Build Review Pt I: Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Roadster
Kit No #4708
1/12th scale
Model Dim.: 32,0 cm
Price: $173.34 USD from Hobbylink Japan
One of the better parts of the last year was an offer to review and build this beauty. All the better that 2021 was the year I got back to following the Formula 1 races a little more closely and as a part of that, I did a lot of reading about the beginnings of motorsport racing. Although this boxing isn’t particularly focused on that topic, it certainly provides an impressive display when finished and the beauty of the early days of the car industry.
Later on, in part in the following parts, you will get to see more of my approach to what the final model will look like. Now, however, I will show you the chassis and the engine just before I started to assemble the cockpit and some of the pipelines that will go with it.
To me, this presents a huge challenge to me - I have never built a scale model car. Let alone 1/12th scale!
The Subject: Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Roadster
The Alfa Romeo 8C can be considered as one of the most famous sports cars of the 1930s. The car's name derives from the engine adopted: an 8-cylinder in-line supercharged engine with a displacement of 2,336cc. The Alfa Romeo could be considered the “state of the art” for technology, innovative solutions and performances. Characterized by impressive reliability and driveability the “8C” achieved significant victories in international car racing competitions. It linked its name to the famous Italian driver Tazio Nuvolari that won, among the others, the Targa Florio race in Sicily and the prestigious Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
This last victory gave the “Monza” name to the twin seater GP car. From the racing version, a production batch of almost 200 vehicles was produced for the private markets and to be used on the normal road. To celebrate the 110th anniversary of the famous Italian manufacturer we are releasing the two-seater Sport version of the 1930’s. The car was distributed at that time via the Alfa Romeo sales network to those customers wealthy enough to purchase the most successful sports car of the period.
The Model from Italeri:
The kit itself comes in a large box and for me, the most overwhelming part was the size of the main body parts. The level of the details isn’t particularly great which leaves plenty of space for the modeller to practise, learn or develop new techniques to rectify this. For time restricting purposes I decided to go a somewhat halfway approach. Replaced a few bolts here and there, added some missing panels if it was easy to spot or simply replaced some of the more cumbersome thick pipelines with more appropriate sizing. There are many pictures of the actual cars. Some are in restoration, while some may be full build replicas. With that in mind, I decided to go with something close to this replica
Included in this kit.
- Coloured Instruction Sheet
- Moving steering wheel
- Realistic suspension
- Highly detailed engine
- Rubber tires
- 320 plastic parts
- 30 Chromed parts
- Photo Etched parts
- Opening cowling
- Screws, tubes, rope and nylon net are all included.
The colours included in this boxing
The decal sheet
The sprues of the kit
Chrome plated parts are included
5 vinyl tyres are included
Mesh. wire and screws to complete this kit are included
The build - Pt I
I won’t be able to get a 100% look, as the seat and some of the more modern addition aren’t included in the kit plus I will add some mild weathering to show the vehicle that just finished some sort of “Mallorca classic” rally week - sorry/not sorry car modeller friends.
Now onto the build. I started with preparing part of the chassis. Lots of sanding paper, polishing was needed to bring that surface detail to where I wanted it.
I drilled out some of those rivets as I secured some 3-D designs from a fellow modeller (thanks Jörgen) and got them printed by one of the online providers.
Thus follows a rather crude effort on my part here, fixing some imperfection on main spars.
The construction, surface detail and sending of the chassis is a little time-consuming, but when it comes together it’s worth it. It also gave me the first impression of its size.
A closer look at Italeri’s solution on the suspension.
The chassis then received multiple coats of Mr surfacer which was polished to high shine prior to spraying the red colour.
The rear suspension, diff and universal are also prepared in a similar fashion as the rest of the chassis.
I came up with my own mix for this Alfa’s trademark red colour - A mix of Mr Colour C81 and C29. It turned out to be a bit Ferrari-ish but as it will represent a replica of the car it won’t matter.
The assembly of the rear axle takes a little bit of effort with all the alignments but it ends up functional although slightly unrealistic with these bolts.
Next step - the engine! I started with replacing the biggest offenders that originally look like a blob of plastic.
Once all parts were glued, sanded, primed and sprayed I lay them down for this picture.
It all went together rather well and once that was done I added a few little details and also a few decals that come with the kit.
All piping according to instructions was added. You notice missing spark plugs. I won’t add those until later on after I give them some more refining
The engine is attached to the chassis by four screws that are included in the kit, two on each side and I then glued the kit at the front. The screws are a tad too big but structurally they do make sense to me.
Part II of this build will feature here on TMN next week!
Cheers
Lukáš Kašuba
Thanks to Italeri for sending this kit to Lukáš to build for you. The link to this kit on Italeri's website is here...
