Monogram 1/24 STP Vince Granatelli Lola, previewed by Scott Van Aken

HISTORY

Roberto Guerrero would return to Vince Granatelli Racing in 1988 and would drive the #2 STP Lola T88/00-Cosworth DFX. In his first CART race back since he was injured, Guerrero started and finished 2nd at the Checker 200 at Phoenix International Raceway.

The team then received additional sponsorship from Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health after it was rejected by Team Penske. Afterwards, Guerrero began to struggle for results. At the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on the Streets of Long Beach, he suffered an engine failure after 41 laps and finished 19th.

At the Indianapolis 500, the team entered a second car for Gordon Johncock, the #60 STP/Diamond Head Ranch March 87C-Cosworth DFX. While Guerrero qualified in 12th place, Johncock failed to qualify. In the race, Guerrero was collected in a crash with Scott Brayton on the first lap in turn 2, resulting in a 32nd place finish for Guerrero.

During practice for the following race, the Miller High Life 200 at Wisconsin State Fair Park Speedway, Guerrero crashed in a practice and the team withdrew. Representatives from The Church of Scientology (the group behind Dianetics) speculated that Guerrero was having a mental issue with turn 2, as his 1987 crash at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and his 1988 crashes at Indianapolis and Milwaukee were in turn 2. As a result, they wanted Guerrero and his family to undergo a Scientology ritual to remove this issue. Afterwards, Granatelli ended the sponsorship, despite the group offering $500,000 per race for the remainder of the season.

THE KIT

Back in the mid/late 1980s, Monogram and AMT released a series of then-current Indy cars. They were well designed and offered a variety of liveries. The two chassis offered were March and Lola. This particular car is a Lola-Cosworth that was driven by Roberto Guerrero during the early part of the 1988 racing season before they got sponsorship from True Value.

Molded in a bright orange, the care is nicely detailed and includes a full interior along with a driver figure. There is also a full Cosworth engine. I appreciate that Monogram did not chrome plate all the engine bits as these were generally aluminum or black. The transmission is separate and includes the rear wing mount. The upper portion of the body is separate and though the instructions show you installing the windscreen rather early, it would be best to wait until after paint and decals to glue it on.

Monogram has provided both road course and speedway front and rear wings. Keep in mind that if using kit decals, you are quite limited to races run with this scheme and I'm pretty confident that you'll need to do the road course airfoils. Once the front wing is in place, the upper body shell can be installed as it it glued on. Work then continues with the rear suspension the side pods and some additional motor bits.

Then the wheels are built up. These are chrome and they should be. Tires are rubber/vinyl and quite solid. There are separate axle stubs that snap into the wheels. Then a tab on the back of the stub glues onto the end of the suspension. The rear wing is then assembled and finally the engine cover is simply dropped into place.

Decals are nicely printed and the lone livery is actually a da-glo red orange so you'll have to actually paint the body parts to accurately represent the livery. Instructions are well done and provide generic color information for all the parts. Below is a less than crisp image of this car at the Phoenix race. For those who want to model the car as it was raced in the Indy 500 with Dianetics sponsorship, Indycals offers those decals.

CONCLUSIONS

Several years back I built one of the AMT Indy Car kits from this era and was quite pleased with the results. Since this is a Monogram tooling, I'm sure it will be a better building experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Granatelli_Racing

KIT #:	2795
PRICE:	~$7.00 when new
DECALS:	One livery
REVIEWER:	Scott Van Aken
NOTES:	1989 release