“When I started my training, drilling, filing, and milling were nothing new for me. I had started testing my skills with models at an early age, beginning with ships,” says Rossmayer.
But the Targa, the first open-top 911, nevertheless confronted the expert craftsman with a very special challenge.
“Porsche wanted a complete interior, a removable Targa roof and rear window that could be removed. And while the 1:5- scale Coupé had no interior and wheels with hubcaps, the blue Targa was supposed to be on Fuchs rims. That was an additional task,” he says.
In the age of 3D printers none of this would have been a problem, but 54 years ago, when the miniature was created, the 1:5-scale Targa was a matter of imaginative craftsmanship and, above all, improvisation.
It started with the body, which today shines in impeccable blue paint.
“For me, only one solution made any sense: epoxy resin. What that means, however, is that you first must make a wooden model of the right size and cast a negative and a positive mould for each part. Then the epoxy resin hardens perfectly, and you can rework it really well.”
Time and again, Rossmayer had to find solutions for the details. For example, he replicated the patterned texture in the lower part of the dashboard with the profile of a shoe sole, which had to be cut down to the right size.
Even something as banal as a perfectly ordinary tyre can pose a daunting challenge. The model maker started by cutting the tread wider and then inserting a piece that mimicked the narrow grooves, as such fine structures can’t be milled directly on a 1:5 scale model.