1/43 Model Review: 1994 Ferrari 412T1B

Having spent the last couple of months staring at endless pictures of the 1994 Ferrari car for my GP4 model, I thought I'd give a mini review of some of the models I had of the B spec car. The 1994 Ferrari, to me, is one of the nicest looking cars from that season, and is probably in my top 10 good looking cars from the 1990s.

Background

The Ferrari 3.5 Litre 4 Valve engine, with 12 cyclinders and a transverse gearbox which gave the car its name 412 T1, was designed by John Barnard. The early season car featured heavily sculpted and rounded sidepod inlets, but the car went through many outward changes oweing to greater aerodynamic efficiency and mid-season rule changes which led to the 412T1B. The car would make the Scuderia a regular podium finisher, and its V12 power advantage helped Berger win the German Grand Prix, Ferrari's first race win since 1990. The car was marred by reliability issues, almost costing Alesi a podium finish at Canada, retiring on the last lap in Germany when running in 2nd and retiring from the lead in Italy. Berger also retired from the lead at the Portuguese Grand Prix.

Alesi injured his back in a testing accident in Mugello after the first race, where he finished on the podium. Nicola Larini, the team's test driver, replaced Alesi for the next two Grand Prix, earning a podium finish at the San Marino Grand Prix.

Berger took two pole positions that year at the German Grand Prix and the Portuguese Grand Prix. Berger finished 3rd in the Drivers' Championship, whilst the team were a lonely third in the Constructors' Championship.

Mattel Elite: British Grand Prix (Alesi)

Mattel Elite - T6284

I am increasingly disappointed by this model from Hot Wheels/Mattel. It's the 1994 Ferrari 412T1B from the British Grand Prix (the 2nd race with the B spec car) driven by Jean Alesi. That nose is just way too big and too high, the sidepods don't sweep forward, and the logos on the sidepods are massive. I do however like the wheel rims and the engine cover isn't bad at all, but perhaps more importantly the price is not extortionate!
Score: 5/10

Tameo: German Grand Prix (Berger)

Tameo - TMK189

I did replace it with this handbuilt Tameo model a little while back, but quite a few pieces fell off in transit and I haven't had a chance to repair it yet. This is the German Grand Prix version, where Gerhard Berger took it to victory. The shape of the sidepods could be more curvy along the top edge, and the rear of the engine cover looks like an after-thought, but overall, a much nicer model. The nose is nicely shaped too. With Ferrari boasting a powerful V12 engine, they did not need to run the extreme low downforce setups as the other cars, so this model gets away with having a slightly deeper rear wing.
Score: 7/10

Onyx

Onyx - 212

I have never owned the Onyx version of the 412T1B, so again this is not my photo, but in an era when they simply did texture updates to existing models, Onyx put a bit more effort into making the shape updates. New front wing, updated sidepods, added bargeboards, updated engine cover and new diffuser. That covered off the majority of the changes, although I would have liked to have seen the curved lower rear wing. But for Onyx standards, this was a great update, so I think I may have to add this car to my collection. It's a shame that other cars did not get the same treatment.

Some versions of this car even come with wet tyres, which although it was lovely to see the threads, the overall diameter of the tyres shrunk compared to the slick tyres, and it led to Onyx cars sitting on the plank rather than on the wheels.
Score: 6/10

BBR - French GP

BBR - MET24

Again, not owned by me, but this version from BBR is for me the best of the lot. All the contours around the nose cone is just right. The engine cover shape is the best out the lot as well. BBR even made an attempt to put the hole in the engine cover for the bit of rear suspension that sticks out. The additional quality and detail comes at a price, and finding a factory built version is very, very rare.

Score: 9/10



With the increase in 1994 cars from Spark and Minichamps in recent years (not including re-packaged models from 20 years ago), I hope model-makers will revisit this one.

For more 1994 Model Reviews, click here: https://fongugp4.blogspot.com/p/1994-model-review.html
You can see my GP4 model of this car here: GP4 Ferrari 412T1B

GP4: 1994 Ferrari 412T1B

1994 is the season I fell in love with F1, and with so many changes throughout the season, the 2nd half of the year almost deserves its own mod. Changes include simpler front wings, raised floor and plank, simpler diffusers and holes cut in the engine cover. GP4 has a pretty decent mod for the first four Grand Prix of the year, and has been converted into other games since. But the cars from the second half of the year were never developed. So, I started out work on my favourite car of the year, the Ferrari 412T1B. 

Personally, this is my first car in 6 years, so I had to relearn the skills I had in the past, as well as looking and learning from recent models. My aim is add detail where I can but never to detract from being able to play it in a game, so that means being economical on polygon counts. This car has just under 35,000 faces in total. 

Technical walk around

These screenshots were taken of the car before it was fully completed, partly on the 3d model and a very early version of the textures. This car is based on the Australian Grand Prix version and how it ran in the race - they tried a different rear wing in practice. 

The front wing end plates became much more basic, due to the ban on bodywork around the front wheels, but they did grow taller than before. The Ferrari started the season with a curved trailing edge and the front wing tapered forwards on each side, but for the 412T1B, they went for a much simpler arrangement. The Ferrari had a few bumps on the monocoque to house the suspension, and they seem to enjoy putting body lines through them - not very easy to model!

Ferrari went for a more conventional sidepod for the 412T1B, but you'll notice a bulge around the side of the cockpit, remnants of the previous rounded sidepod with the teardrop inlet. This is basically to house the driver in the cockpit. I can only guess that they had issues with the boundary layer detaching around this bulge, so they introduced barge-boards, initially 2 and then 4 from Portugal to the end of the season, as well as to manage the flow to the new sidepods and the wake from the front tyres.

I've put a bit more effort into the cockpit and dashboard than previously, and thanks to lots of pictures from recent demos, I'm quite happy with the outcome.

I started working on a slightly more complicated driver body on my 93 Tyrrell and 96 Footwork, to go along with 3D belts. However this will be the first released model with it.

The rear of the sidepods are quite different from the early season 412T1, with the lower part making the most of the coke-bottle shape to feed the diffuser, whilst there was an increased surface area along the top, presumably to create more downforce from the shape of the sidepods. Housing the rear suspension was interesting, they had a bulge there from the early season car, but because of the increased surface area of the sidepod, they had to cut a hole in it where you can see the suspension through it.

With all that work on the sidepod, they managed to make the back of the engine cover quite low, allowing them to curve the ends of the lower rear wing downwards (similar concept to the Newey's Williams). With the simpler diffuser design, the curvier sidepods and the lower rear wing all work together to recover some of the lost read downforce from the mid-season rule changes.

I haven't bothered with a complicated damage model, I wasn't too happy with the flickering of the airbox in-game. But I couldn't resist putting some detail in on top of the gearbox, and you can see what is underneath some of those bulges on rear of the engine cover. One of the carry-overs from the 412T1 was that they put a housing around the sides of the gearbox to hide the suspension mounting points, which made my job a bit easier.

I hope you enjoyed the walk through of the car.

Download Link:

The finished car is available to download from here: Download Link

My thanks to Kedy89 (Tobi) for finishing off my work on the textures and to AUS_Doug for his part in the textures too.

For my part, it is free to download and use, and if you want to convert it to another game, let me know, but it is free to use, just remember those involved in its creation.

You can find my Ferrari 412T1B 1/43 model review as well as my summary of Ferrari's 1994 season here: Model Review