Spoiler Alert!

The saga of the Monogram SVO continues! Now it’s time to work on the body, and get things ready for paint.

One of the distinguishing feature of the SVO is its “biplane” spoiler. I expected that the trunk of the SVO would be “bald” and the spoiler would fit onto it, or else have some mounting holes. No such luck. Instead, the spoiler is HALF on the trunk; the vertical bits of the spoiler that join the lower wing to the trunk are moulded onto the trunk! This means that there is a seam right around the entire spoiler! Thankfully, this isn’t as bad as it seems, since there really is a seam line there.  Thus, I etched this line with my scribing tool to accentuate it and make it look more like the real car.

Seams [sic] to be okay… The odd way of attaching the spoiler actually works out, if you etch the mating seam and make it pronounced.

What’s interesting here, though, is that there is NO positive location for the spoiler. It sits “on” the lip of the lower component, and can float wherever it wants. It should join up with the window frame, but the fit isn’t good enough to use that as the only method of aligning the spoiler. To ameliorate this, I drilled two holes in the trunk large enough for a section of sprue to stick through. Then I taped the spoiler in place, and stuck the sprue through the holes onto the underside of the spoiler? By dipping the end of the sprue in red paint, I was able to find out to whereon the spoiler the holes lined up. I then cut pieces of the sprue and glued them to the spoiler in those spots. Thus, I had two large locating pins! To be sure I had clearance, I also drilled holes in the interior bucket; the pegs were just inside the trunk edge.

Here are the posts attached to the bottom of the spoiler. That’s a lot more positive location than it had originally!

This system works wonderfully, and should make life much easier when attaching the spoiler at the end of the assembly process!

Drops right in! With the new posts, the addition of the spoiler should be very easy at the end of the build process! Note that the trunk emblems were moulded in; I sanded them off, since they are also given as decals in this new issue of the kit.

Another problem with the kit is that there is no positive location for the front bumper or the headlights. To correct this, I glued pieces of thin sheet styrene to the inside of the main body, and used them as attachment points. Luckily, you can glue on the front bumper before putting in the chassis; on some cars that’s not possible, but on this one, it works just fine. This will make painting much easier. It’s interesting to note that the lights don’t fit very well either, so without the glue tabs back there, I would expect there’s going to be a problem. This might be because the kit is a reissue, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

They’re not pretty, but they do work. This is the multi-layered approach I took to building in some locating surfaces for the front bumper and tail lights. Sure, it’s a mess, but it’s inside, and it won’t easily show once painted.

From the outside, the tabs look a lot neater; you don’t see the reinforcing tab that covers them (the second layer in the above photo). These locating tabs are quite necessary for an easy fit during assembly.

With the bumper on, I primed the car using Colourplace Grey Primer, and then painted the headliner Schwartzgrau, to match the carpet. I didn’t do the same “texturing” though, since usually headliners are not that fuzzy.

Here’s the body primered, and the headliner painted in. It will soon be masked for body painting.

Masking the interior paint, I applied my version of 4E Dark Sage to the car. This was a mix of various MMA colours, including Olive Drab, Green, Black and GM Engine Block Blue. I covered the paint with a few light coats of Future and left it to dry.

This is the first pass of my 4E Dark Sage on the SVO. Clearly, there’s a lot of work left to be done, but it at least is starting to look like a real car now.

All that’s left now is the sanding, polishing, reglossing, etc. that goes with finishing a car body. Of course, I say that facetiously; there’s a tonne more work to do! I also have to do the distinctive Gunship Grey trim and final assembly, too! However, so far, so good; I think this project is going to come together pretty nicely, if the windows fit!

Advertisement

Tags: 1/24, Hertz Mustang, Hertz SVO, Locating Pegs, Monogram SVO, Mustang SVO, Spoiler, Streetburner