The IMSA Ford Mustang

The Team Miller High Life Ford Mustang Turbo was a star of the 1981 IMSA Camel GT series. The car scored two victories and a second in seven appearances that season. The car finished best on tight road courses where it could overcome its power deficit to the twin turbo Porsche. The car was built by a cooperative effort between Zakspeed and Ford. It was powered by a 1.7L, fuel injected, 4-cylinder, turbo charged motor putting out 560HP. The car was piloted by Klaus Ludwig.

The Decals

This is Speedline's SPD 9 decal set. It is the red and white Miller High Life Ford Mustang livery from the 1981 season. This set is intended for use with the 1/24th scale Monogram kit #2296. This kit is the original Miller Mustang kit and can be difficult to find. Another Mustang kit that these decals could be used for is Monogram kit #2297 Motorsport Mustang IMSA racer. This kit was reissued by Monogram in the past year or two and is much easier to find. This set contains decals needed to reproduce the car as it ran through most of the season, as well as, the race specific Sears Point version from 1981. The Sears Point car was slightly different in that instead of an all white car, it was mostly red with just the white sides. The sponsor decals are also slightly different.

The quality of the decals appears to be unsurpassed. The artwork is by Umi Graphics and the printing by Cartograf, what an excellent combination. The decals are relatively inexpensive as far as decals go at $10 each. I imagine if these were sold by some other manufactures, they would run up to more like $15.

Original Momogram Decals

This set is far superior to the original kit set. The decals are sharper and the detail is much better. The gold accents on the original set appeared almost tan like while the Speedline set is a true gold color. The original kit tires have raised Goodyear scripts that must be hand painted white. The Speedline set contains Goodyear tire decal logos. The original kit set is also missing red decal bits to apply to the louvers of the hood. The original set does have the red hood decal but I guess you had to match the red decal and paint the louver vents. The Speedline set has you covered here with extra red decal bits for these vents.

Ford Capri Gr. 5

In the late '70's before the inception of the Group C rules there was what was known as the Group 5 cars. Ford teamed with Zakspeed and built a racer based on Ford's Capri. Many of the body parts were Kevlar49 and the car used extensive amounts of aluminum. The car was also fitted with Porsche 917 brakes and 19" rear wheels. The car had modern safety equipment such as a full tube roll cage, which was new technology back then. The Zakespeed Capri was powered by a small (less than 2L) displacement motor, with a turbocharger and intercoolers. It ran successfully in several international series including the German DRM, and the US Camel GT IMSA series.

The Decals

This is Speedline's SPD 10 decal set. It is the brilliantly colored LuquiMoly scheme piloted by Winkelhock. The livery is a white car with a gorgeous red, blue, green, and dark green 'swirls or flames'. All the other sponsor logos are present including Goodyear tire logos. This is absolutely a stunning set of decals on one of the largest sheets I have seen in a while. Included with the decal set is a colored placement guide.

The quality of the decals appears to be unsurpassed. The artwork is by Umi Graphics and the printing by Cartograf, what an excellent combination. The decals are relatively inexpensive as far as decals go at $10 each. I imagine if these were sold by some other manufactures, they would run up to more like $20. This is a full 5.25" x 8.75" sheet. I must admit I haven't done my research on this one and I am not sure what series or years this particular car ran. The placement guide offers no further information. I don't believe it ran in the IMSA Camel GT series, so my guess is it ran in the German DRM series.

Motor Racing Models magazine #40 contains an in depth article on the Ford Capri, all its versions and potential slight modifications that may be needed to represent various cars. If you don't have that issue and plan on building a Capri Iíd highly recommend you seek it out.

The only potential problem I see with this conversion sheet is the actual base Tamiya kit itself. The kit was re-issued by Tamiya last year (or maybe it was late 1999), but the US distributor never re-imported it. As a consequence it never really hit the shelves. It has disappeared from the traditional Japanese mail order shops. There were a few specialty model shops that did grab a few here and there, but it is still a rare kit. Its appearance on ebay is even limited. It's too bad twoguysracing didn't sit on a pile of these to offer with this stunning decal set. Yours truly here missed the boat as well, this was one kit I always meant to get and never did. Now that I have checked all of my sources it's gone. So if someone out there has one or knows where I can get one, drop me an email.

CART Decals

These new decals are for the 1/25th Scale Revell Champ car series of kits. The latest offerings include two different sets of decals to convert any of the Revell Champ car Reynard kits. I have previously taken a look at four other Speedline Champ car sets and these two new sets are of equal quality but contain more graphic decals and the sheets are triple the size. Each set can be purchased separately.

The Decals

SP-12 includes decals to represent the Team Menard/Gordon from the 1999 season. Robby Gordon used the Reynard '98 chassis for the first four races of the 1999 season, so the Revell Reynard kit is still appropriate to model his early season ride. This livery is the dark metallic blue with the day-glo red, orange, and yellow stripe trademark of Menardís. The scan here can't do justice to the day-glo colors of the decal set. The set also includes all the other sponsor logos including the OZ wheels and Firestone tire decals. A simply stunning set that is sure to be an eye catcher.

SP-14 includes decals to represent the #5 Cummings Valvoline Reynard of Gil deFerran in 1998. This livery is a blue and white with the Valvoline 'paint spatter'graphics in a light blue and red. The set also includes all the sponsor logos and again includes the OZ wheel and this time Goodyear tire logos.

The decals look of excellent quality. The printing is bright and sharp. and very little carrier film is evident. Included with the decals is a color numbered placement guide. These decals represent some of the more striking CART liveries not offered by Revell. This will allow even more variations of the Revell Champ car kits. These decals are a real bargain and retail at $10 and are about triple in size to the four sets previously offered by Speedline.

The demise of Ricambi and their trans decals for the Revell kits has left a large void to which twoguysracing has effectively jumped into. Twoguysracing's website reports of more decal sets in the works. I can't wait. Finally somebody is listening to us modelers!!

Speedline is the brand name of Twoguysracing and represents a further foray into the aftermarket accessory field. The decals can be purchase directly from Twoguysracing or from your favorite aftermarket supply shop. Get them while you can.

A big thanks to Speedline for the review samples!!