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James Garner was one of several actors bitten by the racing
bug while making one of the racing films popular in the 1960's;
in his case, of course, it was "Grand Prix". Unlike
Newman or McQueen, however, Garner's studio strictly forbade
driving race cars while he was under contract to them. Not
to be denied, Garner, with ex-Cobra ace Bob Bondurant and
Corvette racer Dick Guldstrand, established "American
International Racing". AIR purchased three 1968 L88 Corvettes
through Dick Guldstrand's GM contacts, prepared two for racing
and one as a "show car" and tackled the world of
International GT racing.
On paper,
it should have worked; America's best "sports car"
with engine preparation by America's best Chevrolet tuners
(TRACO), driven by some of the best American drivers (Dick
Guldstrand and Ed Leslie), in a team managed, funded and promoted
by one of the most popular American actors of the era. "James
Garner's American International Racing" looked like a
winner. Unfortunately, Corvette's of that period left something
to be desired. "Road & Track" described the
L88 'Vette in less than flattering terms; "an exciting
new shape laid around a chassis that seemed modern in 1962
but is now quite dated..". The AIR Corvettes certainly
looked good, and photos now available on the web (www.airl88.com)
look like the preparation was done well; certainly Guldstrand
and his crew had as much Corvette experience as anyone in
this country.
AIR arrived
at Daytona in 1968 with two beautiful "Le Mans Blue"
Corvettes and promptly qualified them 1st and 2nd in GT class,
and 14th and 15th overall, ahead of several Ford GT40's and
a Ferrari 275 LM.
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Then it all went
south; the pole-sitting (well, GT pole) Guldstrand/Leslie
#44 soon had rear end troubles and was eventually listed as
29th even though it wasn't running at the end, while the #45
car retired early on with engine problems. As a Ford fan,
I'm obligated to mention that Jerry Titus finished 4th overall
and 1st in GT in a Mustang! It then appears that AIR simply
gave up on the Corvettes (maybe they'd read the "R&T"
story by then). For reasons never stated, instead of trying
to solve the Corvettes' problems, AIR simply parked the L88's
and bought a pair of Lola T70 Coupes to run at Sebring. With
less preparation, neither Lola finished, and although entered,
they never appeared at Le Mans. AIR staggered on for a couple
of more years (probably until Garner's patience/interest/bank
account were depleted) but the AIR Corvettes disappeared until
they were resurrected a few years ago; see the web site for
more details on that.
Midlantic
Models has followed their gorgeous King Cobra kit with a beautifully
cast multi-media kit (MID039) that builds either of the AIR
Corvettes as they appeared at Daytona in 1968. It's not an
especially complex kit; in addition to the crisp, clean resin
body I counted 14 white-metal parts, 8 more plated parts (all
of which had been cleaned up nicely before plating), 19 photo-etched
parts, the 4 rubber tyres, plus vac-formed headlight covers
and flat plastic for the windscreen, axles, screws, and a
set of crisp decals. The instruction sheet consists mostly
of a list of parts (with painting information), one large
colour photo of the finished model, and one small (very small:
I had to use a magnifying glass to read the notes) exploded
view drawing. Shades of John Day!
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Although
the body casting was very smooth there was some flash inside
the rear window opening and some heavy feed tags inside the
body that had to be cut/filed away to get the white-metal
baseplate to fit properly. Also, the slots to mount the rear
bumpers were filled solid and had to be drilled out with a
Dremel Tool and filed square in order to mount the bumpers.
I was building a very early kit and expect that problem to
have been eliminated as soon as Midlantic began constructing
their factory-built models! The white-metal castings were
very clean and in fact, no filler of any kind was used in
preparing the model for painting; all preparation consisted
of removing excess material.
After priming
I painted the interior semi-gloss black and masked it. It's
obvious from the single colour photo that there's a white
stripe around the rear, but checking photos on the web site
cited above (sorry, couldn't resist that!) showed that in
fact the whole tail was white. The rear was sprayed gloss
white and duly masked when dry. Midlantic references MIT B73
Blue Pearl, whatever that might be
(It's a Mitsubishi colour - Ed),
for the blue body colour. I found that Tamiya TS50 "Mica
Blue" looked right to me (I confess; I painted this one
with a spray can!) but Model Car World has the authentic Chevrolet
"Le Mans Blue" (#6801) available too. There's some
really fine relief chassis detail in the baseplate, so between
colour coats I picked out the frame in gloss black and other
details in several metallic shades. The decals were relatively
simple, very easy to work with, and went on well. The instructions
fail to note which set of driver names went with which number,
but Midlantic assures me that will be added, along with a
mention of painting the entire tail, to "production"
kits. Again, if you use those web photos all questions will
be answered and you'll see that the race graphics are both
complete and accurate.
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I'm
not a fan of flat acetate "windscreens" that must
be bent to fit a three-dimensional opening - that's why vac-form
machines were invented. That said, I did get it to work, although
the clear flat plastic was too thick to be glued to the photo-etched
frame first. I had to cut, fit, and fix the plastic in place
and then add the photo-etched moulding. The flat rear window
was no problem, of course.
The very well
detailed and accurate - the car really was virtually stock
- interior went together well, but the photo-etched seat belt
was simply too small in all dimensions. I discarded that and
used an aftermarket fabric belt with photo-etched hardware
(TROSP068N - Ed).
There was
one final hitch; after setting the front track to the proper
dimension (1.36 inches), when I dropped the baseplate onto
the body it wouldn't fit between the wheels. I had to file
a millimeter or two off each side of the baseplate at the
front, losing the outboard end of the front A-arm I'd neatly
painted in the process. A better solution, had I not already
had the tyres mounted and the sidewall decals sealed in place,
would have been to grind the protruding "disk" off
the inside of the front wheels. Since you're reading this
before building your kit (I hope) that's the way I'd recommend.
My finished
model does match all the photos I found on the web and in
books very well; body lines and proportions really "look
right" from all angles. The race graphics are complete,
accurate, and to scale. All dimensions are right on 1/43 scale,
too, except for length, which is only 0.07 inch short and
obviously not a problem. All in all, this is a relatively
simple kit with fine castings that makes up into a very attractive
and accurate model. I expect that some of the minor problems
I encountered won't be there after Midlantic has built a few
of these kits for sale as factory-built models (MID039M),
so I have no reservations in recommending the kit.
I'd like to
think that James Garner has one of these beauties sitting
on his desk!
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