The Sound of Music Mercedes-Benz 540K

       

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Original Kit:
Mercedes Benz 540K
Made By:
Italeri (kit #3701)
Scale:
1/25
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The Sound of Music Mercedes-Benz 540K interior The Sound of Music Mercedes-Benz 540K front detail The Sound of Music Mercedes-Benz 540K rear

 
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This was my third crack at an Italeri model, which was immensely helpful at times. Italeri likes their weird body breaks - in both their WWII Jeep and their Ferrari 365, the only trouble I noted was trying to get the body panels all lined up properly. Such was the case here, with a particularly frustrating lack of guidance getting the top sills/trunk lid centered on the rear fenders. With a lot of measuring and careful application of liquid cement, though, it managed to come out OK.

Other than that, the rest of the build was just as easy and straightforward as I expected. Parts fit was good, and flash was limited to a few areas that were relatively easy to clean up. This was doubly appreciated since I did a fair amount of the assembly out of order, such as gluing together the body before painting so that it could be painted as a unit. This did cause a little trouble when it came time to install the engine - that really should have been done before the frame is assembled, but I thought I'd have enough room to squeeze it in. Turns out not so much, and I needed to remove a chunk of the upper bell housing to get it into place. Fortunately, the kit is essentially a curbside without doing major modification work, so the hack job is completely hidden.

Captain von Trapp was as conservative in his car as he was his manners, making for a limited color palette: Tamiya TS-29 Semi-Gloss black for the chassis and interior, and TS-14 black for the body. In an effort to add a little variety to all the black, I painted the tires TS-82 Rubber Black and the convertible boot and engine Testors Flat Black. The kit-supplied chrome trim was touched up with a chrome Gundam Marker, and the side spears were done using aluminum repair tape.

Only a few modifications were needed to get it to properly match the movie car. The first was the bumpers, which lacked the rubber strips cast into the kit bumpers. I shaved those off and resurfaced them with Bare Metal foil. I also removed the horns, and changed the taillights to simpler round parts that looked closer to what the movie car had. There was a single white light on the left side of the rear bumper, which I sourced from my parts box. The final detail was a set of vintage Austrian license plates with numbers to match the movie car.

 

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