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| Interested in upgrading your M&S Hobbies Toyota Eagle MkIII? Check out my Shapeways store for a underfloor and front diffuser upgrade! |
 When
Toyota unveiled the MkIII at Laguna Seca in 1991 it obviously was the
result
of divergent thinking compared to their previous efforts (the MkI and
MkII).
Gurney's outfit had taken stock of the competition as well as the
pluses
and minuses of their own effort to that point when they sat down to
write
the brief for the MkIII. And that brief was rather straight
forward:
keep the engine happy, keep the driver happy (cool), make the chassis
crashworthy
and robust yet stiff and light, apply sound aerodynamic thinking (yet
leading
edge), and make it as simple as you can. While ultimately
that brief
reads little different than any other race car brief, that the MkIII
was
as successful as it was certainly suggests they met or exceeded every
point
where as lesser cars came up short. |
| The M
& S Hobbies 1/24 scale resin kit depicts the 1993
Toyota Eagle
MkIII though with some simple scratch building it can easily be made to
resemble either the debut 1991 Laguna Seca car or the 1992 season
car.
The kit consists of 50 parts cast in either tan (main body and
underfloor,
gearbox, rear wings, etc.) or clear resin (headlights and headlight
covers)
in addition to 4 rubber (black) cast tires as well one sheet of clear
vac.
formed plastic for the front and side windows. All these
parts allow
you to build a curbside version of either the low downforce car (as
seen
at Daytona) or the high-downforce monster as the kit comes
with the appropriate items (different rear wings and the addition of
front
dive planes) to build it up as one or the other. As with previous M
&
S Hobbies kits, the molding and casting is very competent and the resin
parts are high in detail and little in flash.
A real bonus to the
kit has to be the massive photo etch sheet that includes over 20
additional
parts such as the rear wing endplates (important for the two very
different
rear wings you can depict), brake disc details, fuel buckeye, tow
hooks,
etc.
Decals allow you
to depict the 1993 Daytona 24 winner or the regular sprint-season
car.
The printing on the decals is crisp and the colors register perfectly.
The retail price
is $150.
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| Overall this kit
will build up into a excellent rendition of the Toyota Eagle
MkIII.
The exterior shape is dead on. My only nit picks
are that the
underfloor is completely inaccurate in that the very unique front
diffuser
detail is non existent and the rear tunnels bears no resemblance at all
to what the real car actually raced. Additionally, the front
wheel
well exit, as modeled, has an abrupt vertical which then
transitions
to near horizontal across a corner following the lower line of the
front
wheel well exit. This should actually blend forward all the
way to
the bottom of the car (see
photos) with the outer bodywork in this area effectively
becoming a
simple endplate in shape and approximate thickness. This
detail allowed
a place for the air to exit out on the MkIII's unique front
diffuser.
This should be relatively easy to amend and would only require some
resculpting
in this area. The front diffuser will be challenging to
replicate
though nothing a average scratch builder can't handle given adequate
documentation
of the detail. The rear diffuser/tunnels will take some work
as well.
As modeled on the kit, they are depicted as small volume diffusers (as
common to the Group C Nissan and Toyotas) with parallel outer tunnel
walls
eschewing the Tony Southgate-esque bell mouth tunnel entry that was
first
popularized on the Jaguar GTP and Group C cars and then ultimately
adopted
by everyone else. Photos of the MkIII's underfloor show this
pretty
clearly. Naturally the vertical turning vane is omitted as
well.
To convert the model
into the 1991 or 1992 car all you really need to do is to scratch build
a turbo inlet scoop. Though it really depends on what event
you are
depicting the car because by New Orleans 1992 the MkIII had been
modified
such that the engine intake scoop was eliminated (intake air for the
turbo
was simply drawn out of the left hand side intercooler duct thus getting
rid
of the large scoop and it's frontal area and rear wing airflow
disruption,
AAR called this the "flip flop"). So check your references
and build
a turbo inlet accordingly.
So having said all
of the above, ultimately M&S Hobbies has provided a perfect
starting point to make a very accurate Toyota Eagle MkIII.
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| It is a
travesty that it has taken so
long for a subject such as the Toyota Eagle MkIII to be depicted in
1/24
scale. M & S Hobbies should certainly be
commended; the
kit they present is really superb and given the price, can't be
beaten. |
| Interested in upgrading your Toyota Eagle MkIII? Check out my Shapeways store for a underfloor and front diffuser upgrade! |
Go
here for more details of the 1/1 scale
Toyota Eagle MkIII
|
