Francesco Bernoulli

[indy]

One of the faster cars competing against the hero, Lightning McQueen, in the World Grand Prix in the Cars 2 movie was the Italian grand prix car, Francesco Bernoulli. The Ferrari-esque non-Ferrari was molded in 1/43 by Zvezda Models, a Russian kit maker more known for their military, boat, and plane subjects.

I found these kits via message boards a year or two back. I got a few of them for Christmas last year and decided to start our collection but putting this one together with the 5 year-old tonight.

The kit has pretty good instructions. Plastic comes on 1 white, 1 red, and 2 black sprues. Stickers for markings and all green bits. The kit went together pretty well though I did most of the cutting and assembly. A pretty complex little build but I think it being a detailed open wheeler means this kit is more complex than the other fendered cars in the series. Took over an hour to do this but we took our time because I was letting him find pieces on the sprue, do some assembly, and learn to use the sprue cutters.

Assembly


Finished Car


Happy Kiddo


I actually have an extra kit or two of Francesco, I was hoping to maybe do additional ones with real paint, no seam lines, etc. but I am not sure anymore. Anyways, this one came with a CARS board game so I am looking forward to building Lightning McQueen with him and then us playing the game with our completed models. Probably will be asking Santa for a few more of the other cars in the series - I think I still need about 6 of them to get all 10.

Jordan

[clm1545]

Great post, Jordan. Super project, and result.

[1961redlegs]

Outstanding job for both of you! That's a great way to spend some quality time together.

[indy]

Thanks guys, he is excited about building Lightning and playing the game with our builds. I wanted to say that this kit is really incredibly engineered to very tight tolerances. On the bad side, one of the biggest frustrations was getting the undertray to snap in. I eventually went back and checked all the pieces it snapped into and when I finally pushed in the exhaust piece the undertray snapped in like a charm. On the good side, the pieces fit with little room to spare which means the completed car feels very solid even without a drop of glue anywhere.

Jordan

[Patrick]

Who's the expert modeler you worked with Jordan?

Patrick

[indy]

That is Carson and he is pretty gung-ho! Just trying to teach him to be safe by not playing with the hobby tools. Last night we built Lightning and the stocker was fairly easy compared to the GP car. Lightning was less than half the pieces of Franchesco - 16 in total - 5 body pieces, 1 white piece for teeth, 2 chassis pieces, and 8 for rims/tires. Did have a little issues with the rear quarter stickers being a bit small but the end result is still nice. I have two other CARS character kits in my stash, we might build them soon!! 

We played one game of the board game and it was fairly complex. He chose Franchesco and it was a pretty close three lap race. I think if we had been using the catch up rules all game it might have been a photo finish! Sadly, Carson was defeated narrowly by his Dad 

Lightning Assembly



Finished Product


Board Game!!


Jordan

[Calvin]

Awesome story Jordan!
This is the best WIP!