Linder M3 - box art plus

Another one of Tamiya's touring cars that could do with a little help, especially the TT-01 re-releases with the tinted windows and no interior. I followed my usual method of buying kits which is to get the body set and chassis separate. This means I get a body with no post holes drilled, and a more interesting chassis than the usual basic TT-01/2.


I bought two of these Linder body sets and sold one set of Jägermeister stickers which payed for the Schnitzer ones which I'll use to do that shell. The chassis for this is the TT-02D Type-S which I have de-drifted by fitting regular slicks and removing the rear toe-in. Aside from the wheels and tyres the kit is the same as the regular Type-S chassis but cheaper for some reason.


I did the usual stance correction using wheel spacers but for this car I also dialled in an appropriately large amount of camber via the kit included turnbuckles.
The wheels are the kit ones but painted silver with the recesses in matte black where the spokes are solid. As usual the tyre logos are cut vinyl. I added a few more details like the towing eyes, air jack port (by the windscreen), the front splitter made from black styrene (no painting required - bonus) and the missing Castrol logos. Once again I used thin nuts for the wheels but unlike the rally cars, these DTM cars use centre lock nuts so these look really scale here.


The roll cage for this one took a while. Most of that time was spent looking at photos trying to work out where all the tubes were supposed to go. It's pretty much identical to the 1:1 car, except for a an additional joining tube to hold the two centre struts together where they join the floor. The 1:1 has quite a complex cage which is unusual in having two main hoops, and the tubing that usually goes from the B pillar to the rear arches goes the opposite way.


The Schnitzer kit comes with stickers for the cockpit set but the Linder car never did, so I used a combination of cut vinyl and water slide decals from a 1/24 version of the same car. I painted it according to the instructions for the Schnitzer but orange instead of red. As a final touch I made a visor for Wayne's helmet out of thin lexan.



Details:


• Cockpit set with decals from 1/24 static kit

• Lexan driver helmet visor

• 3mm wheel spacers all round

• Thin centre-lock style wheel nuts

• Pirelli tyre logos

• Missing Castrol sponsor logos added

• Matte black window trims

• Wheels painted silver with recesses black

• Brake discs

• Windscreen wiper

• Styrene front splitter

• Towing eyes front and rear

• Air jack port

• Exhaust (ABC Hobby)

• Styrene roll cage

• Cockpit set

• Roof aerial