Saturday, October 30, 2010

Tamiya BMW R80 Paris-Dakar




Tamiya's kit of a BMW R80 Paris-Dakar racer in 1/12th scale. It's another very nice kit, and the rider has a plausible stance for a desert racer, weight slightly back and up off the seat. This is one of the oldest models in my collection, and time has not been kind to it - for reasons entirely unknown, almost all the decals peeled and fell off. The only "decal" that is fully intact is the tiny route sheet that I drew and glued into the holder on the top of the gas tank.

It's mostly gloss white, Testors Guards Red, many shades of Metalizer on the engine, and some sand-colored paint highly thinned and painted into the knobby tires.

I think the decals originally identified the rider as Gaston Rahier, but you couldn't tell from the execution of the model, since all the decals fell off.

7 comments:

-Warren Zoell said...

This is excellent. Well done.

William said...

Do you ever sometimes look at one of your models (which are uniformly excellent, I must say) and think "Wow, I don't think I'm that good of a builder; how did that turn out so nice?"

-Warren Zoell said...

Thank you but usually when I look at my models all I see are the faults. Sometimes when I build a model and when it's finished I'll think "damn I'm good". I think that's what keeps us building whether it's true or not. Funny how those ones seem to get the least views. Oh well.

William said...

In my case, nothing reveals a hitherto-unseen ejector pin mark or obvious mold parting line like posting a picture of a model on the Internet. But every now and then I get it right (or close to right) and all the flaws and goofs are forgotten.

-Warren Zoell said...

I know what you mean.

Knute said...

Can't be Rahier; he was a lot shorter.

Anonymous said...

Il s agit pourtant de Gaston rahier, la maquette est une tamya