“The Miracle of Imola” – Rubens Barrichello, Jordan Hart 194 – San Marino Grand Prix 1994 – Diorama Gallery

I don’t usually make models of crashes.

There’s no particular reason, but I suppose they can sometimes be a little macabre (especially if the driver was injured). However, in this instance I was approached by a follower on Instagram last year to ask if I would build a diorama of Rubens Barrichello crashing at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.

Imola 1994 was a notoriously dark weekend in F1’s history, but after some reflection I realised the reason for the commission was the fact that this was F1’s last lucky escape before it ran out of luck. It is also undeniably true that accidents tend to be very exciting visually, and the nature of this crash also meant that in addition to being airborne, the car also suffered substantial damage. For these reasons I agreed to accept the commission, and started planning how I could make this one work.

I realised very quickly that the body of the car would need significant modification to accommodate the extensive damage that Barrichello’s car suffered in the real crash. I resolved that the best way to tackle this was to take a 3D scan of the body, and then to model the damage digitally, before 3D-printing a replacement body which I could then place back into the other parts of the wonderful Tameo kit.

Once the body was scanned, I was able to model the damage to the side-pod, and nose as well as adding extensive detail to the revealed areas (adding the engine and gearbox to the rear of the car, and the steering rack inside the nose cone). Having scanned the car, I was also able to compose the diorama itself digitally in Blender. This isn’t something that I’d really done before, but it made for an interesting way to work (allowing me try-out various compositional options before committing to making anything).

The next challenge was to draw the decals that I would need to create the driver figure. I was able to do this in Adobe Illustrator, and they were then printed by the wonderful Scott at Grand Prix Decals. Once this was done, it was more or less a case of building the model in the usual way… the only difference being this time the car had to be suspended in midair. This was achieved with a short length of transparent acrylic rod, which seemed to do the trick nicely!

This was a really interesting project… the fact that I hadn’t chosen the subject matter myself, meant that I was forced to create effects which I probably wouldn’t have done otherwise. I love it when I get to try something new, and I’ve certainly learnt a lot on this diorama which I will be able to apply on future projects. I sincerely hope that my customer enjoys the model as much as I have enjoyed building it!

I have included a small “work in progress” gallery below. If you would like to commission a custom diorama, please contact me directly at info@badwolfminiatures.com.