An Oversized Minibox Model

As is usually the case, while searching for something of specific interest, something will catch my interest, and will drag me down that rabbit hole, hopefully not too deep, at least this time it was a shallow depression. 

Truckbox, a Czech promotional printing company creates gift boxes in various shapes and sizes, but with a Truck and Van bent to it. 

And one of the pictures on their website is of a Tatra Phoenix race truck from the Buggyra team

There was also another image I came across, and this looked like a wine bottle giftbox or maybe had a nice sausage in it.

The Phoenix would be the largest Minibox like model I have seen, or be the largest truck in my collection.

Want fries with your Dakar?

One of the fun things about Dakar are the strange or interesting vehicles that compete in the race, everything from Vespa scooters, the lowly Citroen CV2 or a massive 8x8 truck(looking at you Studebaker), new fuels have been introduced over the years, I have previously written about a race car running on used Tempura frying oil, well in 2009, they did something similar, a Belgian team running a Toyota HiLux pickup truck, with what most would consider should be belong in your local McDonalds, a deep fat fryer unit. This team reused the used up cooking oil, after filtration, as bio diesel, to compete in that years' race. Volker has released a model of this car, and you can get it from his racepaper.de site, by clicking on the Rallye tab, and clicking on Dakar(near the bottom of the page) and going to the 3rd page of models, and comes in his standard 1:43 scale. Of course I had to build this model

Reports say that the 2009 Bivouac was the best smelling one in a long time.

Countdown to Dakar

Dakar Museum

I have written about Volker and his Racepaper site and his Dakar models. In recent years Volker has released models in 1:87 scale, which here in the United States is H0 scale, the same as H0 trains. If you follow Volker, and his yearly advent release of models, you might have seen his H0 scale RVs and campers, but as of last year, he has released various parts to build a museum for his H0 scale Dakar models. You can find the parts for the museum at the above mentioned link, just scroll down to Projekt87 and click on Dakar Museum, you will also see links to the numbers 83 and 85, those are the years Volker has release some of the interesting or noteworthy racecars from those years. You can download the Mercedes 280 that Jacky Ickx drove to victory that year, or you can download the 6-wheeled Mercedes 280 which unfortunately had to adbandon the race, but looks soo cool in the Zebra stripes. If I can find the pictures that Volker posted of his Museum build, I will share them in an edit.

FENOMÉN DAKAR

If you happen to find yourself in Police nad Metují in the Czech Republic, and you want to visit a local museum or two, may I suggest the Muzeum papírových modelů, the Museum of Paper Models. Starting on November 6th 2021, they will have an exhibit of Dakar themed paper models. At least two friends of this blog will be showcased, Roman Hruška and Jiří Vintr, of Spida Models and Vimos Models respectively.

 

I wish I was able to visit the museum and visit with my Czech friends, and drool over the collected models, I will have to be satisfied with pictures of the exhibit.

I don't know until when the exhibit will run to, but I will post an edit once I find out. **Update** The exhibition will run until the Spring of 2022, for times and directions i invite you to visit http://mpmpm.cz/

Dakar, Super Deformed Style

You might have seen the SD Gundams or similar mecha or characters, well vehicles are not immune to the SD treatment either.

Oniya, a Japanese paper model designer has recreated various rally, sportscars and even the record breaking Suzuki Grand Vitara of Monster Nakajima, representing the record breaking car from the 2007 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, in the Super Deformed style.

He even recreated the 2007 and 2008 entries from Hino Team Sugawara.

Oniya posted on his website both team trucks, driven by Teru and Yoshi Sugawara.

One of the interesting things about Team Sugawara, at least to me, they have the distinction of being recognized by the Guinness World Records, as the only team with 25 consecutive appearances in the Dakar rally, from 1983 to 2007.

Oniya released the models in pepakura's pdo format, for my own sanity, I printed the files though Acrobat Distiller, and created the pdf files in order for me to print them easily.
One of the things I lucked out on was the placement of the parts, they all fell within the bounds of a Letter size sheet of cardstock.

The model itself is pretty easy, nothing that will trip up anyone with experience.
I can do it, so can you.....

I have waiting in the on deck file, both of Yoshi's trucks, so when the mood strikes me to finish the team, it will also add nicely to my growing Japanese Dakar contingent.

Bowling for the Bowler?

This is definitely not Oddjob's Bowler....... I first encountered this beast, and there is no other word to describe it, and you will see why, in some of the TV highlights of the Dakar. I also fell in love with the vehicle when Discovery started to air some of the Top Gear episodes here in the States. Richard "The Hamster" Hammond gets to test drive the truck, and then he gets to the real bite of the Wildcat in the passenger seat.

Lets just say, The Hamster is impressed. You could spend the 50 thousand quid they mention in the clip for the real thing, or pop over to Bowler-Offroad and take a tour through the pages of History(hint). You can download 8 different colored versions of the Wildcat, and even the fast support truck. You can also visit my friend Volker over on Racepaper.de and click through to his Dakar tab, and on the second page download the number 333 Bowler Wildcat driven by Freddy Loix in the 2006 Dakar. A new Bowler is in the works, the Nemesis, based off the Range Rover Sport platform. It is set to make its Dakar debut this year.

Racing on Tempura Oil

We have all read stories about people tweaking their diesel engined vehicles to run on various bio fuels, deep frying oil being the most used. The Indy Racing League is for the first time running Ethanol, so it is no stretch of the imagination, that some of the other racing series and events would see an influx of bio-fuels. Ukyo Katayama, a former Formula One driver, entered the 2007 Dakar driving a Toyota Landcruiser, running on used Tempura oil. To commenmorate the race, a paper model was released of the Landcruiser, you can visit(site has been removed) The model is a nice simple model, nothing that will trip up anyone. Enjoy, and maybe next time you are at a Japanese restaurant, and you order Tempura, the oil used might just power a race car.

Weathering the Storm, so to speak.....

One of the few things I never really got into was weathering, I tried it on a truck model, using model paint, never really liked it, never got a good mud pattern.

Forward to the present day, one of the members at www.cardmodels.net showed one of his little tricks, He showed off a weathering set from Tamiya, check it here.

I have picked up all 4 sets, only 3 were shown in the thread above, the fourth set has burnt blue, for burnt metal, like header pipes and exhausts, and the Oil Stain, for leaking oil from vehicles or aircraft, there is also a burnt red for rust colored burnt metal

I picked up my sets from Hobbylinc

I will try to use them in the future, on some of the more simple models, from Racepaper.de to see if what works, I'll keep you posted.

Two takes on a Race Winner

The Peugeot 405 T16, a coupe based full time 4 wheel drive monster of a rally car, won the 1989 Dakar.

When I saw this car first, I was like, "Ok, this will kick some ass."

As a result of the win, two paper models were released, one from ABC, designed by Michal Antonicky, which I have been building, but haven't finished yet, one day I will, I have the thread of the build here ABC 405 Build
Yes the car is still wheelless, I guess I need to remedy that some day.

The other model, a promotional model released by Peugeot, was designed by Dr. Gerard Colbere.
The model is simple compared to the ABC one, there is no scale indicated in the french directions, but I would say the model is a bit smaller than the other one, probably 1:35 or smaller.
I was able to find a thumbnail image of the kit,


But more importantly, I was able to score one on Ebay, now I need to score a second one before I start to build one.
I do consider this model to be one of the more rare Dakar paper models out there, the Polish truck I wrote about earlier, I feel is also one of the more rare models, as I was only able to snag one from PaperModelStore and Moduni.

Peugeot raced the 405 four times in the Dakar, the models represent the Pioneer clad models from 1989.
They also raced in Camel colors,



There are other 405 models, Tamiya released two versions of the 405, in 1:24 scale, Bburago also released two diecast models, one is a pre-assembled one, with a blue body, and a white bodied DIY version.
Other models are diecast models in 1:43, by Ixo, Norev and others, and a couple of smaller diecast cars, Majorette, a french company which makes Matchbox style cars, and the 405 car they released looks alot like the Camel clad cars.

During the years from 1984 to 1991, the Dakar Car class was won by cars, prior to that, and since then, the Car class has been dominated by SUV based vehicles.