In the 1980’s, Don Devendorf and his Electramotive crew worked their way up the IMSA ladder, from GTU to the top rung GTP class, winning several championships along the way. Success in GTP was quite the challenge from the beginning with their Lola-based car, but once Yoshi Suzuka, Trevor Harris, Ashley Page and the crew started working their magic they were unstoppable.

Despite the popularity of the Electramotive/Nissan Performance Technology Inc. cars, few model kits have been produced of the IMSA GTP Nissans. Starter released some 1/43 kits of the 88/89 car and one of the NPT-90.  Studio 27 put out the IMSA GTP 89/90 car in 1/24 scale and recently added the IMSA NP35 kit.  Incidentally, Studio 27 has incorrectly called the proposed IMSA version of the Nissan the "N"P35.  The "N"P35 was the Japanese built, All Japan Sports Prototype Championship, car which differed in details to the car that was built, tested, and would have been raced, in the US.

Studio 27 has produced kits for both the Japanese version which raced once in Japan (Mine 500 Km, November 1, 1992) and the proposed IMSA version which was tested at Daytona and Mid-Ohio in mid and late 1992.  The kit consists of a resin body and floor pan, 44 cast metal parts, 4 rubber tires, 4 turned aluminum wheels, vacuum-formed windshield, side window, and headlight covers, clear parts tree, photo-etched fret, brass axles, and a decal sheet.  Given the differences between the All Japan and the IMSA version, not all the clear, metal, or photo-etched parts are used.

The photo-etched sheet has extra fasteners which come in handy, as the small ones for the side windows and headlight covers can easily be lost. Some parts can be installed as cast metal or photo-etched; I chose the options that gave the best appearance.

The floor pan lacks detail as does the interior, but it’s nothing a little ingenuity can’t remedy. I added wiring for the electronic control boxes and some decals from another kit. Photographs of the cars interior showed the steering wheel to be flat on the bottom. Additionally, all the photos I found of the NPTI cars showed blue Simpson seat belts as opposed to the red called for in the instructions.

The body is cast well requiring little clean up before painting. I painted the white first, decals are provided for the triangular area in front of the windscreen but I decided to paint it. I then painted the blue and used the red and white decals provided for the rear and sides of the car. Thanks to the photos provided by Mike, I was able to accurately paint detail areas as there are some errors on the instruction sheet. The locating pins on the cast metal wing support were too thick so I filed them off and replaced them with brass rods which provided a better fit and look.

There were several omissions from the kit instructions, requiring me to look elsewhere for the placement of the transmission cooling duct, the rear light mounted to the transmission housing, the roof light, antennas and the correct placement of the front tow hook.  Again, reference photos assisted with these problems. I used insect pins number 00 for the antennas and made the front support for the inlet snorkel from styrene. As with any model assembly, test fitting should be done to avoid instructional errors, most notably attaching the front wheels before putting the body on the frame.

Studio 27 has provided a great kit of an obscure subject and hopefully will someday add some of the NPTI cars between this model and the 89/90 kit.