1:24 Nissan Skyline GT-R (BNR32 Gr.A) 1991 Bathurst 1000km Race Winner

Godzilla at Mount Panorama

Bathurst is a mountain circuit in New South Wales and its thousand-kilometer event is among the toughest endurance races for touring cars at all. At the beginning of the 1990s a Japanese Group A special arrived there with all-wheel drive and a force-fed inline six-cylinder, which simply steamrollered the Australian scene. It got its nickname from the monster of the films and earned it deservedly: the home rivals were no match for it either in power or in traction. The release captures the car in the form in which it left the circuit as the winner.

The longest project in this group

A racing version adds a whole layer of work compared with a civilian car. A roll cage, a seat with harness and a stripped interior with no trim are added inside, slick tires go onto the wheels and the whole body is covered in an advertising scheme. Count on five to eight weeks at an ordinary evening pace. Anyone building a racer for the first time should first assemble the cage as a trial run and see how it fits into the shell.

Decals as half the work

The advertising scheme of a racing car is made up of dozens of individual elements that have to carry over the edges of the doors, the fenders and the trunk lid. Set aside two or three separate evenings for this stage and work from the top down according to the instructions. A gloss surface is a must and so is a softener. Once dry, one more coat of varnish comes on top, which hides the edges and evens the surface out. It is precisely in this step that it is settled whether the model will look like a racing machine or like a little car covered in stickers.