Nissan’s Z-Car

Nissan’s Fairlady Z, more familiarly known as the Datsun 240Z in the United States, debuted in late 1969 (as a 1970 model) to wide acclaim. The US market 240Z was equipped with a 151 hp 2.4-liter straight-six motor fed by twin SU-style carburetors. The Z’s four-wheel independent suspension, manual transmission, and light weight made it a very capable sports car package, while its reliability and ease of ownership ensured it was a sports car that could be counted on to start every time and complete every trip.

Meng’s 1/72nd scale F-102’s are very nice kits with a nicely detailed cockpit interior. Of course, we all know that there is always room for improvement. The Czech company, Pavla, came out with a very nice replacement for the kit cockpit. You get eleven nicely cast parts in grey resin. Included are a new cockpit tub with detailed side panels, instrument panel, seat with seatbelts and shoulder harness and ejection seat guide rail, canopy elevating mechanism, new HUD, separate rudder pedals, new yoke and side console levers.

The instrument panel is crisply cast, but the kit gives you a nice instrument panel decal that will allow you to produce a very convincing instrument panel in this small scale. There is more detail in the Pavla instrument panel, however, so some careful painting and drybrushing can produce an exceptional instrument panel.

Revell’s 1/72nd F-89D/J came out in the early 90’s and is a great kit. There are really only two shortfalls of the kit; the first being the lackluster cockpit and the second being the multi-part exhaust. Pavla has recently released resin detail parts for the cockpit and the exhaust.

The resin cockpit comes with twelve resin parts and two vac-formed parts. The vac-formed parts include the windscreen, canopy, and the rear blast screen. The blast screen is something that the Revell kit did not include. Overall, the resin parts are far superior to the kit parts. There was quite a bit of flash on the seats, which requires some careful trimming with a hobby knife. The cockpit set includes two rear instrument panels, one for the F-89D and one for the F-89J. The instructions call the F-89J instrument panel an “F-89C” instrument panel. Don’t let that fool you, as it is indeed an F-89J instrument panel.