mclaren mp4

When I first opened this kit, the first thing that struck me, was how orange the decals were. In most of the photo’s I had of this car, the red was a deep Ferrari like red. The orangey colour can turn out in a variety of shades, depending on the photographic film being used and the developers taste. This means that the deep red I was looking at in the photo’s I had, was a distortion of the true colour, and in fact Tamiya had got it right. At the time I made the decision to spray the red portions of the car in the Humbrol red No19, which is also used for all my Ferrari models.

The end result means that the MP4/4 will stand out like a sore thumb in comparison with the others. (There are two other McLarens to add to my collection, as yet, waiting in the loft unmade). I have also recently acquired a set of the Marlboro decals, for the MP4/4, from www.f1specialties.com, but was unable to remove the decals, which were fitted some years ago. Tamiya offer the decals, which would represent the cars livery at the British Grand Prix where cigarette advertising is banned.

1988 was the final year that turbocharged engines were allowed. The displacement was limited to 1.5 litres, the boost pressure was set to a maximum of 2.5 bar and a fuel limit of 150 litres was also imposed.

This car won 11 times during the course of the season, the team won the constructors championship with 5 races left to go and 8 of the races were won with a 1 –2 finish. Both Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost drove the cars that year. I chose to model the car driven by Prost rather than Senna because the

Lotus 98T and McLaren MP4/5B were also driven by Senna and feature in my collection.