Full Review with Dave Coward
Before I start this build here’s a couple of pictures of my finished model.
Background
The McLaren MP4/4, also known as the McLaren-Honda MP4/4, is one of the most successful Formula One car designs of all time. Powered by Honda’s RA168E 1.5-litre V6-turbo engine and driven by teammates Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, the car competed during the 1988 Formula One season. The design of the car was led by American engineer Steve Nichols, the full responsibility for the design of the chassis having been conferred on him by Ron Dennis. Gordon Murray, as Technical Director, had the role of liaising between the drawing office and production. (Source: Wikipedia)
Honda had made the Constructors’ Championship-winning engines of 1986 and 1987, and for 1988 they switched partners from Williams to McLaren, who had struggled with their dated TAG-Porsche engines. The engine’s design and development was led by Osamu Goto. The MP4/4 became distinctly lower than the previous year’s MP4/3, forcing the drivers into a more reclined, almost lying down driving position.
The Honda-powered MP4/4 is one of the most dominant Formula One cars ever built, winning all but one race and claiming all but one pole position in the 1988 season. The team won the year’s constructors’ title with about three times as many points as runners-up Ferrari. The car held the record for the highest win rate in a season until 2023, when the record was broken by the Red Bull Racing RB19, which was also powered by a Honda V6 turbocharged engine (95.45% win rate). It holds the record for highest percentage of laps led in a season with 97.3% (1,003 out of 1,031).
References used:
I managed to acquire an old magazine from Orbis Publications that was part of the series “The Encyclopaedia of Supercars’. This particular instalment covered the MP4/4 and had a great fold out centre page that showed the car from all views.
Aftermarket Extras:
The kit has one major omission if you want an accurate representation of a 1988 MP4/4 – the Sponsor markings of the time, in this case Marlboro. Unfortunately, in this day and age model manufacturers are banned from including decals that advertise tobacco hence the lack of these in the kit. Fortunately, these can be sourced from the aftermarket and in my case, I located them on eBay (TBD 943) after a quick search but they did have to come from Italy which took a couple of weeks. The decals themselves are very well produced and well worth the effort of sourcing them. One thing these decals did cover if required are the marking for the car during the British GP where the words ‘Marlboro’ were roved and replaced with a black series of lines behind the cockpit.
I also didn’t like the idea of trying to attach decals to the tyres for the Good Year Eagle markings so I sourced some masks for these through the internet.
