Heller Porsche 907 LH

[fastbackfreddie]

Hi Guys.
This is the Heller 1/24 Porsche 907 LH.
I bought it at a swapmeet a few years ago for the princely price of $5
There was a built model of the same kit in the box also...which was given to a mate who is a Porsche fiend!
There was also a pretty cool aftermarket set of decals in the bottom of the box. I have no idea on who's decals they are, or how old for that matter, but it had every option for the 4 team cars, but I liked the green ones, so I have built it to replicate the 1968 Daytona 24hr 2nd place car.
The engine was partly assembled and all of the bits had been badly painted on the sprues.
The glass looked like it had been dragged down the road ...lots of polishing to get it back to new (kind of).
The engine was carefully taken apart and rebuilt and all the parts stripped of paint to begin the standard construction process.
It is built OOB with some BMF on the fuel filler caps.
Its fair to say its a shocker of a kit and not the best looking model, with large gaps between body and chassis and poor parts fit, but I never intended it be a show stopper, just a slump buster
Hope it brings a smile.
Cheers. Tim

[vekkuli]

Looks pretty good, "We are the Fiend Club ".

[CK]

Hi Tim,

Put aside the deficiency of the the Heller kit, you've built a beautiful Porsche model.

One thing though, should it be a Porsche 907/8 LH? There is no Porsche 904LH from Heller. This kit has been re-released by Wave from Japan some 20 some years ago. May be the decal is from Wave.

I have this kit sitting in my basement as the whole body profile is not correct at all.

[fastbackfreddie]

Looks pretty good, "We are the Fiend Club ".

Thanks! ... hahaha... Fiend Club..

Hi Tim,

Put aside the deficiency of the the Heller kit, you've built a beautiful Porsche model.

One thing though, should it be a Porsche 907/8 LH? There is no Porsche 904LH from Heller. This kit has been re-released by Wave from Japan some 20 some years ago. May be the decal is from Wave.

I have this kit sitting in my basement as the whole body profile is not correct at all.

Hi CK,
Thanks for your comments. Yes, you are correct, it should be the 907...my mistake. I have since corrected the post.
I never realised that Wave re-released this. I was aware that Union re-released a lot of Heller kits, but not Wave.

These are the decals in question, so if anyone can shed any light on them?



Cheers
Tim

[flashman]

Tim, great build of a somewhat challenging kit! Thanks for sharing it.

That decal sheet was made by Fred Cady, who was a pioneer of aftermarket racing and street car model decals from the 1980's through early 2000's. Fred's 2001 catalog (the most recent one I still have) says he had released more than 220 decal sheets up to that time, for 1/24, 1/25, and 1/20 scale model car kits. Yes, the separate colors had to be carefully layered on top of each other by the modeler, but his decal sheets were godsends for car modelers, especially those building racing car models.

The decal sheet you have is Cady sheet #88, which Fred released in October 1996. Strangely, in his 1996 catalog that I have, it is listed as "1968 Porsche 908, 1st DAYTONA #54-yellow art, 1st SEBRING #52-green art", but his 1997 and later catalogs corrected it to say Porsche 907, which was the correct winners of those races, as Porsche's 908 version cars did not appear until the 1968 Le Mans test weekend in April, after the Daytona and Sebring races had been run.

Fred Cady stopped producing decals many years ago, but as of October 2019, he still had some remaining inventory available for sale. See here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topi ... inventory/. Please keep in mind that forum post was 10 months ago, so he likely has sold some of what he had at that time, but it may still be worth contacting him about any ones you really are looking for. Also, Cady decals can often be found on eBay and other auction sites, and various other vintage modeling product sellers. A google search of "Fred Cady decals" will show many of the different sheets Fred made.

Cameron

[fastbackfreddie]

Hi Cameron. Thanks for the information on the decals. I have been aware of Fred Cady, his name popping up in Scale Auto a lot with modellers using his decals. I will admit I had never seen his decals (they were not so easily found in OZ), so had no idea these decals were his. Having said that, I can now see why they were so popular and sought after at the time...they were a dream to use and layed down with no fuss at all. Thanks for the insight
Tim