1/43 Indy car model obsession – part three

Another step for Indy car model world domination

We’re back again with another sampling of one man’s 1/43 Indy car model obsession. Our collector has a stunning cache of Indy car model kits from many well-known model makers. He also has a fertile mind with ideas that let me delve into areas of modeling that I might not otherwise attempt. 

One of the model makers in his kit collection is from the mysterious Brickyard folks out of Japan. They’ve only produced two runs of kits primarily aimed at celebrating Takuma Sato and his two Indy 500 wins. The first kit was of the somewhat ugly “body kit” aero that Honda and Chevrolet developed for the rules of that moment. Both Sato and Fernando Alonso’s cars were offered for a very, very short time. Alonso has a large following in Japan, hence the kit of his car in which he acquitted himself quite well.

The next Brickyard kit produced was of Sato’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan Indy winner. They sold out quickly too.

Takuma Sato’s RLL car

After building a couple of other cars from this kit I finally built the car the kit was intended to be. Thus I used all of the superb kit decals for the first time.

I shot the body with Tamiya TS26 Pure White and then masked off the white areas to spray Tamiya TS50 Mica Blue. Decals define the stripes so careful masking of the sidepod curves with thin lengths of Tamiya masking tape was necessary.

Use round toothpicks to “burnish” the tape edges for a clean paint job. By burnishing I mean carefully running a toothpick over the edges to firmly nail the tape to the model. Don’t be afraid to use the entire shape of the toothpick to press down tape. However you don’t need to use the force of Samson to adhere the tape. The point of the toothpick is useful for getting into small crevices but the body of the toothpick is useful for smoothing tape with minimal fraying of the tape edges.

The Huski Dallara

Indycals was really on the ball when they produced the decals for Marcus Ericsson’s 2022 Indy 500 winner. The decals are crisp in the usual Indycals way but what caught my eye were the plain white decals provided to back up the mountain areas on the side of the car. They provided this so that the red paint would not show through the top mountain decals. Or you could use them to create masks to paint in the white areas as Indycals suggested one might do.

So I did.

After scanning the mountain decals I output the scan to my printer. After making sure that the print was exactly the same size as the mountain decals, I laid a strip of 3/4″ Tamiya masking tape on my cutting board. On top of that I taped down the scanned print and then carefully cut right through the paper print and into the tape. Clearing away the spent paper print left a perfect mask which was then laid in the correct position on the Brickyard model and burnished down. I also used this technique for the front wing shrouds.

Provimi Veal Lola

What do you do with the Tameo Bobby Rahal Indy winner kit when you have an extra one? It was an easy suggestion for me and an easy yes for our collector. I am a JPS Lotus fan as is he. So Arie Luyendyk’s 1988 Provimi Veal car was the subject for this 1/43 Indy car model build.

Indycals supplied the decals for the body and tires. If you have not checked out Indycals’ tire decals, do so now. Instead of individual decals for the signage on the side of every racing tire, they came up with an ingenious idea. Put the writing on a fully sidewall-encompassing decal. This completely eliminates the unconvincing decal look that regular decals impart to models.

Red Bull Dallara

Max Papis drove this car in the 2002 Indy 500. Red Bull graphics look good on just about anything and they do on this car as well.

Built using a Formula Models Dallara as a base, it uses Indycals decals (of course) for the car and tires. It was a pretty straightforward build. Tamiya TS51 Racing Blue is a pretty convincing Red Bull blue.

You might notice on some of the models that I build that I tend to enhance certain features that might not otherwise be true to the real car. But they make certain details on a little model “pop”. So I might chrome wing wickers or leave suspension that came chromed in a kit on a model car that did not actually have it. It sure looks good on the shelf.

Big Gulp Dallara

You and I and most of America knows that Paul Tracy really won the 2002 Indy 500. He wuz robbed.

We won’t get into that.

This is another Formula Models Dallara kit that was painted with Tamiya paints once again. The TS35 Park Green is pretty close. Indycals’ decals are actually superior to those that came in the kit so I used them instead. However I used the kit numbers since they had the gold shadow the Indycals did not.

Coming soon

The green William Rast Dallara that Townsend Bell drove in the 2008 500. Another neat 1/43 Indy car model.

Part one of this series can be seen here.
Part two of this series can be seen here.

Take a look at the great selection of model car decals in many scales on the Indycals website.

For more fun racing stuff, click here.