Display shelves under the layout

Jochen Mass drove the Rothman's Racing Porsche  956 Number 10 to victory in the 1982 Norisring.

With room lights off

One of the objectives of using the IVAR shelves under the layout was to make space to display some of my dioramas, souvenirs from various events, and my modest collection of scale model 1/43rd Porsche cars.

With room lights on.

I tend to not collect things, though I seem to have no trouble amassing a lot of stuff. I usually buy models, build them, sell or donate them and move on to the next project. But I do find these preassembled and painted model cars fun to look at and collect. They are incredibly detailed.

My collection started with an attempt to find some models of the cars that I saw when I lived in Germany in the early 1980s. The Jaegermeister 935s and the Rothmans 956's were very successful at that time. So I got a few of them.

Hans Heyer at the helm of Lancia Beta 1 at the Norisring 19

The collection has grown and evolved into a history of Porsche racing. Though I do have a couple non-Porsches including one of the Fruit-of-the-Loom Lancia Beta Montecarlo that I saw several times.

I built display racks and added lighting to help illuminate the car models and other objects on the shelves. The lights are GE LED bars that plug-in. They were easy to install, cost about $20 at Home Depot and have a very low profile.

Prior to building this display, I had no real grasp of the collection. Now with it well lit and visible I can see that I need to get more the earlier Porsche race cars, and some of the rally cars. There is room for about another 50 cars, nearly doubling the collection.

Jaegermeister 935 at Nurburgring, 1981. This was the
old short course before F1 made them change it

I gave the fascia a base coat of light gray paint. It was a color I had on hand. I intended it to be just a primer, but I like it as it matches the gray on the TV stand. I may just keep it. Gluing the fascia to the benchwork turned out very well. I had only three seams to putty and sand, and two screws on the far right to patch. The fascia presents a neat, clean appearance without any screw marks or seams visible.