Jared A. Zichek is a freelance writer and illustrator specializing in aviation and automotive history. He lives in La Jolla, California. You can find him at on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/retromechanix, and on Twitter @retromechanix. RetroMechanix.com is devoted to innovative and unusual flying machines from earlier decades, with special emphasis on U.S. prototype and project aircraft from the 1930’s through the 1950’s. Featuring hundreds of previously unpublished high resolution photographs, drawings and artist’s impressions, along with original primary documents scanned directly from the U.S. National Archives, RetroMechanix.com is the definitive resource for yesterday’s wings of tomorrow.

A very nice new kit from Revell, this is the stock version, issued after the "Starsky and Hutch" version. The kit is a very simple build that almost harkens back to the old screw bottom kits. It was a pleasure to build, as there was basically no flash, and fit and finish were fantastic. Chrome is excellent quality, and the glass are all seperate pieces that fit very nicely. A welcome attribute.

I built my kit mostly box stock, except for the following: I added a distributor and wires and I also added the factory optional quarter "opera" windows and vinyl top, simply to break up the large expanse of roof and quarter panel on these cars. I also used vintage Uniroyal white walls, as the kit supplied white wall tires seem to have too low of a profile. A wonderful kit that I would recommend to anyone, advanced or not. The only problem I found with the entire kit, are the relatively low profile tires, that if used, would look too small on the car.

The Beaufighter had two different types of air intakes on top of the engines, a short one and a long one. This set from Quickboost covers the short version. The resin parts are cast perfectly and should be easy to remove from the block. The short intakes in the new Airfix kits are made up of two halves so there will be a seam to take care of. The resin replacements are single parts with very thin edges and will be that much easier to use.

The other parts in the set are direct replacements for the kit parts and add a lot of detail with the thinness of the castings.

One thing I noticed is out of the 4 versions offered between the TF.X and the TF.10 kits, only one in the later kit uses the short intakes. That said, there are numerous aftermarket decal sets that will need these shorter ones.

Thanks to Aires and IPMS/USA for the review kit.