Porsche type 1003 Twin Turbo V-8 Spyder English

Cars

Porsche type 1003 Twin Turbo V-8 Spyder, 1/24 scale

Tamiya Con2002 Winner

by Dale W. King

Editor note: We want to thank Mr. Dale King for sharing this note with us. We send him our congratulations for his first place in the Tamiya CON2002 and wish him a nice trip to Japan.

At the end of the 1990s the Porsche factory was secretly working on a new replacement for its 911 GT1. This was in the form of an LMP 900 Spyder with either a twin turbo V-8 or V-10. The car was built and tested at the Weissach track by, among others, Bob Wolleck. It was found to be lightning fast and considering Porsche's history of near bullet-proof machines was thought to be a favorite for the likes of Le Mans.

At this point, in stepped the corporate 'bean counters' who terminated the program in favor of their upcoming SUV, the 'Cayenne.' How this was allowed to happen at Porsche no one knows for sure. It was, in my and many others' opinion, totally wrong. Porsche's entire history is based on racing. At any rate the car lay hidden from public view until it was finally acquired by Champion Racing in Florida, U.S.A. Porsche and Champion have high hopes for the car in 2002. All this is true up until the "Champion" part. Hey, what's imagination for if you can't daydream a bit.

Scratchbuilding

The model started out as Tamiya's 24th scale Toyota GT-One. Not much is left of the original body. The front and rear of the model were chopped off and the sides 're-paneled' with sheet styrene. The tip of the nose and headlight area, plus the engine cover from the rear of the cockpit on back, were created out of Renshape.

Patterns were made for the new head and tail lights and heated clear plastic pulled over them to form new covers.

The area directly in front of the cockpit and the roll bar were pounded out of K&S sheet aluminum.

The air intakes for the brakes and turbos were completely revised and carbon fiber decal was used everywhere that was appropriate including the interior and engine bay.

I modified the exterior of the engine a little - I figure if you can rebadge an Audi and call it a Bentley then why not a Toyota to a Porsche? Seemed OK to me.

The model was painted using Tamiya spray can pure white. It was then decaled, clear coated (again Tamiya spray paint) and rubbed out with Semichrome and Novus polish. The color 'swashes' were, for the most part, hand cut from color decal sheet.

The lettering was borrowed from several different Champion decal sets with the exception of the "P 900" and the "www.champion-motors.com" which were done for me by Lindley Ruddick on his Alps printer.

I was stunned, to say the least, when this model won the Master Modeler award at TamiyaCon 2002. I'm looking forward to the trip to Japan this May.