Porsche 935, 6 hrs. Mugello 1976
The third revision of the FIA Group 5 regulations stated that the models who wanted to compete framed in that group were not required any manufacturing requirement, but they must be developed from models that already were approved for one of the above groups (which were required to manufacture a certain number of units to race).
Porsche, to participate in the Constructor´s World Championship in group 5, left his model 930 (911 Turbo) in its most radical configuration to date, the RSR turbo, which developed in line with the regulation, a regulation fairly permissive in terms of preparation. It must keep the car roof and some mechanical components and limits within the bounds of weight, measurements, tire dimensions and aerodynamic elements among others. The model was called 935 ("93" by 930 and "5" of the group that competed) and their features were a exaggerated rear wheel arches, the huge rear wing and the nose with the lights embedded in the front bumper, it was called "flat nose". That features aesthetically, because the mechanical changes were several, including a 2.8 liters turbocharged engine (type 930/72) with a power ranging from 550 to 650 hp. With such a model, chassis 935 002 R15, Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass participated in Mugello 6 hours of 1976, remaining in first position within the group 5 and first place in the absolute ranking. This is the car:
The photo is taken from a web page dedicated to Jacky Ickx who, incidentally, is great and has an amazing amount of pictures. And perhaps you may know, their address is:
www.jacky-ickx-fan.netTo reach that destination delivery of a Porsche 911 SC bodywork from the collection Altaya "Rally Míticos"
As always, the first step is to dismantle the body and remove the paint and start working on cutting and pasting where appropriate.
Before starting with the body work I focused on easier the mechanical work. I didn´t get complicated and I adapted the Ninco Porsche 911 chassis that has the same wheelbase as the SCX model. The changes in the chassis were:
- Eliminate rear suspension brackets because they touch in the drivers tray. The rear axle bearings would be attached to the chassis to avoid their oscillation when running.
- Trim the height of the front suspension mounts. They touched in the inside of the hood and left the car with the nose up. The problem with this amendment is that the suspension stopped working because it hasn´t sufficient run.
- Trim the sides of the chassis to fit the contours of the bodywork. One of the things I like about the Ninco chassis, are usually rather wide, so they can be adjust very well to the body.
For the connection between chasis and bodysheel I cut the original lugs and, drawing the layout of the chassis screws, I hit a new evergreen rods reinforced with bicomponent glue. Result, the chassis is very tight and especially swings perfectly. The photo shows the chassis with the motor, Ninco NC3, and some BBS Ninco wheels they fit like a glove to the car, even if the gold was one little brighter would suit it much better...
After finishing the part of mechanics, it was time for the body work. Reproduction of the shape of the car is not too complicated, I "olny" had to modify the bonnet, the front air dam, widened rear wheel arches and make the spectacular rear wing that gives the car a tremendous personality.
- I took the frog eye headlights out sanding down, didn´t want to use the mini drill to don´t go too far cutting. Cut the lights sanding was more laborious but safer.
- For the front spoiler the work was more complicated. Noticing the front spoiler of a model of a Revell Porsche 935 scale modell I decided to do it completely. First I hit a strip of evergreen around the bumper of the car. To reinforce the glued piece I used bicomponent putty (Pattex) with which I also covered the holes of the flashing lights. The intention was to make it as compact as possible before making the corresponding holes (radiator and air intakes for the brakes and headlights). Once dried the putty I marked the point where I should cut and drill the holes. The spoiler of the Revell model Revell gave me great help because it get me the position and exact measurements of each hole.
As the original car bumper is too long I sand it a little to shorten it. I also changed the front wheel arches, which in the original car was widened to the front door of the car.
- I widened the rear wheel arches adding bicomponent putty and shaped them with sandpaper. They took their good hours of sanding, but it was the most important part of the car with the rear wing and wanted to leave them as faithful as possible to the real model.
- For reproduce the rear wing I also took the Revell Porsche 935 scale model wing as a template and I find it more difficult than expected. The forms seem easy to reproduce but the don´t so I had to paste and peel off pieces that it consisted a few times until do it well. Here´s some photos of the construction of the rear of the car:
In the previous photo also shows that I said above about the front wheel arches.
If you look, I cut the body to enter the rear wing and left it more firmly attached to the body. Furthermore, the whole underside of the wing is filled and molded with bicomponent putty. Increase the weight of the car but is very strong and let to reproduce the shapes of a simpler way than pasting pieces of plastic.
The quality of the pictures are not good but can see what I mean. There goes another one seen from above.
The following photos are with the car painted with the first coat of primer to put mistakes into the light.
Continuing with the car details I focused on the front of the car and the rear wheel arches.
I opened the holes in the hood where shall be housed the plugs of the various deposits of the car (fuel, oil ..) with a 3.5 mm drill and then glued a piece of evergreen below. The plugs will make them with leftover pieces of plastic scale models:
In the previous photo also can be show the pattern of the brake cooling gills. I thought to scratching them directly onto the putty but just didn´t convince me the result.
I continued working on the front bumper, making well the front lights housing and pasting the grille that simulate the radiator taken from a Ninco chassis. I did the housing of the headlights stucking bicomponent putty balls inside the body that later molded with a drill while the putty was still fresh, a bit of sandpaper to let them as symmetrical as possible and the hole was done. To finish the front I also opened two air intakes to cool the brakes:
The original car have rear wheel arches a little bit streamlined, to simulate that I pasted a few strips of plastic on the outside. Later I´ll must work again on the wheel arches because the fall is not the same as the original car, which I made rather are the fenders of the RSR but in the 935 the fall was less pronounced, If you look at photos of the original car and mine you will realize what I mean.
The rear wheel arches gave me more work than expected, first, I must modify the inclination down the body from the outside, on the other, the front wheel arches to make it more continuously from the body, and the other, their width, because one wheel arch was wider than the other (almost 1 mm. more width ..). For the first two modifications used putty conveniently molded, and to correct the width of the car pasted evergreen pieces of different thickness on the sides, thus the width achieved more in line with the original car (It had been a little tight) and that both wheel arches were virtually identical.
The changes also affected the front wheel arches and the shape of the doors, which Altaya model are slightly different. Here you can see the beginning of the amendment:
And here the result:
The gills also gave me more work than expected. As I said above, at first I thought of scratching them directly onto the hood as a bas-relief by drawing and scraping gently with a cutter, but the work was enormous and the result wasn´t good at all, so I went to plan B, to find a donor. And truthfully it was fairly easy because there was a body of the Porsche 917 Fly-Crin collection that came in handy.
The first thing I did was remove the gills to the body of the 917 and give them a similar shape to the 935 ones:
Them, I made a cut-out on the hood where the grills must be placed and glued down a piece of evergreen 1 mm. thick. Below I reinforced it with bicomponent glue because the front of the car was a little weak.
I pasted the cutted gills at the corresponding position:
And finally I applied Tamiya putty to fill holes and to let them well finished. The result was this:
To be honest, I wouldn´t have used the gills of the 917, because the 917 have 6 slots and 935 are 7, but to do the extra slot was quite complicated to me and didn´t want to spoil them so I chose the gills with 6 slots.
To the rear air intakes I got complicated a lot, I took them off the hood of the bodywork of the 917. After a little sanding proceeded to make holes in the rear of the car and after spending some time seeing if they were correctly located stuck with bicomponente glue:
Continuing with the details and continuing to blast holes in the bodywork I started opening the side air intakes, the thing was simple. I draw the shape of the air intake over the wheel arch and removed the putty with the mini drill engraving accessory...
...defined later with the blade of the cutter.
I didn´t liked The shape of the rear of the starting model, I mean the curvature that has the original car back in the hood, which Altaya model is not well reproduced. To remake it, I first made the engine grid with a piece of 0.5 mm. thick evergreen plastic which has a very finely grated and utilizing to simulate the slats of the grid:
As I didn´t want to spoil the bodywork making holes in such a delicate part of the model (just below is the lug that holds the chassis) proceeded backwards, filling the gap with putty and to mold to the desired shape after dryed.
After sanding the roof to remove some excessive curvature thereof a primer coat of Duplicolor gray spray help me to find faults.
Failures like those that appeared in the gills of the bonnet, filling with putty and arranged to be as faithful to the real model, and the rear air intakes also retouched:
Finally I placed a grid made of resin that my friend Dario from Unotreintaidos send me. With it the car won many points:
Continuing to work I gave a good retouch with waterproof sandpaper to the whole bodywork to let the paint flawlesse and cover small scratches, I also changed some parts such as the underside of the rear wheel arches to give the correct curvature since one of them had eaten too much material and were unequal, the result is this:
While doing all this work I realized that the front of the car had been slightly weakened by removing the original lights so I reinforced for the bottom of the bonnet with two belts of evergreen 1 mm thick longitudinally sticked with bicomponent glue that helped to win the lost rigidity.
And finally and to finish all the bodywork of the car touched up the headlights. To this end I applied wood putty in the holes of the headlights and giving them shape by cutting the surplus with a drill of 6.1 mm. diameter They were a little low compared to the original model, not that I taok a lot of work to remake them but I like the result and I gave me that little license:
The headlights are from the 917 I used as a donor, and are a little big for my taste but once fitted doesn´t suit bad at all.
The lampshades also where taken from 917 bodyshell, taking advantage of the curvature they have that fits quite well to the 935. The technique I learned at the "Docslot" forum and showed by Disain, with some pieces of adhesive tape is obtained the approximate shape of the headlights and then adjusted with sand and lime:
Once done the work the result is this:
And placed on the car to check how they looked (without gluing anything ...):
All I had to do is review some little things missing, but all the modeling work was already finished.
Between coat and coat of primer I improved the interior a little. I hadn´t thought of doing it but taking advantage of the drying times of paint and as the original drivers tray it wasn´t a wonder I decided to give it a change. I removed the simulated seats, modified the dashboard to give a more appropriate way, placed a backet made of evergreen 1 mm. thick, changed a bit the driver's helmet to resemble to that used by Jackie Ickx and modified the anti-roll bars doing they arrived to the front of the cabin. In the photo below you can see the tray with the first modifications made and the backet on its side.
One coat of primer:
And painted:
and the interior finished with Mr Ickx at the wheel, along with the steering wheel, shift knob and the handbrake ...
At the same time I was painting the interior gave the final coat of paint to the bodywork:
The rest of the accessories of the body were this way:
The water decals I made on a decal paper purchased on eBay, similar to that of A2M, but I get the impression that it is slightly thinner and quite sturdy. Made with Corel Draw, logos and brands were simple, the heaviest part was resizing correctly. What were really complicated were the decals that go over the rear wheel arches. He calmly took me about 8 hours to leave them with the proper size and shape. Their shape is very complicated. For health cure printed two sets of decals and the rear wheel arches I made for duplicate (and indeed, during installation I had to use almost all ....). Once printed and dried gave three coats of "Bosque Verde" varnish airbrush applied.
As the decals dryed I detailed the body, glasses frames, holes in the hood, and the line of the front apron, which I left quite sick. I wanted to paint it with Vallejo red fluorescent and didn´t cover the surface at all. I did some tests with other colors by mixing red and orange and I got the color it has. It didn´t cover well and I'm not happy with the result.
The application of the decals had no mystery except the rear wheel arches ones, because the corresponding water decal was very big and complicated to place, not for the shape of the wheel arch itself but by the end where it joins the wing support. The result at that point was bad, but it bothers me more that have not been symmetrical two decals. But as I said the placement was very complicated, and after four attempts (so that I made spare decals in case ...) I left it as it has been and as seen in the pictures:
A day of drying and two coats of "Bosque Verde" varnish and the body was ready for sentence. The headlights and the tulips stuck with carpenter adhesive diluted with water and the hood caps and rear vents with cyanoacrylate. A general cleaning and that is how the car has been:
To be a car as complex I like the result. Has flaws in the paint, mainly because the number of coats that I had to give with white paint to covering, and an occasional failure when it comes to mold, but I'm very happy with the result.
| Chassis | Ninco Porsche 911, adapted |
| Wheelbase | 73 mm. |
| Dimensions (L x W x H) | 147 x 65 x 37 mm. |
| Weight | 98 gr.. |
| Motor | Ninco NC3 |
| Front tires | Team Slot low profile |
| Rear tires | Ninco 21 x 11 mm. |
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