Four Small Wheels 5/2003

news

Wish List	Bentley does it!	Modern F1 kits at last!
A few more suggestions for manufacturers who are wondering what to make next... More modern F1’s (OK so we’re greedy, see right!) McLaren M8C 1970 Cardi Curura roadster Ford Focus WRC Acropolis 2003 Citroen Le Mans 1932 Porsche GT1 ‘Swap Shop’ Daytona 2003 New range close Christian Gouel tells us that the first deliveries from his new SLM range should happen during July. The range represents a mammoth project with the initial batch of releases representing around 40 cars which took part in the Le Mans 24 hours. Most of the subjects are pre-war with a few from the immediate post-war era. The kits will feature a combination of metal and resin components and if his previous ranges are anything to go by will be exquisitely made. A list of the first kits that will be issued can be found on the coming soon page and all of these will also be available in hand built form. Prices should be in the region of £35 for the kits and £115 for the hand builts. Censorship In the review pages there are models from two of the leading makers of low-cost resin hand builts which feature some unusual detail painting. Certain decals on the Italian subjects have been carefully touched in with yellow paint to obscure some well known badges. We have checked with the makers and they say that this paint is water-based and can be carefully removed with a drop of water on a paint brush.	Just in case you have missed the Le Mans results and haven’t guessed from our front cover, the number 7 Bentley of Tom Kristensen, ‘Dindo’ Capello & Guy Smith scored an historic victory in the 2003 Le Mans 24 Hours. Not only was this the sixth victory for the Bentley marque, it also marks an eighth win for the Joest team whose mechanics were assisting the RTN Bentley Team. With Bentley taking the first two places, Audi this time had to settle for ‘best of the rest’ with third and fourth and a LMP900 win for the Champion team, though the favoured Audi UK car came to an embarrassing halt early on when it ran out of fuel. Behind the Audi’s we were treated to a tooth and nail fight for the last hour between the fifth placed Panoz and the Courage which was ultimately 7th, Jan Lammers’ Dome stealing 6th after the French car ran into trouble on the last lap. Ferrari also returned to the winners circle with a class win in GTS and an excellent 10th overall. Other class winners were the spectacularly coloured Alex Job Porsche GT3 and the very pretty Noel Del Bello Reynard which scored its third Le Mans class win in LMP675. On the Le Mans 2003 pages you will find all of the entrants photographed for us in glorious colour by Gordon Dawkins and there is a list of all of the cars with their kit reference numbers. Looking at the photos this is going to be a bumper year for modellers with, we’re sure you’ll agree, loads of great looking cars and liveries. Provence Moulage tell us that their first releases should be with us late June/early July and the others not far behind. Die-casts We make no apologies for the inclusion of a die-cast on the front cover. With great looking subjects such as these Japanese GT racers only currently available as die-casts it is the only way we are going to see any kind of model. Also the quality of these products has improved spectacularly and with just one or two little additions they make excellent miniatures. Our main focus will still be the limited production kits and hand built models that we all know and love but there will be a few more die-casts creeping in. We know many collectors have both on their shelves and would like to hear your views on the subject.
		We have been tempting you for months with little snippets about some new Willaims kits that were on the way and now are happy to announce that Crescent Models have released their first two kits. CRM002 will build either Schumacher or Button’s cars from the 2000 Belgian GP and CRM004 will be the FW23B from Imola 2001, where Montoya won. Built models will follow and our photo is of the Button car (CRM002M10). And it’s not just Williams subjects either, as new maker Z-Model of Japan have two versions of the 2002 Jordan (ZED001 & ZED002) and Tameo are soon to release the 2003 version of the yellow car under the Silverline banner (TMS006). Great news. More please. There are / will be, of course, numerous Ferraris from Tameo and BBR.
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		In addition to all of their 2003 Le Mans cars, Provence Moulage have confirmed that they are working on this year’s Renault R203..... we understand Tameo are also negotiating with teams other than Jordan and Ferrari..... we’re not supposed to tell you this but a well known manufacturer is planning on some models of F5000 cars, starting with Andretti’s Viceroy Lola T332. We’d like to know how many of you would support this and any suggestions for other subjects...... R&D Unique in America are working on a 1:24th resin kit of the 1957 Aston Martin DBR1..... good news for Nascar fans, CCC have just released 5 new kits in their Ovale 43 range including Dale Earnhardt Jr’s 2002 championship winner...... Studio 27 are releasing full livery decals for the new Tamiya Williams FW24 kit (TAM20055) so that early season Compaq sponsored cars can be made...... in Wayne Moyer’s build of Marsh Models kit MM066 on the technique page there is a query over some of the model’s details. We were just about to give this to the printer when John Simons at Marsh contacted us and said that he’d sat down and watched a film of the race and Wayne is correct...... John’s now trying to work out what race the original photos were from!...... as well as working flat out in his new SLM range (see separate story), Christian Gouel has now completed his amazing 1:8th scale Bugatti T50 model, photos next time...... the Offical ACO Le Mans 24 Hours annual is due for release in October and the price is set to be an amazing £30, that’s £5 less than last year! Order your copy from GPM now......