Maseratis were responsible for my passion for Le Mans and in particular the 151. The first encounters were with the 1962 race and the big ugly and brutal 151. Three cars were entered, two from Briggs Cunningham and one from Maserati France, all showed great promise, the Cunningham car #3 was 2nd after 2 hours and completed 6 hours. The #2 car was second after 3 hours and managed 13 hours while The Maserati France car was 4th at the end of the first hour but retired after 10 hours. Sadly this was typical of Maserati's efforts at Le Mans, speed but a lack of reliability.

 The kits built here are the Cunningham cars nos. 2 and 3 driven by Mclaren/Hansgen and Thompson/Kimberly. The Maserati France car will be the next kit from SHMR. The Chassis Numbers were 004, 006 and 002. The Maserati France car would return in modified form in 1963 and further modified in 1964. Its final appearance at Le Mans was the 1965 Test day when it crashed fatally injuring Lucky Casner. At all its appearances 002 would prove capable of running at the front of the field but sadly it never got beyond the 10 hours of 62. It did however lead after 2 hours in 63 and was 3rd after 3 hours in 64. These were however the Ferrari years at Le Mans but then I always wanted the underdog to win.

The kit

It was nice that there were spares of several of the smaller parts particularly as one intake trumpet went down between my floor boards! Thank you Sandro.

Building the Kit

 The body and chassis had a few air bubbles which were easily filled before painting, there was very little flash and the panel lines were excellent. I did add a few extra details, some photoetch dials on the dash, gear lever gate and stick , interior mirrors, straps for the spare, buttons on the door latches and I replaced the light lenses with Meri Lenses. The exhaust heat shields were scraped clean of paint and polished and also some of the paint was polished from radiators and foot pedals.

The fine wire wheels were sprayed silver as I do not like the chrome effect on period sportscars. The pictures show mainly the #3 car, the #2 car was not quite finished when the pictures were taken. The print is by Michael Turner and shows the 3 Maseratis battling with the Rodriguez brothers in their 246 Ferrari.

Now please Sandro the French car with an improved vacform and I will be very happy to complete my 151/152 collection.