SUBARU IMPREZA 555 GrA 'Winfield' 1/24 scale

By Tony Paton

I've had the kit of the road version Subaru Impreza, by Hasegawa (CD-102) for over a year and was about to swap it. That was until a new decal set arrived at my door. It was to convert the road version into a Group A rally car with 'Winfield' decals. They were appropriate for me as on the side of the car were gold kangaroos! I now had something to do with my kit and started to research my subject.

History

I could not find much information on this car. The decals are for the version of the car that came second in the Ypres rally of 1997 in the Group A category. B. Thiry was the driver with S.Prevot as navigator.

Bits & Pieces

As I was converting a road car into the rally version, I had to find or buy parts to make it more authentic. I looked through my box of leftovers and found many useful parts.

The normal road going seats had to be replaced with racing Recaro seats. I found two left over from a Tamiya Nissan R390 that I got replacement parts for. The wheels and tires were not applicable on a rally car. I had nothing onhand, so I ordered a set of Renaissance resin six spoke Speedline wheels (24SP6) that came with rally tires. I found an old M&A photo-etched set for the Tamiya Subaru Impreza that I only used one part. Here I found grills for the front, clips for the hood & trunk and the rear numberplate.

The decals I received were by Renaissance (Dec04) and included a replacement resin wing.

Construction

I started by attaching the new wing to the body. Followed by the front air scoop and side skirts. It was then sprayed in Tamiya Bright Red. While that dried I started work on the chassis.

I used the Hasegawa instruction sheet as a reference. Everything was standard until I got to the seats. I modified the floor pan and installed the seats. I then scratch built the roll cage using Evergreens .100" rod stripstyrene. I used the GIF animation of the Impreza interior from the Winfield rally webpage to find out how the roll cage was fitted.

For the seatbelts I had some left over seatbelt material from Hasegawa's Toyota Corolla Rally car and used left over decals for the buckles. This turned out very nice.

Then I ran into my first problem. The decals supplied for the dash were for a left-hand drive car. My kit was right-hand drive, I'm not sure which Hasegawa Impreza kit this conversion was for. I looked for a kit that may still be available for curiosity, but found nothing. Perhaps it was released a few years ago and deleted.

So after some modifications to the navigator's side, the decals were attached to the dash.

The sponsor's decals were applied to the body and after drying they were sprayed with Testors clear. There were no problems with these.

The resin wheels were painted gold and left to dry. Then the windscreen was attached to the body shell plus the grills at the front. The body was attached to the chassis and it looked great. All that was missing were the small details and the wheels.

Major problem! The wheels would not fit. They stuck out by about a quarter the width of the wheels. So after some major modification to the suspension and the wheels themselves, they finally went where they were supposed to go. Phew.

The headlights, wipers and clips were added, and finally, after pulling out what was left of my hair over the past two weeks, it was completed. I'm very proud of my achievement as it is the first time I attempted a major conversion of a standard kit and really had to think about what had to be done. It now sits proudly on my bar at home.