McLaren M23 James Hunt in 1/8 scale

November 25, 2024 · in Automotive · · 16 · 197

Lordy what a project this was! The big scale kit of the M23 as driven by James Hunt by .

I have been building models professionally for about 10 years and by far this was the biggest challenge! HORRIBLE fit issues, terrible instructions drawn by someone who was either drunk or on drugs or possibly both. Granted this kit is from 1974 and did not have the aid of a computer so I will give it some leeway...but not much.

This kit took probably 150 hours and many times I was about to give up but it was for a great customer so I pushed on through. Decals were no good so I had to purchase decals for 100.00 from a guy in Europe, thank God they worked! The headers had to be completely scratch built because the originals were designed for something other than this car, lord knows what went wrong there, I spent hours making new ones, how I got them to fit still amazes me and will go down as one of my most amazing model building feats.

On another note this kit runs about 2,000.00 if you can find one, but save yourself the trouble and build something else. All the plumbing and wiring had to be replaced as the originals were rock hard and unusable, every hole had to be drilled out because they were all too small. Every part needed to be cleaned up, all had bad seam lines that need to be sanded. On a good note the tires are real rubber and nice and the box is cool.

I would only recommend this kit to someone who is sitting on death row with nothing else to do.

Reader reactions:
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12 additional images. Click to enlarge.


16 responses

  1. Congratulations Rick! A triumph over an unbuildable kit!
    Looks absolutely stunning!

  2. Thanks Spiros, was one for the books that’s for sure! Lol

  3. Excellent build, but it definitely sounds like a sanity breaker.

  4. Sounds like James Hunt had an easier time winning a championship than the issues faced with this Entex kit.
    But what a beauty it turned out to be.
    Congrats on the completion.
    I’d hate to ask - any plans for a 1/8th scale Lauda Ferrari? 🤔

  5. lol! Probably! Thank you. I built the Tamiya 1/12 scale Lauda Ferrari, it’s in my articles, zero plans to do another Entex F1 kit 😊

  6. Glad to see you finished it, Rick, it looks good in the photos, quite a beast.

  7. The Entex kit is a repackaging of the Japanese EidaiGrip kit. I don't believe Entex produced any original models. They only reissued kits made by other companies. Some good, some bad.

  8. Who knows Tom, I do know they are all out of business and hopefully they completed rehab and are sober now.

  9. That's a very nice result, Rick @rickschad
    Not that easy to handle such a big model and finally make it look this nice.
    Well done.

  10. Looks really good and justifies all the extra work you had to do to get it in this state. At first, I thought this was one of the large scale Tamiya F1 kits (I built a few back in the day).

  11. Thank you! The biggest that Tamiya made was 1/12 I think. This one is a whopping 1/8 scale!

  12. "I would only recommend this kit to someone who is sitting on death row with nothing else to do."

    Rick, I gotta tell ya, that sentence made me literally "laugh out loud"! 😄

    In spite of all the trials and tribulations, the finished model looks fantastic @rickschad! 🤩

  13. Hahahaha! I’m glad my misery made you laugh! I appreciate it Gary! 😊

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