New Project Nismo 400R

Okay, so this is my current project that has been sitting on the worktable for months....

It started life as Tamiyas Nissan Skyline, GT-R R33 model... But I have bigger aspirations for it....


Behold.....

The mighty NISMO 400R.

Nismo is the in-house tuning division of Nissan, much like SVT is for Ford, or AMG is for Mercedes Benz. I don't recall the actual numbers, so forgive me, this is from the top of my head.
They bored and stroked the inline 6 cylinder engine to something like 2.8liters, and along with revised intake and exhaust, probably a few turbo tweaks, it makes 400 horsepower.
They were made in VERY limited numbers.
Something like only 44 of them were ever made. So they are very rare in real life.

But luckily for me they are fairly available and inexpenisve as a resin transkit for the plastic base model.

It includes a new hood, front and rear fascia, as well as side skirts.

Which required a little bit of "surgery". Here is the hood and front fascia I removed using a Dremel tool and small cutoff wheel.
The side skirts came off with a little persistance and an Exacto #11 blade. Same as the rear bumper.

I have started to get everything added back on to make it look like a car again. And adding putty to blend everything togther.

Still a lot of snading and blending to go at this point. But it is starting to get there.
I am still looking for the correct wheels to make it all look right when it is finished.
This one is a little bit slow in the progress as I am actually trying my hand at customizing hotwheels cars too at the moment.

So I'll probably have some more on that, and planning to add some pictures of the past models that I have completed. So stay tuned for more.