BMW 320 E21 (Revell) WIP

[eugene78]

Hello folks, merry Christmas to everyone!

I finally found the time to take some pictures of a model I started about a week ago.



Box contents:











The kit, obviously, has no real prototype. It includes a fuel injected M10 engine with a turbo, along with a rollbar and some strange-looking bucket seats for the interior:



My build is going to be different. I will convert the engine to a naturally aspirated one with twin Webers. The seats will probably be replaced with stock Recaros – I'll have to make them myself, using the seats from a Revell 635 as a starting point. Here you can see some other goods I have prepared for this build:



The wheels come from an Academy 635 (with different tyres), the brakes – from a Tamiya Celica, and the battery – from a Fujimi 635 (which had 2 batteries in the kit).

Here's what has been done so far:



I cut off the rear part of the underbody, including the spare wheel well. The underbody behind the rear axle must be flat, not lowering. The spare wheel well was undersized and had a completely wrong shape. The main wheel wells also had little resemblance to the real ones, so I replaced them with appropriate pieces of a Revell 635 underbody. The molded-in exhaust had to go, too, along with the front longitudinal members, which didn't match the new front body. Oh yes, the new front body – the kit was not only incorrect in this part, but it also had the tanks, wiring, coil and fuse box molded-in, so rather than removing all these pieces one by one, I chose to replace the wheelhouses and the firewall altogether, using the Academy 635 as a donor.



Considering the scale difference and the fact that the E24 is much larger than the E21, I had to trim the new front end a lot before I got it to fit inside the body.



Now I would say the front is about 60 percent complete. The white areas are made of sheet styrene and epoxy putty.



That's it for now!

[Matti Tirronen]

This project look very interesting. Modifications what you've done so far looks very nice. I follow this project for sure.

[Niko Lindström]

I bet this is going to be another excellent build. Your other builds, especially the BMW in your Avatar was fantastic build. This one is one of the nicest BMW-cars ever made and you're doing really good job with it. Keep it coming, I'll be watching this one.

[eugene78]

Thank you, guys, I'lll try not to disappoint you.

Here's a little update - a picture of the model body (green silhouette) overlaid on a photo of a real car:

As you can see, there are some inaccuracies, but they are mostly impossible to notice without the help of Photoshop. The only thing I'm going to correct is shown with a red line.

(Source of the original photo)

[Petri Hiltunen]

Wow, seems like a very thorough project!

Although I'm not a fan of Beemers, this is worth keeping an eye on

[Petri Huhtala]

Great start you have done with this Beemer. I´m sure that this is going to be another masterpiece from you.

[eugene78]

Thank you for your comments, and sorry for making you wait so long for the next update.
The progress has been very slow, but the project is not dead!

In the meantime I have almost completed the underbody and the engine compartment, only some small details to add.





Had to make a new front panel – the old one did not look like the real thing at all, and you can see it well when the hood is open.





I have only kept the radiator from the old part – it seems a bit small, but may still be usable.



On the underside I have added an imitation of fuel tanks, a new spare wheel well and a central tunnel. Not everything looks as good as I would like: some lines lack parallelity, some proportions had to be sacrificed in favor of compatibility with kit parts. A more accurate reproduction would have required building the complete underbody from scratch, and I'm not up to that challenge yet.







The model also got new wheels. I was unable to obtain tyres with sufficiently low profile for the rims I had intended to use, but Roman Chirov kindly offered me to use the rims they made for the Lada VFTS. I've seen very similar wheels on an E21, so these look like a good fit, and I also have suitable tyres for them (sourced from the same Celica that gave the brakes). The Lada wheels were cast directly from a 3D printed piece, so they needed some sanding on the inside.



Couldn't resist chopping the engine apart. I'm going to make separate pieces for the oil filter and the starter, that won't take much time compared to the other modifications I'm doing and will improve the look of the engine greatly.



Next step: the suspension.

[Jones]

No worries. Well worth the wait.

[eugene78]

The main suspension components are ready. I still have to make anti-roll bars, steering rack and diff mount, but that can wait until later.





Now we can see how the car looks on wheels:









What would you say? Are the tyres too thick? I wish the sidewalls were a bit lower (these are about 225/55/15 in scale), but can't find any better options. How about the stance – haven't I lowered the front too much?

[Tuomas Seppälä]

Great scratchbuilding
Wheels&tires and stance are perfect for 80's look.
Are you going to make resin copies of underbody and engine compartment?

[Petri Huhtala]

I think tires look great. Stance is good, but maybe ground clearence looks a little high.

[eugene78]

Thanks!

I can't lower the rear any more without cutting out the arches, and I would rather keep them intact. So it will probably stay as it is.

As for the resin copies - I don't think there would be sufficient demand for them. This kit is not very popuar and long out of production, so I wouldn't expect selling more than 2 or 3 copies. Besides that, my work is not perfect (there are some things I should have done differently) and the thin plastic I'm using for some of the parts is probably not suitable for moulding.

[Jones]

Wheels&tires and stance are perfect for 80's look.

I agree.

[eugene78]

I have very little time for modelliing now, but here's a small update:

I made the front grille! It is probably going to have been the hardest part of this build, and the least perfect one as well... Anyway, the solid kit grille just had to be redone, which I did to the best of my abilities. Hope it will look better once painted flat black.

I also started the work on the front valance (the early Euro type). It is far from completion, the pictures show just a quick test fit.

[asco]

Awesome build, really. Keep on going.

[Petri Huhtala]

New grille looks great, it only need some paint now

[Janne Räisänen]

Nice job with the front end and i´m glad you get rid of those twin headlights.
It looks much better now.

[eugene78]

Thanks for the comments. It was a long break, but now the work continues.

I made the front valance (early type) with the Alpina air dam. The kit part looked nothing like what I wanted, so I had to scratchbuild the whole thing.







I also made the rear spoiler. This was a lot easier: I just took the spoiler from the Academy 635, cut it into pieces and glued them back together, adjusting the width, curvature and angle.





Inside the headlight openings I installed thin metal rings, cut from a smaller tube, to support the reflectors and the lenses. The reflectors were then heat-formed from thin styrene. The lenses, however, are still to be found: the ones I planned to use (Revell 635) are too small, so I have to look elsewhere. If you know of a kit that has the proper lenses, please let me know. They should be about 6.3-6.5 mm in diameter.



And the last little thing was opening the vents on the hood. Just one side for now, the other will follow soon.

[Petri Huhtala]

Looking great I can look my sparebox, if theres any lenses to your BMW.

[eugene78]

Looking great I can look my sparebox, if theres any lenses to your BMW.

Thank you Petri! Please take a look. Something around 7 mm will do as well, I can reduce the diameter a bit.

[Petri Huhtala]

I have at least four pairs of 6,5-7mm clear round lenses. Are you going to next QMA meeting? It has been moved to next week, thursday 29.

[eugene78]

Oh, great! Thank you! I was just about to write you that I'm not coming to the meeting this week, but next week I might join you.