[rockpaperscissor]

The build is progressing. As designed, the rear body half is intended to overlap the front body half just behind the front door. Assembled this way, the last bit of the chrome strip that runs along the hood side and over the side to the rear fender would be covered. I'm not a fan of overlapping paper anyway, and to do so on this car would be just plain wrong, so I cut away the glue tabs, being careful to preserve those little slivers of chrome trim. Then I affixed internal glue strips so that the rear body half would blend as smoothly with the front half as possible. (photos 1,2). The front half of the chassis panel is also designed to overlap the rear panel. Again, and for the same reason, unacceptable to me. So, I removed the glue tab from the rear chassis panel. This time I had to make a right angle internal glue tab to accommodate the axle/wheel well box. (photos 1,2).

Next it was time to glue on the rear body/axle box assembly.The part turned out to be slightly wider that the front panel. I suspect that the designer actually made the rear body part a little wider so it would overlap the front part if built as intended. I had to make a relief cut down the back to take the stress off the flush joint. I don't know what's going to happen when I try to put the top skin in place (fingers crossed). Anyway, the panels mated up very nicely on the sides, and all that was left to do was to glue the little chrome strips down (photo 3).

Then I dry fitted the interior into place only to find that although the back of interior fits perfectly, the front is much narrower than the opening leaving about a 1/16" gap on each side (photo 4). It's not possible to squeeze the sides in because of the curved panel that the dashboard will be glued to (visible in photo 1). Maybe those pieces that have to be laminated to 1mm card come into play here?? Actually, since I'm building this model at double scale, those pieces should probably be laminated to 2mm card.