New Project - Honda RA 273 60s Era F1

[RvE]

I recently got started on the "Penelope Pit Lane" slot car kit of the Honda RA 273. This is a complete kit with a pre-built motor and gear "pod" that is built into the chassis. Its the Policar pod and very high quality! So the kit is more about resin model building and detailing that mechanical slot car building - but its fun! I have soldered up the wires and installed the guide and brushes, and installed the body on the chassis and adjusted the fit. I have completed a bunch of test laps and the car runs great!
I will be adding the rear suspension struts and spring details and I plan to glue them onto the rear axle covers that I added. The axle covers are just the upper half of styrene tubing that has been carefully aligned and glued to the body. So when completed, all of the engine and strut details will be attached to the removable body/axle covers. I am a slow builder and the painting, detailing, driver figure, decals and clear coat will for sure take me many weeks (plus golf season is starting), but I will post pics as I make some progress.


Here is the actual car, driven by Ritchie Ginther, that I am building.

[Brumos RSR]

I have considered picking up one of these. Your pictures are making it harder to resist.

[RvE]

This is my second PCS/Penelope Pit late kit, and the quality is very good, but they are pricey when you buy the body kit + chassis, and then add in the cost of spray cans (I just use Testors rattle cans), etc. It usually ends up costing more than a finished slot car.....but its a hobby!

[chrisguyw]

I am sure it will turn out well,...have fun !!

I built the "Ginther" RS 273 many years ago using the original Airfix/MRRC body shell.............I think I may have used the same picture for reference !!

Cheers
Chris Walker

[RvE]

Nice build Chris. What colour did you use on the wheels? I am struggling to find the right colour.

[chrisguyw]

Hi Ralph, I used some Tamiya TS 21, "gold" with a dust coat of Tamiya TS 71 "clear smoke" to darken them up a touch.

[LAMing]

Wow. What a sanitary kit!

Chris: Nice build.

[RvE]

I am slowly making some progress on the build. I wanted to add some quasi-scale rear suspension details, since they are very visible on the car. Here is what I came up with. All of the details are attached to the body and rear axle cover, so its easy to remove the body from the chassis. The suspension struts are stiff wire, and the coil spring is stretched plastic sprue with soft wire wrapped around it. Of course, I need to replicate this on the other side - which is a pain. I am still considering how to treat the front suspension.

[jhardy3333]

Nice work Ralph. Like Chris, a few years ago I did the Airfix version and also modified a VIP, I think, RA 271 into a 272 and used a Beardog F1 steel chassis for both cars. Keep us posted.

[Zcarfan]

That looks great!!

[RvE]

Made some more progress......I finished the front and rear suspension. These parts are just stiff wire bent to shape. Its a bit tricky to glue these in place, but I used CA glue and lots of patience. So far so good.


Here is a "glamour shot" at this stage of the build. Next up is spray painting the body and hand painting the engine and driver details. Enjoy the pics.

[RvE]

Slowly making progress. I have the body primed and painted and now hand painting the engine, driver and suspension details. I completed the driver head to match Ritchie Ginter (or close to it). I am no expert this kind of detail work, but it came out quite well and here are some pics. These are about 10X actual size, and my mediocre painting skills look much better in actual 1/32 scale....haha. For reference, the head is glued onto a toothpick.

[RvE]

More Painting progress - I have painted the body (used a Testors rattle can), and hand painted the engine details and driver details. I still need to add a black wash to the engine, and add on the mirrors, roll bar and driver head! Then decals and clear coats. I am glad to have finished the engine details - they were tricky since the entire engine is one block of resin plastic. I actually used the Testors Silver, Steel and a mix of the two to try and have 3 different colours across the various engine parts. The wheels were a mix of gold and black and they came out a bit too dark, but look better in person. I hope to be done this project in about 2 weeks. I am 22 hours into it so far! I think the bright red decals will liven it up nicely.

[chrisguyw]

Nice job Ralph .............interesting that the kit included a driver bust with seatbelts,........not that it really matters, but, seatbelts were not used in F1 until 1972,......5 years after the RA273 was competing.

Cheers
Chris Walker

[RvE]

Yes, the seat belts were molded into the torso. This is a "quasi-scale" model, but should look good zooming by on the track, once its done.

[chappyman66]

Agree with Chris.....it looks great to me.

[RvE]

Well I finally finished this Penelope Pit Lane kit. Golf season is severely limiting my hobby time!
Here are the photos of my completed version. I am very happy with how it turned out, but it took me a bit longer than expected to get all the scale modeling work done - I have logged 32 hours on this project. I was able to lay down the decals nicely with Solvaset and used the Mr Hobby clear coat - and it came out very nicely. There are some small variances to the actual car that I opted for, just to improve the aesthetics (eg. my roll bar is silver and rear radiator is white, and this is reversed to the actual car), and I did not get the wheel colour right......but for sure it looks like Ginter's Honda RA 273!

Here are some photos of the finished car showing different angles.


Here are some detail photos.


Final photo showing the chassis. The entire chassis and motor pod come pre-assembled in the kit.


Overall, I am very satisfied with the quality of the kit, and this car is a terrific running slot car on my Scalextric home track.

[Kevan]

I love the work here. I'm far too hasty when it comes to modelling, I don't think I have the patience to do so much work.

The Policar gearbox will make that a pleasure to drive.

[Fast Co.]

Looks fantastic! Nice job!

[Barfly]

Oh this is really cool! Thank you for sharing.