This has always been one of my favorite Ferrari's. The 275 NART was built at the special request of Luigi Chinetti for his North American buyers. He asked for 25 cars, but ultimately only 10 were produced. They are really not substantially different from the coupe. Scaglietti was tasked with building these convertibles. There was little or no extra bracing, and some cars were converted coupes while others were convertibles from the very start
The 275 looked good as a coupe, but as a convertible it is absolutely stunning. It's really too bad that more of these cars weren't built.

When I saw this model kit hiding on the bottom shelf at a local hobby store, I had to have it. I already owned the coupe version (also from Italeri), but the NART was just too unique to pass up. So out came the plastic and the kit came home with me!
Unfortunately, I built this model before I started keeping build diaries. But I will try and touch on some of the things that were done to either make it more accurate or just better looking. One problem I had right away was a severe lack of reference material. I could find quite a bit of information on the 275 GTB, but little or nothing on the NART - especially in the way of detail pictures. So one assumption was that since it was based on the 275 GTB, I could use detail images of that car's engine as a starting point.
The interior was another issue. There were only ten of these cars built, but they were most certainly not a line of cookie-cutter automobiles. There was a wide variation between some of them, and I wanted to try and stay at least marginally prototypical if I could.

Many of the early 275 GTB "short-nose" cars had wood dashboards, and I learned that at least one of the NART cars did as well. So I decided to make the dash out of real wood - it is a convertible, after all, and the interior will be wide open for all to see, so I wanted to make it special.

I also lucked out in the sense that the car with the wood dash also happened to be yellow - the color I chose for the exterior. I believe the prototype car is owned by Ralph Lauren. One thing that the original has that this one does not is headrests on the seats. I may still at some point go back and see if I can scratchbuild a nice set out of resin
I spent a lot of time on the interior, It is flocked to simulate carpeting, the dash is made from real wood, with photo-etch serving as things like the glove compartment lock.  One comment about the dash - it's a two-piece unit that takes some cleanup to put together. The instrument "pod" is seperate part, and on this kit the fit was not very good.

The steering wheel is also real wood, a nice aftermarket part from Replicas & Miniatures of Maryland. It's a bit of work, but adds very nice detail to the interior. The horn button is the kit part, cut out of the steering wheel and used on the R&M piece.

Photoetched snaps were used around the perimeter of the convertible top boot.

Also lacking is seat belts. I don't know how I overlooked this during the build, but I do need to revisit this one and add them. It shouldn't be too difficult, as I only have to worry about lap belts.
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