Williams Renault FW16 – Adelaide 1994, Part 1
This is my first update on here in a while, but not because I’ve not been doing any model making.
After finishing my Prost/Senna diorama last year, I decided that I wanted to build another diorama of a famous (or infamous) title decider, so I plumped with Damon Hill & Michael Schumacher’s notorious collision at the 1994 Australian Grand Prix.
I purchased the kits (both from Tameo), last year and started work on the Williams before Christmas. However, my second daughter was born shortly before Christmas and like any good Dad, I was rightfully distracted!!
After the New Year, I was able to start work on my modelling again so started to build the Williams kit. I have built this kit three times before (twice as a static display, and once as part of my Mansell pit stop diorama), so it was a very familiar experience to return.
As is typical with Tameo kits, the model was a joy to build. I bought the kit from Grand Prix Models, and it was some old stock they had ,anaged to get hold of. Even though the Cartograph decals must’ve been c.22 years old they still went onto the kit beautifully with no issues.
I’ve started to tweet updates more regularly than I update my website (you can follow me at @badwolfminif1 ), and whilst I was making the kit I tweeted an update on the kit copying in Damon Hill. You can imagine my delight when I got a reply!!
I was particularly pleased with how the crash helmets with real transparent visors had worked out on my previous project, so I was determined to do the same on this model. I managed to find some old helmet decals (which originally came with a kit of the 1996 Williams Renault), that were perfect for this diorama. Whilst Damon Hill’s basic helmet design remained the same throughout his F1 career, there were subtle changes (withe coming and going of sponsors) throughout his career, even whilst he was at Williams. Referring to some reference photos from the Australian and Japanese Grand Prix from 1994 helped me make sure that I had got the helmet just right.
It was this reference to photographs of the race which showe me that Damon Hill had a pipe coming out of the front of his crash helmet at this particular race, presumably connected to the car’s drinks bottle. I was able to recreate this with some very thin florists wire, which was inserted an glued into a very tint hole drilled into the front of the crash helmet.
Overall, this has been a really enjoyable kit to build. Having built it a number of times before there was an element of “going through the motions”, but concentrating on the driver figure helped me maintain my interest!!
