1/43 Scale 1996 Fittipaldi Hogan-Penske

Emerson Fittipaldi crashed out of the 1996 Michigan 500 in spectacular fashion. This car is a reasonable approximation of the Hogan-Penske he was driving at the time. It started out as a damaged Minichamps 1994 Al Unser Jr. car that I purchased on eBay. One rear wheel was broken off the car but it was an easy repair and the model was priced right. The side pods and engine cover was slightly different on the 1996 car, but the model shows pretty well. The plastic on these models is very soft and won't stand up to solvents so I didn't try to remove the paint from the wing assembly or the base prior to the repaint. Most of the graphics are from IndyCals, with the exception of the Goodyear logos on the upper sidepods, the Bosch logo on the nose, the fuel filler, and of course the Marlboro decals. All of those were from my decal stash. The Minichamps Indycars had gray decals that represented the windscreen, I used Bare-Metal foil instead. I hand painted the helmet and created a new liner for the box which was laser printed on to 80lb gloss stock.