. Not cheap, usually somewhere between £40-65 but worth the money in the end I think because they build into very nice models. They seem to have a lot of Lotus cars in their range with a few more recent McLarens as well but they seem to be starting to widen their range of car manufacturers with a 1960's F2 Brabham BT18 being released in the near future along with two more versions of the Lotus 49 - all in 1:20 scale! Would love to see more '60s and '70s cars from them and some earlier subjects like the Vanwall and Maserati 250F.
That would be very cool!
Kev
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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ModelMania wrote:These Ebbro kits are very good, with excellent levels of detail and good quality with accurately fitting parts and not much clean up needed. Not cheap, usually somewhere between £40-65 but worth the money in the end I think because they build into very nice models. Unsure if your aware, Ebbro was founded by a former Tamiya engineer who helped develop many of Tamiya’s legendary F1 kits. So its hardly surprising that the 'Tamiya' attention to detail and quality is apparent.
Great start btw
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Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Yeah, I was aware Tom but it's only something I've discovered very recently since buying their products. As you say the Tamiya quality is very apparent and anyone who's built one will only likely have good things to say about their kits.
I also have the Ebbro 1:20 Lotus 72E 'John Player Special'(Fittipaldi/Peterson) and Lotus 49 1967 (Clark/Hill) in my stash and will be adding both versions of the Tyrrell 003 (Stewart/Cevert) to my collection in the next few weeks as well.
Another interesting and fairly recent manufacturer of 1:20 F1 kits is Beemax who are in collaboration with Aoshima and have just three releases at the moment but they are interesting subjects, being the Brabham BT52 and two different versions of the McLaren MP4/2. They also do very nice upgrade sets for their kits. There is a build of their Brabham BT52 in the current Tamiya Magazine and it looks very nice. Things are looking up for 1:20 F1 modellers it seems?!
BTW - Bought a very nice 1:20 F1 kit on Ebay yesterday, being the Hasegawa Ferrari 312T2 '1976 Japanese Grand Prix' (Niki Lauda) which comes with some very nice 'wet' tyres included so I must finish the 1976 McLaren M23 (James Hunt) I started some time ago and do my own version of 'Rush' the movie! Will do a kit review when it arrives from Denmark.
Thanks for your comments re my build Tom, much appreciated.
Kev
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