Chevron B35 F2 / Atlantic - 1:43 Tenariv

Hello again!

Something different for this project, both in scale and subject matter. This is a 1:43 Tenariv kit of a 1976 Chevron B35 Formula 2 car. Age of kit is unknown! I’ve actually had this kit since the autumn of 2021 – the owner was racing a similar car at the time and asked me to put it together. I spent a couple of evenings going through the parts and doing some cleaning-up, and made a sizeable list of things I felt could be improved or detailed, but as the 956 was in ‘full-steam-ahead’ mode at the time I didn’t continue with the Chevron. For this I can only apologise – sorry, CW!

Before I go any further, I should also apologise in advance to all of you who regularly build in 1:43 – there’s bound to be some stuff here that isn’t ‘correct’, but I’ll be applying my normal Scratchbuilt approach, just in a smaller scale!

So, it’s a white-metal kit from Tenariv, no photo-etch parts, a single A4 page of instructions, a sheet of Cartograf decals, and four rubber tyres:





I’ll be building the kit as a B34 Formula Atlantic, to represent a car that we rebuilt at work around 16 years ago. It was one of three cars brought into the UK from Canada – the other two went elsewhere, and this particular car stayed with us. This was at an early shake-down run:



..and this is what I’ll be working towards:



First thoughts? After working at 1:8 scale for so long, anything in 1:43 is really small! The kit is missing the main roll-hoop, but I can re-make that easily enough. There’s a small chip out of the very front edge of the splitter, but this is fixable with some gentle re-shaping. The quality of the main body section seems good to me (not that I have much experience with white-metal kits) and the engine/gearbox are nicely detailed. The suspension parts are best described as ‘fragile’, though! A dry fit of the main parts suggests it should all go together well enough, but even in 2021 I was thinking that it would benefit from some extra drilling and pinning.

The plan is to build the kit with a few changes – swap the F2-spec inlet airbox for twin-carbs and a foam filter, add a silencer to the tailpipe, add a bit of extra detail in the cockpit, and paint in blue and orange to suit.

First job was to add some detail to the seat – the kit part is a simple plain shell, so I made some holes and added a set of belts made from 0.25mm styrene strip. I also need to add a couple of small adjuster buckles to the main shoulder straps. To add a little extra colour to the cockpit I also made a small fire-bottle which will be placed just ahead of the seat under the dashboard:



Next job was to work on the main body and lower cockpit pieces. I spent some time cleaning-up the main body back in 2021 – a few small lines and marks but no major issues – and I was able to re-shape the edge of the splitter to eliminate the small chip mentioned earlier. I added some styrene strip either side side of the ‘tub’ to give it some extra width (which I’ll be using later – I want to add a small filler cap on the inside). Thinking ahead, I glued a small M2 nut into the bottom of the cockpit (with 1.5mm styrene reinforcement), so I can use this to secure the model to a base when complete:





The cockpit sides were quite thick, so to make it easier to fit the main roll-hoop stays I’ve attacked the inside surfaces with a couple of small cutters, abrasive cloth, etc:



The roll-hoop was bent from the 1.6mm plastic-coated rod I’ve used a lot on other projects; I drilled out the kit holes to suit and it plugs in quite nicely, The stays will go forward and pin into two holes in the top of the tub.

Wing mirrors had their kit mounting studs removed and replaced with proper pins. A little filler required afterwards on the underside as the holes broke through, but the pins are still good:



Moving into the engine bay, the first thing to change was the air inlet. The engine in the kit appears to be a BMW, whereas the one in the Atlantic is a Ford – fortunately the exhaust and inlet are on the same sides (so at least I don’t have to remake a set of 1:43 primaries), but I definitely wanted to replace the F2-spec inlet. The BMW head is a slightly different shape to the Ford, so the first step was to file this back to vertical, re-drill a couple of mounting holes, and then make an air-filter and carb detailing to suit:



In reality the air-filter sits quite flush to the bodywork and you don’t see anything of the detail behind, but I’ve left it a little long so you’ll just get a glimpse of the carbs disappearing under the bodywork.

The exhaust is cast as a single piece with a couple of holes ready to be drilled-out to pin it onto the block. Rather than leaving it with the plain 2mm tailipe as per the kit, I’ve made a silencer from 1/8” styrene, 2mm and 4mm ali:



The rear wing as supplied relies on a single stud to locate into a shallow hole on the end of the gearbox end-cover, so that was immediately filed away and replaced with a proper pin. The front end of the wing post is tucked under the back end of the engine cover, so I decided to make use of that to add a second pin. I shaped a small piece of 3mm thick styrene to fit into the underside of the tail, then drilled into this, and added a matching hole in the front of the wing post

While I was drilling the wing parts I added two pairs of holes into the top of the post and the underside of the mainplane, so that should give a solid joint when assembled.



Last job tackled at the weekend was starting to replace the two side frames that run back from the cockpit to the gearbox. The kit parts are fragile, but more critically don’t appear to actually locate or attach to anything! So, something else to change. I bent the lower frame from 0.8mm brass rod as a single piece, with two holes drilled into the back of the cockpit – the middle of the frame loops under the gearbox. The diagonals are also drilled into the back of the cockpit, but will be pinned into the bottom of the gearbox on each side – here’s the right-hand side:



The left-hand side will not be quite so simple, as I suspect the exhaust will get in the way. No problem – I’ll just put a kink into the diagonal. There’s a few other little details I’d like to add before I start working on the suspension – there should be a little oil cooler on the right, and an oil catch-tank on the left by the exhaust bracket. I might also be able to add the back end of the main oil-tank on the left. I’d like to add some wiring and pipework if I can, but this is going to be a struggle in 1:43 and possibly a short-cut to madness! We’ll see – I’ve got some small diameter wire and lead-wire, so maybe I can find something suitable that doesn’t look out of scale.

So that’s where I am after a week’s worth of work. I don’t anticipate that this build will take multiple years (well, not if you don’t include the fact I’ve had it for a while) but I can easily see another couple of weeks fiddling around with the suspension and other detailing, then painting, then final assembly. Aim to have it finished for the end of August? I think that could be possible…

More next time!

SB