Lancia D24

I've just recieved some information from a guy who lives in Thunder Bay, Canada. Dave Knutson has been following the blog and watching the Aston builds and decided to share with me the build of the D24. Rather than me waffle on in my usual way, I thought i'd post the pictures along with the email word for word. Here it is.

Graham,

Here are the pictures to refresh the description.

I started with the BSR/ProtoSlotKit Lancia D24 and started by heating and remoulding the body
to get the tail droop, nose droop, wheel cut outs etc. about right. Although the model looks pretty decent "as-is" I couldn't quite get the compact but wide "feel" of the car as it appears in period photo's with the long appearance of the kit body. Shortening the snout and relocating the ventilation openings helped. Also the ProtoSlot Kit headlamps were removed and larger lights, more widely spaced was anticipated to help achieve this impression. The body at this stage has the headlights temporarily mounted and will require significant "fit-up" to achieve the integrated look of the real car.
The wheelbase adjustment rose as a result of studying those photographs and not being able to reconcile the appearance from a quarter view. Measuring the wheelbase revealed rather a large difference from the scale dimension.
The 7 mm has been removed between the rear wheels and the cockpit by cutting horizontally "tangent" to the top of the rear wheel opening, then laterally across /through the headrest. The headrest fairing was then cut out using a jeweller's saw, following which the balance of the 7 mm was cut from the (now separate) rear fenders/tail assembly. The tail was then "offered-up" to the front section, fitted-up and then glued in place, reinforced with glassfibre cloth. The rear wheel openings were then scribed for the 7 mm offset and cut to size. The headrest fairing was reworked and blended in.
After the surgery, I noted a variation in the tail -either there was a variation side to side in the original or I had introduced a small angular error when I reconnected the front and rear. This was resolved by grinding off the rear flank vents behind the wheel wells, tail lights, license plate mount, etc, reshaping the rear end and then adding new vents, lights, plate mount fabricated from styrene.

The more I look at it, the more variations I can see -hence the purchase of a second body kit- I've learned from the work so far but I'm reluctant to do too much rework on this shell. However, I think that this is getting closer to the natural beauty of the D24.

By the way, the chassis is a narrowed Slot-it HSR 2 with an offset motor mount- it looks like her "slip is showing" from the "worms-eye" view...

Anyway, I hope these are of interest.

Cheers, Dave K.

Well I like it!

Graham.