Axel's corner

The Story: After a long and successfull spell with Brabham, Nelson Piquet switched to Williams for the 1986 F1 season. He was under the assumption that he would be the no. 1 driver within the team. But after some good results at the end of 1985 from Nigel Mansell, teamboss Frank Williams would have none of it. And so the two Williams drivers kept snatching points from eachother, while Alain Prost picked up the crumbs and in the end walked away with the title, after Mansell had a spectacular tire blow in the final race of the season in Australia. And so it happened that the (almost) unbeatable Williams team was bested by Alain Prost in his McLaren. Although the constructors title was still Williams'. The fact that neither Williams driver was able to clinch the World Championship Crown didn't do much good for the relationship between Piquet and Mansell for the following year. The Kit: This kit was the fourth F1 kit I built and at first I thought about making Ni

The Kit: This kit was (if I remember correctly) my third 1/24 scale kit. It's by Tamiya (kit no. 24095). As with the BMW, I'm no fan of Mercedes (almost the opposite in fact), but I liked the looks of this car. It's just right, in my opinion. The rims, the shape. I just like it. I built this model somewhere around 1990. The kit is also built totally OOB. The body has been spray-painted with Tamiya TS29 (semi-gloss black) from the can. The rest of the car has been brush painted with Tamiya acrylic paints. As this build also is from my "early period", there's been no clearcoating, no panelline washing or other detailing. The Pictures:

The Kit: If my memory serves me right, this is the very first 1/24 scale car kit that I've built. And looking back now, I can honestly not comprehend what compelled me to buy and build this kit. It's one of the most ugly cars I know. And why I had to choose this one as my first car, I really can't remember. I guess this kit must have been on sale or something... As with most of my kits from that period, this one is also from Tamiya, item no. 24065. I do remember that the build was not completely troublefree. I had to backorder the bodyshell of the car, because I ruined it trying to remove the paint from it. Back then I didn't know that cellulose thinner would dissolve the plastic of which the car was made. I learned it the hard way. I did use TS8, Italian Red, straight from the (Tamiya) spraycan on the body. First attempt wasn't very successfull as I wrote above. But the second (and final) attempt was not too good either. The paint was laid down well

This was my third F1 kit (scale 1/20) I ever built. This kit is from my early 90's modelling period and has been built out of the box. I'm not particularly into F1 cars from the 70's, but I liked this car because of the simple but beautiful livery. And a pleasant side effect of this simple livery was the fact that it would be rather easy to paint. Back then I didn't know that Gloss black is a difficult colour to lay down perfectly. But as I didn't know that, all went well. What didn't work out that great was my decalwork. On the pictures below you can see a lot of silvering, where airbubbles are trapped under the decals. That's a shame, but I like this model anyway. I built Mario Andretti's car for no particular reason.