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In 1981 McLaren presented what would be one of its most successful series of racing cars: the MP4. The most important feature was the monocoque construction, there was no more aluminum in it; instead of that, it became a solid tub made out of compound materials, such a carbon fiber, etc. 1984 was the beginning of the turbo era for the MP4 series with a six cylinder Porsche Tag turbo engine; this power plant would take Niki Lauda to his third world championship that same year, and Alain Prost would do the same in 1985/86. Protar choose the 1986 model for their kit but the 1985 was very much alike, so it would not be very difficult to build this version. In fact, I have seen some pictures of very good examples on this conversion.
The kit
I made a short analysis of the Protar kit when I bought it, back in 2000. >Here.
The final conclusion in that note was that the kit had good quality; however, I must make two remarks: the kit is very simple (lack of detailing) and you have to work a great deal in order to make it look "convincing", and the plastic was very fragile, they would break at the simple contact with CA cement (this is a common conditions when the plastic is too porous). And another detail, almost every part had "sinks", this is due to an incorrect cooling process of the parts tree, or inadequate temperature at the time of the plastic injection into the mould. My personal conviction is that each model must have a clear objective for the modeler, as well as each note must have it for the reader. My objective when I built the PM4/2 was to have a depiction of that car, with the quality aspect of Tamiya's McLaren MP4/6 kit, due to the similarity of both
cars, and the building materials.
The purpose of this note would not be to tell you how I built the model, because this kit has been discontinued more than ten years ago, so it is quite difficult to get one. I don't think it is reasonable to write a thorough note on specific details; so I will concentrate in general detailing that can be applied to other models with similar characteristics... and quality.
Request a copy of this note to the webmaster!
This special issue is only available in pdf format. This is a technical article of 135 pages, plus photos of the real car detail by detail.
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