Before fixing the body onto the chassis, I wanted to finish the work on the interior as all the parts had been prepared and painted earlier.
But before we get these parts fitted, there are three decals to go onto the dashboard to replicate the gauges. These fitted without any problems, but like a lot of this build, a good magnifying glass is essential.
It was now time to install the steering column and wheel, a simple job but a good pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass is essential.
There’s a small indent in the floor pan and a cut-out under the dashboard, as locations and a couple of drops of 5 minute epoxy sees the job is done.
Next come the gearstick, which I had left attached to a small piece of sprue to make it easier to paint. This was cut off and the gearstick was attached to the small indent moulded into the floor.
Next item was the handbrake, which gave me a bit of a fit problem. The instructions show the handbrake and a small circular part being glued together, but the problem here is that it just wouldn’t fit into the slot moulded into the floor, so I had to cut and sand the part to get it to fit into the slot.
My advice is not to fit the small circular part onto the bottom of the handbrake lever. After getting it fitted into the slot, a quick touch up with some satin black paint and things looked much better.
With the gauges, steering wheel and other items fitted to the interior, it was now time to finish off this area.
The seats had been painted previously and the front seat had been fitted together, while the rear seat has to be fitted as separate parts – the seat squab and the backrest.
I dry-fitted the front seat before putting any glue on it, but like most of this build there was no fit problem, so a few spots of 5 minute epoxy and the seat was re-fitted. A couple of spring clamps were used to hold it in place while the glue dried.
While the front seats fitted perfectly, the rear seat squab really was a tight fit and caught on the inner-wheel well mouldings.
If I had put on a thick coat of paint on the seats or in the interior, I would have put the blame on this, but I hadn’t. Eventually, with a good push, the seat was finally glued into place.
The backrest part of the seat fitted without any such problem and a few spots of 5 minute epoxy had it securely fixed into place.
With the seats finally fitted, the doors could now go into place.
But before they were glued into place the inner door handles had to be fitted, which was a simple job. However, on inspection they look more like window winder handles than door release handle,s which was a little bit strange as the car never had wind up windows.
This meant they were simply painted silver to match the reference photos I have of the real thing.
Once the handles were fitted, the doors were added, again using 5 minute epoxy. The fronts were located first and clamped, then left to dry.
The trick here is to not clamp them too tightly, as it would be easy to bend or damage the B post.
Once the front doors were in, the rear ones can now put in place, using 5 minute epoxy a few spots on the frame and on the hinge panel the doors simply fell into place.
While I glued the doors shut, because of the design of the model you also have the option to keep the doors open; a nice choice if you’re going to be putting the model in a diorama.
Now that the doors were fitted, it was time to put the body and the chassis together.
This again was done out of sequence, like a lot of the build. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the sequence on the build instructions, but like a lot of modellers I like to build it my way.
The body is mounted on the chassis by six mounting points, a few drops of epoxy resin and the body and chassis just fell together. I wish a lot of the 1:24th scale models I build fitted together as nicely as this.
With the body and chassis now together, some of the smaller parts could now be fitted.
The spare wheel and tyre and the convertible hood were attached again using my favourite method of 2 part epoxy glue, before being taped into place while the glue dried.
With the body fixed on the chassis, it was now time to fit the exterior door handles. It was here I made the discovery that I had made a slight mistake, as I had a set of door handles over.
As I had painted most of the small parts in Tamiya German Grey ready for fitment later, and had put a set of door handles aside to paint in silver.
After drilling out the holes on the exterior of the doors and fitted the handles, it dawned on me that the handles I had fitted on the inside of the doors should have actually been the ones I have left over.
An easy mistake to make, but the question I have is: Why is there a set of what look like window winder handles in a kit that doesn’t have wind up windows?
The only answer I can come up with is that this kit must share some of the parts with another model. If you’re going to build this model, just make sure you use the correct set of handles. It’s too late for me to change things now, with the door handles fixed in the place.
I started work on all the other small parts that need to go on to finish off the model.
The rear bumper has a small bracket that needs fixing on the inside of the bumper before fitting, as I wanted this to line up straight. I thought for a while, then came up with the idea of making a jig out of two wooden sticks taped to the work bench.
It was a bit of a Heath Robinson affair, but it did the job. After the bracket had dried the bumper was fitted to the body, it’s mounted direct to the body and is a simple fit.
Now this build is coming to the end, and now there is basically only the small parts to fix on, I started with the rear lamps.
In hindsight, I should have fixed these on before I painted the body shell as there is no real mounting point for the lamps, which have no lenses to go on them.
These were first painted Tamiya German Grey to match the body shell and the red part of the lens were simply picked out using Humbrol # 19 bright red acrylic paint.
Fixing them to the body was a nightmare, but I had to resort to using super glue and touched up the body afterwards. As I’ve already stated, my advice here is to fix them on first and paint them with the body.
The front lamps that had been fitted at the beginning of the build were finished off by painting the front covers matt black to replicate the vinyl covers, which the original would have been fitted with.
With the rear end finished, it was time to finish off the front.
The small Mercedes badge was fitted to the top of the radiator; a cocktail stick was used to pop on a small dab of glue. Whilst I was working on the bonnet, I took the time to add the four bonnet catches, again using a cocktail stick to apply the glue.
The bonnet was set aside to dry and, like the rear lamps, these parts could have been fitted before the body was painted, which they would’ve been were to do this build again.
One part that you really need to leave until the end of the build is the spot lamp fitted to the windshield frame; like the rear lamps there isn’t a mounting point or hole to mount it on, as it simply glues to the side of the frame.
A small dab of super glue, a very steady hand plus of course a good magnifying glass is all that’s needed for this delicate operation.
The front windshield was fixed in place using clear epoxy resin and is a very good fit and basically fell into place. The two wiper arms were fitted at this stage and fit to the top of the windshield frame, as it does on the real thing.
Finally, all that’s needed to finish off the model is to paint and fix in the two rifles that mount in the back of the vehicle.
Gallery and pdf