SAPMA (South Australian Plastic Modellers Association)

The LOTUS 25/29/33 Series Cars
Part 1

. As a modeller of Formula 1 and Indy cars, the early era machinery always had lots of appeal to me, and the Lotus family of early cars are no exception. In particular the 25's 29's and 33 series machines. These cars are arguably the most handsome no nonsense racing cars of all time.

However, large scale model kits of ANY F1 car of this era are not that easy to come by, the only exceptions are the Tamiya 1/20 Lotus 25 and the RA272 Honda. I don't doubt that some die casts exist, along with very expensive limited run resin kits, but not mass produced stuff for the masses. I'll take a stab at saying that anything and everything is available in 1/43, but I don't own an electron microscope, so I really don't care!

The kits that I have built here are, or were, pretty much easy to get (at the time) but as is usual become harder and harder to obtain. The 1/20 Lotus 25 should still be available, but the other three may take some getting nowadays. The 1/25 Lotus 25 is a resin kit by Joker, and the 1/20 Lotus 33 is a conversion using a "trans-kit" by K-Model. (more about this later) Both of these were purchased from HAPICO in California, although the kits are produced in Japan. Check out the Hapico web site via our links page, I dare say other mail order hobby shops in Japan can help, assuming the kits are still available. Start digging, you never know your luck.By the way, Joker/K-Model are the same.

The 1/25 Lotus 29 Indy car is from the MPC 3in1 INDY 500 Hall of Fame set. These 3in1 sets are of the '60's vintage so availability may be a problem. Once again get on the web and check out the clearing houses for old/obscure car kits. I do believe that the Lotus 29 was released as an individual kit years ago, and I think only in the USA.

The TAMIYA 1/20 LOTUS 25, the #4 car, is just as good as all their other model products, that is to say pretty damn good. Level of detail is excellent as per all their F1 kits. Built OOB the only added 'extra' detail were the real 'in your face' obvious bits like the plug wires and protective lagging around the coolant pipe that runs down the LH side of the tub. A most obvious and prominent feature of the 25/33 cars. I chose not to use the clear plastic bit that is supposed to represent a mesh cover over the injector trumpets. It looks like crap, and tossed it! I modelled the car sans intake cover mainly because I never got around to wrestling with the problem of forming one out of brass mesh. Besides, there is photographic evidence of these cars racing without mesh covers from time to time. A top model of a famous car.

Now, the 1/20 LOTUS 33, the #24 car is another matter entirely. A bit of work here but nothing that will cause any grief. As in real life the 33 is a hybrid next generation 25, so goes the model. By that I mean you have to start with a Tamiya Lotus 25 and upgrade it to a full 33 using the K-Model 'trans –kit'. Easy huh! Well read on.

The major components of the trans-kit are done in resin and white metal, a beautiful brass mesh intake cover, (now why the hell auntie Tamiya cant do one for their 25 kit has got me stuffed) and some brass rod for the axles. The resin parts are the top cowl/nose piece, an engine cover, top rear radius rod mounts, wheels and rims for both ends, and resin 'tyres' (we'll discus these tyres in a mo.) The white metal parts are mainly the headers, exhaust megaphones and various pipes for the different cooling set up on the bigger 2litre motor of a 33. You have to scratch build some stuff like a roll bar, the rear radius rods and some minor bits, as well as modify some Tamiya parts to suit, nothing drastic.

This photo shows most of the major changes that a 25 needs to bring it up to 33 specs. The low mount pipes with megaphones, the different cooling manifolds etc, mesh cover and carrier, roll bar, the high mount top radius rods, and other odds 'n sods.

The most visual difference I feel are the exhausts and the tyres. Now some early 33's had the high mount exhaust pipes like a 25 and ran wider tyres, but the definitive version of the 33 used a full house 2 litre motor that had a 180 flat plane crank that necessitated the low exhausts Consequently its mandatory that the late fat Dunlops be used on a low exhaust type 33. To model the full spec 33 then we needed to use wider tyres than the resin ones that come in the trans kit. Strange that! You see the kit tyres are early higher aspect ratio tyres but the late 33's used the vastly bulkier 'doughnuts' (Dunlop's word not mine) The only way to achieve this was to get a certain P. Murrie to resin copy a set from the 1/20 RA272. The instructions actually mention this but it took me some time to decipher the Japanese text to find out what was what. Phew! These tyres look much closer to the mark. Yeah I know the Lotus ran Dunlops and these have Goodyear tread patterns, you're not supposed to notice that.

Had a ball building the thing. With a little effort, a bit of scrounging and help from friends, I think I managed to get the essence of the Lotus 33, one of the all time best looking F1 cars in my book. More photos next page.