Let's review Protar's 1/24 Lancia LC2 Metal Version

"189g Metal body for this extraordinary car!" 

I am, without a doubt, more familiar with Asian scale model manufacturers, but I have had some experience with European companies - Heller from France, Revell from Germany, and UM from Ukraine - and the feeling was mixed. 

My first Heller experience was, pretty unfortunately, the Peugeot 905 (of course, as a die-heard Group C fan), a notorious kit that could potentially bring undesirable memories to many. The Ukrainian one kindly offered me a 1/72 Hetzer 38t, a pretty good one, actually. The Audi R10 TDI I got from Revell is still in the box, but a quick look at all the sprues told me that it isn't bad by no means. 

However, I assume there is common sense that the quality of European kits is usually in no way near to their Asian counterparts, like what you can get from the big-4 from the land of the rising sun. The exception is Italeri from Italy. Italeri nowadays are like Trumpeter from China; their past kits were always hit and miss, but the quality of their products is getting better over the years, and so are their expanding production lines. Trumpeter has released numerous big, fabulous 1/16 kits (needs lots of effort for sure), and the new 1/12 Lancia Delta from I Italeri is just mouth-watering to me (I got tired from waiting for their supposed 2024-release Lancia Stratos, so I bought an ol' Doyusha one. Wait for my review on that one!). It was also Italeri who has been reboxing Protar's work, including the topic of this post - the only early rival of the mighty Porsche 956 - the Lancia LC2!  

Protar's box design is always pretty abstract. To me, it's mainly because of the layout of all the elements in the box art. I think I am just very spoiled by Tamiya box arts. And yes, this is a rather hard-to-find metal version!

Protar is co-funded by the famous Italian motorcycle racer Tarquinio Provini; there you have the brand name Protar. The company was most famous for its 1/9 motorcycle kits, but it did cover a range of other models before it ceased production, such as cars and power boats. In fact, when I think about Protar, these things jump into my mind: 1/12 Ferrari 312T, T2, T3, T4, and T5, 126C2... These kits can sometimes be found on actions and are worth quite some pennies. 

I also bought the 2019 reboxing version from Italeri and will use some of the parts from the new box. Keep reading and you will learn why. But before that, let's take a look at the metal body.

I wish I had taken an additional photo to show you all the metal parts, but I did not. Ugh!

The metal version basically covered all the body parts you get from the regular version: the body, two doors, two rear wheel arches, two front wheel connectors, and a rear wheel rod. Here is the body.

I'm sure you can tell how rough the body is. YES, a lot of sanding and filling is required. You also want to be very careful with a metal body that is this rough, as it isn't particularly hard to get a cut from the sharp edges. Here are some more close-up shots:

I bought the rebox version because I want to use the plastic doors rather than the poorly fitted metal doors. The plastic doors fit reasonably fine after a bit of cleaning:

Almost like a perfect fit, eh? 

On the other hand, the rear wheel arches do not fit very well. But you can find your sanding blocks and putty, correct?

It will be much harder to do so with the metal ones. Yes, NO.

The plastic body weighs exactly 30 grams.

The metal one, however, weighs almost 200 grams. It does feel fairly heavy when being handled.

I will not post more sprue photos because the Italeri rebox is in stock almost everywhere, and it shares the exact same content as in the Protar kit. One thing to notice here is the colour-changing of the one sprue. This new sprue from Italeri dips in pitch black, making it a bit easier to paint silver or other metallic colours.

Another thing here is that the transparent sprue in the Protar kit features smoky-coloured parts, which is incorrect for the headlight covers. The new version has fixed this inaccuracy, although it did not fix the headlight covers that also come with the actual headlight and turn signal bulbs integrated into the two clear cover parts. Yep, there are no separate bulb parts. What the heck! We are lucky there are some aftermarket parts available, though.

Surprisingly, the front windshield fits extremely well! Easy 100/10, for sure. In comparison, a lot of old Japanese kits have bad windshield fittings.

In addition, when I looked at the wiper from the kit, I felt like crying.

Such a relief to have a photo-etched set from Modeler's so I can just toss the original part away. I could use types # 7, 9, and 10, per the instructions for Group C cars.

Coloured photo-etched parts! Nothing's better than that!

Yet another mistake Protar made is the incredibly small front wheel. On the right side, we have the front rubber from a Tamiya Porsche 956, which works fine for its 16-inch-diameter wheel. LC2 should have 15-inch wheels, but the kit-provided rubbers look like they are for 13 inches. They are still useable despite the awful look. KMP resin tire+wheel sets are to be used here.

The rubbers I got from the old Protar kit, as you can see on the left side in this photo, scream wilderness out of the box.

As Italian manufacturers, it is natural for both kits to provide Cartograf-printed decals. Their decals are usually strong, durable, and last forever without yellowing; however, they can also sometimes be fairly hard to work with due to being not stretchable. I've heard good things about this new set of decals, which are soft and flexible. Cartograf also separated some sections, such as the stripe that goes over both the front cowl and doors and the three-section window decals, for easier application. Nice!

Well, at least the doors and front windshield fit well! Defintely exceeding expectations.

Overall, this kit has a list of problems: the bodywork is extremely thick, and the windshield's shape is kinda funny, that crazy wiper, and the fitment is generally poor... But this theme is too good to be ignored. Modeler's LC2 is no question better, but it is almost at least 5 times more expensive than the Italeri/Protar pair. You can find one on Yahoo Auction right now for 36000 Yen. 

This is found on Heller's website: 

Oldies but Goldies

We are proud of our large archive of injection moulds. That is why we rework, repair and improve existing moulds instead of throwing them away.

Now I am excited; maybe it is true that the 905 kit has received some improvements! A company that listens to its customers is a good company, so is Italeri from Italy. Come, Italeri! Some more Gr. C cars would be fantastic!

Photo Credit: Wheelsage.org

Let's review Fujimi's 1/24 Dome Zero RL 1979

"Nice ol' kit!"

About 10 years ago, I bought a Fujimi Dome Zero RL from a Yahoo auction. I could only assume it was a re-release in the 80s, well, at least according to the data shown on Scalemate and the crappy box I received. The decal inside was printed by Fujimi, and with no doubt, it was no longer usable due to yellowing. I have been on and off searching for a box with a working decal set over the years, and one finally came to me last month. Coming with a solid Cartograf-printed decal, this post-2002 re-release has a collage-like box art of actual car photos and a list of specifications of the car's performance.

I do want to comment on the layout of this box art; it seems too busy for me. If I were the designer, I would definitely remove the three small pictures and list the specifications in white, shadowed letters right on the pictures. 

On the side of the box, you get the metallic, shining Cartograf sticker, indicating the top-quality decal inside that lasts forever!

The old version has a slightly bigger box and a completely different box art. I am honestly a much bigger fan of Tamiya box arts or the box arts of other old Fujimi kits, like the original 330 P4.

Nothing really changed much in this kit except that beautiful piece of decal that is protected in a plastic bag. The major sponsor is the Japanese musical instrument manufacturer, Roland. 

YES!!

The body of the car is moulded into 2 pieces. In the later stage of construction, the rear piece will be attached to the front one through a tiny folding mechanism. That mechanism is glued on the inside of the front body, so the rear body can't be taken away once the construction is complete. Instead, it can be lifted up to show the beauty of that classic DFV engine. In addition, the front open vents, nice!

Gotta love the little DOME 童夢 emblem detail. However, these two kanji are supposed to be silver, and it can be very difficult to colour them due to their small size. Nope, the emblem is not covered in the decal.

Sprue A contains mostly cockpit parts and the two front wheels.

All the rivet and cable details look clean and sharp. Lots of masking work here!

The second half of sprue A. You'll find more details here. The single seat has a pretty convincing texture to it.

Honestly, I prefer decals + Micro Kristal Klear or clear nail varnish in this situation. 

The chassis you can find on Sprue B has a huge battery case. I believe this was used to power the front and rear light bulbs, as indicated on the side of the old box. There was also another version of this that had an even bigger battery case for a motorized version (probably the original version, as motorized models were very popular back then). Here is a reference picture I found on Hobby Search:

Note the very different chassis.

Here's a closer look at the chassis.

Despite being a 45-year-old model, I appreciate all the details that can be found here and there. At this point, I doubt whether the accuracy here is important. I am just happy that these details exist. 

The chrome-plated Sprue C look fine to my standard because they are not ultra-shining; rather, they are covered in a dull layer of subtle silver finish. Even so, it must be washed off due to all the gates and ejector pin marks.

I did keep the two rear wheels before removing the chrome finish. They look pretty realistic, and the gates will be hidden in tire rubber. 

The brake discs have good details on them, although the ejector pin marks are brutal.

Sprue D is all about the engine work. Fujimi converted this famous engine into a 1/24 replica. Let's not talk about how accurate this is...well, at least I would say the shape of the cam covers looks a bit off. The engine itself is fairly detailed, and by adding wires and cables here and there, you can easily reproduce one of the greatest F1 engines (if not the greatest one). 

I am very familiar with Tamiya's 1/12 DFVs, and seeing it in a 1/24 is a bit weird. At least, the embossed FORD letters are very sharp. The plug caps here look hilarious. 

The equally famous Hewland gearbox. This one is a TL2-200 5-speed.

Let's not forget about the clear sprue. The cool-looking cockpit roof is moulded together with the windows, so some easy masking work is needed. From the box art, you can see that this roof can be lifted, but the kit did not reproduce this mechanism. Other parts here are pretty standard.

It's funny to me that they have Goodyear on one sidewall of the tire and Dunlop on the other side. There is no mould line on the surface of the tires; don't be fooled, they are at the end of the surface of the tire where the sidewall begins. 

Fujimi also once released a version of the Dome Zero RL for the car that raced at the 1980 and 1981 Le Mans. I found this little image from Hobby Link Japan:

It was a collaboration with Studio27 (decals) and also two trans kits from Baracca. Here's a picture of the actual trans kit I found on the Baracca website; it is for the 1981 Amada version:

So, if you are interested in reproducing either of these two versions, you must buy the kit from Fujimi (which has the exact same content from the old 1979 version + two new decals from Studio27) and either two trans kits to make the accurate car. Interesting, no?

Hooray! And that's all you get from this fairly old kit. Not too bad, I would say! An extremely cool car despite a disenchanting racing record. I will forever be a fan of cars that exemplify the spirit of Le Mans - Never give up, 1995 Nissan GT-R Le Mans - like this Dome Zero RL and the many, many more cars that were either lucky enough to finish/win at Le Mans or unlucky enough to be marked as DNF/DNS. The sanding work has already started with all the parts, so hopefully, I will be able to airbrush this one soon!

Photo Credit: Petrolicious