1:24 Audi Quattro Coupe Detail-up

Permanent all-wheel drive changes the rules

When a car with both the front and the rear axle driven and with a turbocharged five-cylinder appeared in Geneva in March 1980, the competition took it rather as a curiosity. Less than two years later it was clear who had been right: Hannu Mikkola and Michele Mouton were collecting wins with it on stages where until then courage had counted for more than traction. The coupe with its boxy fenders thus became a turning point after which competition cars began to be built differently.

What the set is for

It is an accessory to the plastic model of this car. It refines the places a molding manages only approximately: thin edges, small projections and elements that could not be drawn out of an injection mold without sliding cores.

The building procedure

Accessory parts belong on a model before the paint comes, not after it. Lay the build out, therefore, so that all the small items are seated on bare plastic; only then degrease the whole thing and spray. The opposite order ends with the glue damaging a finished surface, and putting that right costs more time than the whole alteration.

Who it is for

The set is aimed at the builder who wants the subject closer to reality than the contents of the box allow, but does not want to get into making parts from wire and metal himself. The coupe with its bold arches deserves that kind of attention: on a shelf you recognize it even from behind by its silhouette. Before you set to work, go through period photographs of the particular car; the specification changed over the seasons and one photograph saves a great deal of guesswork about where each part belongs.