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Old 29 Nov 2005, 10:01 (Ref:1472769)   #26
John Turner
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Yes, indeed, Dave!

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Incidentally, Minichamps produced a good model of this car a year or two back, limited to 4004 pieces. It's an absolute must for anyone collecting Le Mans models.
Actually, I'm surprised that it's not sold out, by now! I got mine nearly a year ago. You'd think that with a combination of Alfa model collectors, Le Mans model collectors, along with those interested in the rarer more exotic cars, especially with an interesting history like this one, it would have sold like the proverbial 'hot cakes'!
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Old 29 Nov 2005, 12:39 (Ref:1472886)   #27
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Yes, indeed, Dave!
Oops......how did I miss that?

My excuse is that it's illustrated in the December 'Model Auto Review' so I assumed that it was a new model!
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Old 29 Nov 2005, 13:12 (Ref:1472917)   #28
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krt917 should be qualifying in the top 5 on the gridkrt917 should be qualifying in the top 5 on the grid
It's great that there are models of this. Only thing about the Minichamps one is that I think the red is too dark, especially going by J.J.S.S. Express's picture of the real car at the bottom of page 1...
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Old 29 Nov 2005, 15:18 (Ref:1473059)   #29
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fazzaz has a lot of promise if they can keep it on the circuit!
BBR did a very nice handlbuild of the 2.9 coupe a few years ago as well (which I have in company with the two BBR short-chassis Touring Spyders). It makes the Minichamps an even better value for money, although I don't believe that either company got the tail just exactly correct.
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Old 29 Nov 2005, 16:30 (Ref:1473114)   #30
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Only thing about the Minichamps one is that I think the red is too dark, especially going by J.J.S.S. Express's picture of the real car at the bottom of page 1...
I've never seen the Minichamps model (or the real car!) but the photo in Model Auto Review does make it look a very dark red. The photo of the real car in 'Alfa Romeo - Always With Passion' by David Owen makes it look a much lighter red than J.J.'s picture......

What we're up against is the vagaries of colour reproduction - only by seeing the model & the real car together can we be really sure; then there's always the problem that a car as old as this will probably not have it original paint, so we can't be sure of its exact colour when raced at Le Mans.
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Old 30 Nov 2005, 09:50 (Ref:1473714)   #31
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Originally Posted by fazzaz
It makes the Minichamps an even better value for money, although I don't believe that either company got the tail just exactly correct.
Yes, it's quite an unusual shape, probably difficult to replicate exactly.
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Old 30 Nov 2005, 13:00 (Ref:1473852)   #32
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What we're up against is the vagaries of colour reproduction - only by seeing the model & the real car together can we be really sure; then there's always the problem that a car as old as this will probably not have it original paint, so we can't be sure of its exact colour when raced at Le Mans.
Very true, and red seems to be particularly problematic. I have (well, had, it seems to have gone missing in a recent move!) a Solido model of the 1970 Le Mans winning 917. The model is orange, but a picture I have of it shows it to be more red (which is certainly the colour that other Porsche Salzburg cars seem to use). Looking into it a bit more closely, I found that many pictures, and the several models produced of the car, presented very different shades. I'm still certain that the car was more red than orange!

As for the Alfa tail, I would imagine that it is a particularly difficult shape to capture. I was fortunate enough to see the real car at the Goodwood Festival a few years back, and I remember thinking how unusual it looked from the back.
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Old 7 Dec 2005, 09:10 (Ref:1478750)   #33
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I recently had the good fortune to speak to Simon Moore, author of two works about pre war Alfas, 'The Immortal 2.9' and 'The Legendary 2.3' which are the Alfa bibles for these models. I took the opportunity of raising the issue about authenticity of colours for these cars and in particular the 1938 Le Mans car. He advised that it is simply not possible to be a 100% certain of the correct colour shade of any car from the 30's, due to the constituency of the paints used since the aging process (as referred to by Dave, above) includes chemical reactions that alter the shade over time. Even where the original paint is found under layers of new paint or on some obscure untouched part of the car, there is no guarantee that the colour shade that you are looking at is the same as it appeared 60 or 70 years ago because it will still have been affected by oxidisation. Even early post war colour film will not help since different film brands would produce different shades of colour even where all the other circumstances (location, lighting, etc) were identical. The best we can rely on in these cases are peoples memories and, of course, not only does memory fade and play tricks on you, there are fewer and fewer people around who will have seen these cars first hand. The upshot of all this is that Minichamps have interpreted the original colour to the best of their ability. Although from a purely personal point of view, I would have liked to see a bit more red and a couple of shades lighter, because that's how I pictured it in my mind, who is to say they are wrong!
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Old 9 Dec 2005, 13:16 (Ref:1480427)   #34
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Fair point!

I'm not sure whether to be disappointed or pleased that, despite all the technology the human race has developed in the last 100 years, we still can't determine for sure the colour of a car that took part in an international motor race less than 70 years ago!

As for the model, I also prefer the colour that the real car is now compared to that of the model, but there's always a chance Minichamps might be right!
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