The Legend - Lotus 72D - Tamiya 1/12

[FullArmor]

10 hours ago, DocRob said:

Thanks FA, it also shows how small these cars actually are. Lots of technic build tightly around the driver.

Cheers Rob

Yes. But I wouldn't want to be in the car when the collision happens. Driver safety was not the main concern then.

[DocRob]

I started to prepare the engine and transmission for painting. Assembly is straight forward, albeit there´s a lot of clean up necessary. The exhausts are always a bit complicated to assemble, therefore, I decided to finish this task before painting. I glued the exhaust pipes with a tiny bit of glue into the silver four in one piece and then fiddled the other ends of the pipes into their holes in the engine block, before the glue cured. Fixed wit a strip of adhesive tape, I added more glue to the four in one piece and let dry.



Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Engine and gearbox are halfway done. I used the MFH air funnel and distributor set, which is a big advantage against the kit plastic parts, specially the aluminum funnels. I also used black tubing from the spare box, the Tamiya material is too thick. I now own a silver pencil, but pictures show, that the Ford branding wasn´t silver with the 72d. All paints are from the Tamiya LP range and the screwheads were picked out with markers.
The gearbox was painted with Zero Paints texturized color for Hewland gearboxes.







Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

The engine looks really good there Rob. The finish on the gearbox is particularly convincing. Too bad Zero paints aren't available in Canada. 

[DocRob]

11 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

The engine looks really good there Rob. The finish on the gearbox is particularly convincing. Too bad Zero paints aren't available in Canada. 

Thank you Carl, it´s sad to hear, there is no way to get Zero paints to Canada. I really like the texturized paint. Sprayed with a 0,4 mm nozzle and a bit higher air pressure, it gives a convincing finish, at least for 1/12 parts. I didn´t use it for my 1/20 builds lately, it would have looked out of scale.

Cheers Rob

[KevinM]

Looking good Rob and yes it looks like cast Al!

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, KevinM said:

Looking good Rob and yes it looks like cast Al!

Thanks Kevin, I used the texturized color only for the gearbox, for the engine housing, I found it too coarse.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Today, I finished the engine and connected all the tubing. The yellow clear fuel lines were part of the MFH set, the black ignition cables were from the spare box, because the Tamiya supplied ones looked way too thick and out of scale. The MFH set fits the Tamiya plastic without the need for tweaking, great.





Cheers Rob

[Martinnfb]

Beautiful work Rob. This is going to sound silly, however it just hit me, while looking at your model. This engine was naturally aspirated , no boost. For some reason I would expect turbocharger.

[DocRob]

14 hours ago, Martinnfb said:

Beautiful work Rob. This is going to sound silly, however it just hit me, while looking at your model. This engine was naturally aspirated , no boost. For some reason I would expect turbocharger.

Thank you Martin, no turbo chargers on work here, just pure 450 air breathing horses. The turbo era came later in F1. I have a MFH kit of the most powerful F1 car ever, the Brabham BT52. It had only four cylinders and 1,5 liter displacement, but could generate up to 1400 horses in qualifying setup. Not easy to ride, as you can imagine with the enormous turbo boost hitting, when revving up. But this was later in the 80´s, when the turbo boom was rolling.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

During the Christmas days, I prepared the parts for the rear suspension and framework. The moulds are really old and there was a lot of clean up to do. Everything was painted according to the manual with Tamiya LP colors and then assembled. This, like the front suspension assembly was a daring task and some supposed snap fit parts broke during the process. Now, everything is fixed, but not working anymore. To be honest, the working suspension is a unnecessary gimmick and I have no idea, how you should assemble it to a working state.
Finally, I glued the exhausts and some tubing to the engine and let everything dry over night.





Cheers Rob

[Kirk]

Were it not for the hole where the clutch should be, that could almost be a real engine. Beautiful.

[DocRob]

On 12/30/2025 at 5:27 PM, Kirk said:

Were it not for the hole where the clutch should be, that could almost be a real engine. Beautiful.

Thank you Kirk, the hole is already closed and I will post some pictures of further progress soon.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Finally, I married the engine to the gearbox and then to the body. Sounds easy, but isn´t. There are so many fragile parts intersecting, that you have to work out a good sequence. To make the rear suspension workable, it needs a higher skilled builder than me. I early skipped the idea of function and glued everything in place, specially after some of the snap fit connectors broke (old brittle plastic?).
I added some braided lines from Top Studio instead of using the thick rubber hoses, Tamiya provides. I also added coil springs as air intake fasteners, which I found in the spare box.
Please don´t mind the dust and fingerprints, these are work in progress shots.







Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

after a lot of detailwork, I can see the finish line slowly. I added many fittings to the engine, added the rollbar, tank filler and other bits and pieces. I installed the roll bar, which hasn´t even the height of the drivers helmet, so far for security.
The cockpit fairing was finished, with PE-fasteners, rear view mirrors and the yellow tinted clear part. The rear wing is prepared, but needs some curing time before mounting.







Cheers Rob

[GusMac]

The rollbar does seems completely pointless. The drivers would have to hope that the air intake stayed intact to keep their head intact! Safety has thankfully moved on a bit.

[DocRob]

21 hours ago, GusMac said:

The rollbar does seems completely pointless. The drivers would have to hope that the air intake stayed intact to keep their head intact! Safety has thankfully moved on a bit.

The air intake is hold in place with four coil springs and will add only to the risk, when crashing frontal onto something. These cars were really dangerous to drive it seems.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Some vanity shots, before disaster struck. I finished the cockpit with the driver, the instrument panel with added wiring and the steering wheel. Would I have known, how prominent the clumsy hands of the driver figure where, I may have given a first shot of sculpting a try.
I added the rear wing without difficulties and installed some braided lines instead of Tamiya vinyl tubes. Therefore, I pinned all the fittings with 0,5 mm brass rod.

















Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Disaster happened slowly with the last steps of the build, the wheels. I sanded the tires a bit, glued together the rim´s halves and inserted them into the tyres. So far so good. The Lotus 72d to my knowledge was the last F1 car to have Firestone tyres equipped. 
There are decals in the kit for the Firestone branding with golden sidewall rings. While trying to apply them, I noticed, it would be impossible to get the rings right, they simply broke everywhere. The Firestone lettering was tedious too, but finally I got it one.
When I added the wheels to the suspension, there was a tiny cracking sound, and I saw, that one bar of the suspension snapped loose. While trying to fix it, there was another crack, bigger this time and the Lotus broke in halves, the firewall behind the cockpit broke out.
After not throwing the Lotus immediately into the wall (it was close and still is an option), I decided to let it rest for now or maybe forever.



Cheers Rob

[PanzerWomble]

Tis naught but ascratch my lord ! 
 

annoying but surely fixable Rob 😀

Spoiler

 

 

 

[DocRob]

3 hours ago, PanzerWomble said:

Tis naught but ascratch my lord ! 
 

annoying but surely fixable Rob 😀

For every situation in live, there is a fitting Monty Python sketch. I wonder, why they didn´t became a world religion .
It´s possibly fixable PW, the question is, if I want to fix it. I hate redundance and redo´s. Usually, I prepare properly, test a lot and don´t fail often miserably with my processing. When I do, I loose interest, the positive tension, which carries me through the harder parts of a build is wiped out and the urge to finish the project vanishes.
I will sleep it over, at least, it will be easier to repair the suspension first with the halved Lotus, a scratch it is.

Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

So close to completion too. 

I'm glad you're going to take a pause before deciding on your next steps as it's a lovely looking build. Hopefully we get to see it back in one piece. 

Carl

[Kirk]

Who said it didn't become a religion? Judean People's Front, anyone?

Frustrating setback Rob, but just nature's way of reminding us all that other adhesives are available. Glue. One of the many things the Romans have done for us. 

[KevinM]

1 hour ago, DocRob said:

For every situation in live, there is a fitting Monty Python sketch. I wonder, why they didn´t became a world religion .
It´s possibly fixable PW, the question is, if I want to fix it. I hate redundance and redo´s.

What a beotch Rob and I have the same thing going on with the Taifun F-108 painting the outside and it sounds like a seat came loose I have been working this kit two months now and it hasn't been all joy I will decide it's fate when decaled and the tape comes off might look like one of those kills in "Battle of Britain"

[DocRob]

10 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

So close to completion too. 

I'm glad you're going to take a pause before deciding on your next steps as it's a lovely looking build. Hopefully we get to see it back in one piece. 

Not only close to completion Carl, it was exactly while I made the final adjustments after mounting the wheels, the final step. I will see, if I continue, my wife suggested a crash dio .

Cheers Rob