Bob's Dream Garage - Lamborghini Aventador!

 Any auto fan has, I think,  an Ultimate Car. Were time, space ,and money no object, we would have this in our (large, clean secure and well-equipped) garage. For me it's been the big Lambos. The Reventon was top of the heap, but as they only made 20, individually assigned to the buyers, even as a dream car it seemed a bit too lofty. But in 4 short years they came out with the Aventador ,which had much of the styling and performance, and only retailed for half a mil or so, so not out of reach of the nouveau riche...

Of course I am neither Nouveau nor Riche, and unless I win the lotto bigly (which is unlikely since I don't play games of chance) I cannot afford one. At least not a full-sized example...

SO late in 2024 I decided to take the plunge and buy my dream car - in 1/24th scale...

I did some online searching and found that Aoshima made several Aventador variants all available on the aftermarket (eBay in this case) and I made my selection, a "Super Veloce" variant.

A Supercar needs to be painted in a "LOOK AT ME" color, and I had a bottle of my much-loved (and lamentedly now unavailable ) Modelmaster enamels, in this case one of the special run of Boyd Enamels - Orange Pearl. Bright and shimmering, it would be the perfect Lambo Color (but not the best paint, as we'll learn later). 

I had never built an Aoshima kit before, and I'll just say I'm impressed and Would Build Again.

The details is excellent, the fit superb, the plastic much more to scale thicknesses than with the car models of my youth. While this adds to the delicacy of building and handling after, I'm building a scale model, not a toy car, so let's get going!

As mentioned above, Aoshima makes several Aventador variants based on the original base model, so expect unused parts, and bags of special SV parts.

I'd also recommend you do a serious inspection of the somewhat sparse instructions, paint and decals in particular.

Because I wanted a really nice exterior finish, and the car body came in multiple parts applied over several assemblies, I had to build in an altered sequence. My initial thought was to spray all body exterior pieces, then assemble. After careful review of the instructions and the fit of pieces, my actual choice was to build as much as could be built, and paint the car body essentially complete to avoid marring the finishing with any glues to assemble it.

But we are getting ahead here. First was chassis and suspension.

(So...many...pieces...)

The Upper and lower control arms, brake disks and calipers, and front steering link were all represented and moved appropriately. And yes, there were tiny Lambo script decals for the calipers, which will ultimately be buried deep within the SV-specific single bolt wheels, but I"LL know they're there...

Next, we build up the Lambo V12; block, heads, accessories, intake, exhaust, etc.

It nestles down in the rear "tub" where the titanium shade exhaust manifold will be nearly invisible when we're done. A word on that. I've been searching for a successor to Modelmaster metallizer for a while; and after the B-50 earlier in the year and now this car, I unhesitatingly recommend Alclad lacquers fort your metallic needs. Spray straight from the bottle, clean with relatively cheap lacquer thinner from the auto parts store,  dries very quickly, and critically, is a great metallic tone. Not plagued with too-large hunks of pigment, making metal into metal-flake, it does however require an absolutely smooth surface, because it goes on SUPER thin and will show any faults beneath, including differing prep colors (You use this to your advantage on large aircraft surfaces to get that "different panels / different shades" look ). Understand the requirements, and get a superb finish.

( air intake manifold, suspension components, hoses in place, and yes, more Lamborghini logos)

With the engine bay ~ complete, we move on to the passenger compartment. 

In a strange twist of fate, my hording of old paints paid off: A Japanese kit calls for Japanese paints, in this case Mr. Color (Formerly Gunze Sangyo, at least in the U.S.) C 40 Field Gray for the interior. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, than a Bottle of that color, still good after ~ 30 years on the shelf! Luck was with me (so far). Since it's acrylic, a good undercoat of Tamiya surfacing primer in light grey (another staple on my bench) was followed by old faithful Feldgrau luxurious Lamborghini leather Gray (makes me wonder about the gray interior of the two VW Jettas I've owned, come to think of it...)

I used Alcald Gunmetal in place of the mix of black and silver , wherever it was called for, which I believe was their stand-in for carbon fiber. It has more sheen than dead flat, and a hint of sparkle.

Note to self (and others): Skip the little red decal on the top of the steering wheel, just paint a red stripe. It really didn't want to wrap around the wheel even with liberal amounts of solvaset, and near impossible for a two-handed human to hold in the correct position, and get to wrap around the wheel, and tamp out excess water at the same time. I also pondered what to do about the MFD screen in the center of the console. No decal provided (unlike the excellent one for the main instrument display) so I painted it light gray, outlined it with a black wash, paint on some diagonal silver streaks to mimic a reflection, and then gave it several heavy coats of clear gloss. Not really happy with it, but better than naught.

(Everybody likes a good "test fit", and you can see how much of the body isn't yet attached to the body...)

Crunch time. Time to build what I can of the body, then decide what gets painted how. First I did some assembling.  

(Looks more like a car, no?)

The side panels, intakes, gas cap, little vents, C Pillar panels, door jambs all separate pieces...and yes, I had a bit of Tamiya extra thin get away from me and left a thumbprint on the driver's side. Bare Metal Foil plastic polish to the rescue (another staple in my modeling toolbag). This confirmed my decision to assemble first, paint second. Any other little blems were addressed with the polish. Then I masked the exterior and sprayed the interior surfaces, first priming then painting gray the passenger compartment-facing surfaces, as with the rest of the interior. Set aside until tomorrow.

Then mask the Interior, and wipe down the body shell with a microfiber cloth, and head back to the booth. I wanted a bright finish, so I didn't prime any under-color.

My decades old bottle of Orange Pearl mixed and thinned well. Then spraying commenced...

If you zoom in, you'll notice that the surface is...not smooth.  To shorten my Tale of Woe, I was able to rule out the following:

1. It's not orange peel - it was thinned adequately and sprayed on well.

2. It's not dirt in the brush, the paint, or the environment (my basement) as the alclad, much thinner, went on smooth as glass

3. My conclusion, and recommendation, is this: Don't use 30 yr old paint for a gloss spray finish. There are pigments that simply won't smooth out, tiny bits that coalesce and can't be thinned, stirred, or shaken into solution. The color was EVERYTHING I wanted it to be, but the finish was (shudders) awful. What to do?

First, spray a second coat to darken the color and deepen the available shine, a bit thinner perhaps and try to smooth it out. Went successfully but still couldn't hide all the flaws.

(While I pondered what to do next, I sprayed the Flat black and gunmetal bits of the body)

I thought "Maybe some clear gloss will deepen the shine and hide some defects?" I had a can of Krylon clear enamel on the bench, so?

DISASTER

Blessedly I only sprayed it on the engine cover. It was like looking a a time lapse car crash. It sprayed on smoothly, and began to wrinkle and dull before my very eyes, like when the businessman drinks from the wrong Grail Cup...

(Photo from Bloody Disgusting.com)

Well that went from Bad to Worse. If my bottle of Boyd Clear Gloss hadn't gone bad? Who knows. But Krylon ISN'T the answer, and I now have a boot lid to redo from scratch AFTER I get it clean of paint.

(Soaking in Easy Off oven cleaner is a gentle-to-plastic solution. If you're wearing gloves. And have excellent ventilation. It's decidedly not gentle to anything...human)

I resolved to just live with the situation, and the learning that went along with it. So just go ahead and finish assembly. Doors would be last.

A note on the window glass. Beautiful, clear, thin, distortion free. And comes with an excellent set of masks so you can paint the black borders on the interior of the glass. Which works really well if you remember to do it before you install the glass. Just sayin'.

A note on assembly. For bare plastic to bare plastic, Tamiya extra thin. For structural integrity and in areas not near to clear parts, ACC cement. For clear, or near clear or near paint parts, Testor's Window Glue. Now, as for those signature Lambo doors...

The door exterior parts (in body color) and the door interior half (in interior color) formed a slot to hold the door support, a wire clip that was attached to the body when assembling the door jamb, and rotates freely in the arc required to get the large door past the A Pillar and into a raised position. The completed door slides onto the end of this wire support which looks like a miniature paper clip on the end, and snaps in place. The tension will break a normal plastic glue joint (ask me how I know!) so ACC was used , and let cure thoroughly. Now for some good news bad news. Good news is, despite appearances the door will snap onto the clip. Be firm but gentle. The bad news is that once it's on, there's no adjusting the fit. If you're displaying the car with the doors up, no one will ever know. Close it and ...expect some misalignment. On mine, the passenger side will stay ~ completely close. Driver's side, not so much...

But, like your own children, they're beautiful and you love them. 

Dream Achieved. My Lamborghini Aventador! She ain't perfect but she's mine! Now if I could just get that device The Rock used in Red One to transform it into the real thing....

If the weather clears, I'll get some doors up / engine compartment open shots in daylight. until then, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!