The Prisoner Lotus Seven

       

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Original Kit:
Lotus Super 7 Series II
Made By:
Tamiya (kit #24046)
Scale:
1/24
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Lotus Seven from the TV series The Prisoner
Lotus interior Lotus Seven engine Lotus Seven rear

 
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I've always liked the Seven. Whether it's the original Lotus or the later Caterham, the appeal of such a no-frills driving machine has always been there. Arguably the most famous seven of all time was the one driven by Number Six (Patrick McGoohan) in The Prisoner, and Tamiya had the kit and paints readily available.

As expected from Tamiya, the quality of the kit is top notch: minimal cleanup required, impeccable parts fit, and a general ease of assembly that made it nearly fall together. What wasn't so easy, though, was the paint. The Seven being such a small and open car meant that the usual assembly of chassis-engine-interior-body had to be foregone. The one-piece body tub was the starting point for everything. That meant that it had to be the first thing finished, and unlike most builds it needed to be painted multiple colors: green body, red interior, silver floor and engine bay, black frame components. Having to start off with what is, for me, the slowest part of any build meant this project took a while to get rolling.

I tried to help myself a little by making separate interior side panels out of 0.005" sheet styrene. By tracing the sides of the car onto cardstock, transferring that to styrene, and then painting those separately, it sped up the project by allowing me to have multiple parts painted and drying at the same time. Plus, it ensured a nice sharp break between the interior and body. I also opted to replace the intake bells with cut off sections of crimp tubing, which were both finer and already the correct color. The engine received basic wiring and plumbing, including brake, clutch, and throttle lines. My last upgrade was to the front suspension, which got scratch built coilovers to replace the one-piece kit parts.

Colors followed the instructions for the most part: XF-26 Deep Green for the engine, TS-17 Gloss Aluminum for the floor/engine bay, and black for the frame and suspension parts. I used some different metallic colors for the intake, exhaust, and transmission to give it a little more variety. The interior was painted Testors Flat Red, and the body was painted TS-9 British Green and TS-47 Chrome Yellow.

Close as it was, the kit did lack a few details specific to the Prisoner car: the TV car had Elan wheels, different taillights, and the iconic "KAR 120C" license plates. For these I turned to Shapeways, where Brusefält Model Parts offers a conversion set for the Tamiya kit. The parts were excellent, with most fitting the kit flawlessly. The only trouble spot I ran into was the front and spare wheels: because these were held onto the car with separate pins, the flat back sides of the hubcaps didn't leave enough room to seat properly. A few seconds' work hollowing out the backs of the caps with the Dremel fixed this easily enough, though. The wheels were painted aluminum, the taillights were tinted with Sharpie markers, the hubcaps and bezels were finished with aluminum tape, and the license plates were done in black with white gel pen for the letters. The final detail was a set of stone guards over the headlights, made from fine PE mesh.

 

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