After building my first electric car, I was thinking of adventuring myself into building a liquid-fuel powered (Nitromethane) R/C car. I thought it would be difficult to find the fuel where I live, but then I found out that the local R/C store was going to sell it. The second problem was price, but then it happened that I managed to make a trip to the U.S. to visit a friend in New York, so I thought of buying it there, much cheaper than in Brazil.

And so it happened. Before I went on to the trip, I had to make up my choice; I had to buy a car with enough local support for parts. After doing some research at the Usenet (rec.models.rc.land), I decided for the HPI Nitro RS4. Why? For a number of reasons, namely:

1 - advice from guys in the above newsgroup;

2 - proven quality of the electric RS4 counterpart;

3 - parts availability at my local store.

After buying the kit, which came with a Porsche 911 GT1 body, I assembled the chassis with the original parts, and started the break-in process. Then I had to figure out what kind of paint job I would do on the body.

It happens that I like building replicas of real cars, and the body supplied with the kit suggests the following paint job, from the 1995 24 Hour of Le Mans winner (click on the pictures to get a larger image):

That looked to me as a daunting job, because a) I don't have neither the resources nor the ability to do a paint job like that; and b) the decals do not exist, as far as I know. (Just in time: Kyosho has released such a body, used in their GP10 chassis; it doesn't exist at the time I decided for my paiting job.)

Then the idea struck me; a paint job just like the world famous John Wyers' Gulf Team Porsche 917 K, one of the finest racing cars ever built. This is a front picture of the car:

After looking at the body, I decided to cut its rear, in order to mimic the original car's appearance. Next problem?? Decals. The paint job was somewhat easy to do, but I would need those big, white number plates, and worst of all, the Gulf logos.

I then found out a guy here in my home town (Alexandre) who works with self-adhesive vinyl cutting, and it was easy to him to build some for me. As for the Gulf logos, I remembered that the Ford GT 40 used the same paint job years before this car, and that Kyosho™ makes a GT40 replica; I then ordered the decal sheet for it, and used the little logos. Here's the outcome:

Well, this picture's colors are not that good, but they are very close to the original, I can assure you.

After finishing this body, I found that I wasn't willing ruining it while bashing at my local track; in fact, I did not run the car with to this day (07/28/97). Maybe in a few weeks, but not now, that I am so proud of it. As I had another body, I decide using it to 'trade paint' with my fellows. Here it is:

Well, there's one caveat, though; I got so fond of this body, that another 'idea' struck me... see the shiny headlights? Well, I left the headlight 'lenses' clear, painted the rear in Tamiya's clear red paint and the turn lights in clear yellow... and sticked aluminum foil inside the body, with this result. You should see it in the bright daylight!

Worse yet, I thought 'Why not having real lights?' So I bought a set of RAM's head and brake lights for gas cars, and I am about to install it. It shall look nice at night!

The next step?? Maybe a 2-speed tranny and a tuned pipe... stay tuned!

I gotta make some thanks; to my friend Charles, the drawing and painting resident artist at the Institute, for using his room, airbrush and abilities to do the masking and painting of the bodies, and for scanning the images presented on these pages; and to Dorian de Racovitza, who's got the greatest images of racing cars on his page on the Internet, DdR Motorsports and took the time to send me pictures of the 917K. Also, thanks to Reinaldo and Daniel, my fellows and salesmen at Hobby Planet, the R/C Car store in Campinas, for the tips and advice. Thanks, guys!

* After tinkering and tooling with it for a couple of months, it started misbehaving, and broke a couple of times. I then decided to sell it, because I couldn't afford the time and money to mantain it properly. After I sold it, I found out that the receiver went bad, and was the probable cause of the handling and engine-locking problems. Anyway, it was a good experience, and I can now recommend nitro cars IF you have the time, tools, a good place to work on (a small shop is nice). But it seems that the tendency is to ban small engines from urban areas, just like happened in L.A. Anyway, be warned: time and money are the words.