Fujimi Ferrari 250 GTO - a "Holy Grail" build

[Kmb0319]

I bought this kit at the beginning of last summer, and couldn't wait to build it, but as one of my all-time holy grail kits, I waited.  I had a pretty significant stash built up at the time, and took to other projects first.  I started to really study this car and do a little work in Feb, and have taken my time.  First of all, this is an AMAZING model.  I started a thread about which 250 GTO kit was best, and I'm really glad I selected the Fujimi.  With over 250 pieces, it's complex, but fits together wonderfully.  

I didn't build this to be an exact match to one of the 37 GTOs made.  The blue is taken from the second one ever made, but rather than put the white stripe on it, I chose to build it as though it was "retired" and leave any semblance of racing behind.  From there, I looked at reference pictures, and picked my favorite things I saw from different cars rather than match a chassis number.  So, while the two-tone seats were part of this blue GTO, I did the interior in steel rather than try to create the black quilted look, and mixed/matched other tiny dash details according to what I liked from various cars.

When it came to the engine, this one is beautiful, but has a few glaring details the kit lacks to make it look real:

The first is the hose coming from the carb linkage... in the above photo, it's a dirty cream color, but in most complete restorations, it's yellow.  The kit includes the rear portion, but not the front, so I recreated that with a piece of boot material that I painted yellow.  The second part that this kit lacks is spark plug wires.  In my research, I saw a few others wire this engine perfectly, but I don't consider myself to be that talented, and the wires all feed into a tube that is not hollow.  I'm guessing other builders must have gotten a photo-etch tube in a detail-up kit or something, but that wasn't an option.  But, if the two distributors were just sitting there with no wires, it would look terrible to me, so this was my low-level solution:  I took six pieces of spark plug wire, pushed the ends of them together and dropped a tiny drop of super glue on them to fuse them.  Then, I cut each wire's other end down to having a chunk of six wires that were each just about 1/4 inch long.  Then, I bent them towards that "tube" on the engine and twisted them together.  Once I had that shape, I glued the fused end to the distributor, and repeated for the other side.  Finally, I super glued one more piece of wire to the top of the distributor, and ran it back to the starter(s).  It's not perfect, but at least there is some kind of wiring in the engine.  The final major engine detail above is the two hoses running from the firewall and along the left side of the engine compartment, but as I looked at reference pics, they were present in some but not in others, so I elected not to try and replicate that.  I did add battery cables that no one will ever see!  It's not perfect, but this is my engine:

My Interior (steering wheel decal fell off... I have replacements)

And with this project finally done, I took her outside to get a few pics:

This is absolutely the coolest model kit I've ever built.  It was an absolute joy, and I hope I did it justice.  This one will actually go in a case.  Hope you like it, thanks for looking.

 

[afx]

Very nice Kevin, you should be proud of it.

[Bobdude]

Nice clean build,Kevin.  I also built this kit.It's a darker blue.Nice kit goes together well.

[bondo bill]

very cool

[ChrisR]

Looks great!

[FabbricaP]

Great looking Ferrari! How did you make the leather bonnet tethers?

[Kmb0319]

Great looking Ferrari! How did you make the leather bonnet tethers?

Thank you!!  Those are actually in the kit!  They are black plastic, so you need paint them, but are 4 of the 250 pieces in this thing.

[BVC500]

Looks awesome!

[donb]

Beautifully done.  Like the blue too!

[Dann Tier]

VEEEEERY nice!!!!, that is how I like to build!.....put whatever I like together in one car regardless. That blue looks killer on that car!  You don't need to get that Aftermarket engine for EVERY Ferrari 250, this kit has excellent details! With careful painting and adding of wires and hoses, the kits engine bay WILL look real!  Love the weathering on the rocker covers!!

[Ack! Ack-ack!]

Beautiful

[RestoModGuy]

Very nice build. Enjoyed looking at the pictures

[bbowser]

That is really nice, you did the kit justice.

[Kmb0319]

VEEEEERY nice!!!!, that is how I like to build!.....put whatever I like together in one car regardless. That blue looks killer on that car!  You don't need to get that Aftermarket engine for EVERY Ferrari 250, this kit has excellent details! With careful painting and adding of wires and hoses, the kits engine bay WILL look real!  Love the weathering on the rocker covers!!

Thanks!  The rocker covers are weathered by my secret technique.... handle them after picking up a piece you've sprayed with metallizer ?  That stuff gets all over your fingers, and smudges everything you touch!!  Usually I'm getting wet paper towels to clean up whatever has been smudged l, but this time it worked to my advantage.  Blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, I guess.

[bytownshaker]

Love GTO's 250's 288's 599's doesn't matter. You did a beautiful job.

[Funkychiken]

Agree, it's a top build, and you did do it justice!

I have it in my stash, but it's a holy grail build for me too, so I haven't started it yet...

[christian-w]

This is another proof, that a Ferrari doesn't have to be red! This color looks beautiful on the GTO! Some fat thumbs up!

[Kmb0319]

This is another proof, that a Ferrari doesn't have to be red! This color looks beautiful on the GTO! Some fat thumbs up!

Thank you!  I have 4 Ferraris in the collection and a 5th almost finished.  The first 3, an F12, a California with the top down and a 458 Italia are all different shades of gray.. when I posted the last one, I titled the post 50 Shades of Gray with a picture of all 3 together.  This one was going to be this blue from the second I bought it.  Now I'm almost done with a 288 GTO, and it IS red, but a deep red metallic.  I can't bring myself to paint a Ferrari basic Ferrari red...  nothing against it, it just isn't different enough to be interesting.

[Dragline]

Looks fantastic.

[aurfalien]

Hi,

W0W, this is sooo very very very nice and classy.

Just awesome from all angles.  Great choices all around.

[Zoom]

Well done!

[Twokidsnosleep]

 Awesome

What I like most about it is how happy it has made you to build it!!

We rant and rave about all the issues and tiny details and end up hating a build for it...but you loved your subject and it comes through in your words and in the final result.

This is how modelling should be