From A Porsche 962C Limited Edition

Published: April 17, 2018
Company: Hasegawa

Summary

After the Porsche 956 was banned from competition in the IMSA GTP in 1981 on safety grounds because the driver’s feet were ahead of the front axle centerline, Porsche made modifications to the vehicle to make it eligible for competition. The 962 debuted at the 1984 24 Hours of Daytona with Mario and Michael Andretti driving. It lead the race until lap 127 when it encountered engine and gearbox problems. These problems were worked through and it had a lot of success from 1984-1993. A total of 91 962s would be produced between 1984 and 1991, with its final victory occurring at the 1993 IMSA GTP Championship.

Kit Contents

The kit consists of a total of around 70 parts on two main black sprues; a clear sprue; several sprues with wheel parts; a rubber… more

Chevy Nova Yenko

Published: February 14, 2020
Company: Revell

Background

Yenko Chevrolet was a Chevy dealership in Pennsylvania between 1949 and 1982. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Don Yenko utilized Chevy’s Central Office Production Order system to order cars built with the 427 cubic inch, 425 HP, L-72 Chevy engine. Only about 38 Yenko Novas were built in 1969, and this kit does a remarkable job at representing these incredible vehicles.

This was an easy build. It has its share of instruction-related issues, and there are a few places that I will point out where you have to be careful, but it has some nice features, and goes together nicely.

Instructions

On the instruction-end of things, Revell does a great job. However, one issue that I have with them is that they choose to use an asterisk to denote… more

1913 Ford Model T Roadster

Published: September 26, 2015
Company: ICM

ICM has produced a little gem – an extremely authentic, well-engineered, gem of a model.

First of all to introduce myself a bit. I have been palling around with my wife and her parents around for the past twenty-eight years, and her family has owned a Ford Model T since my wife was a young child. Between our two families, we own three Model Ts, one of which a 1914 Touring, not unlike this 1913 Roadster. My father-in-law, Jim, restored a T in the early 1970s, and Jim and I restored my wife’s 1926 T in the 1990s. I bring all of this up to illustrate that we’ve spent enough time under these old rigs to know where not to step after one has been parked for a while.

Background

The Model T was the first mass-produced automobile. In 1913 over 170,000 Model Ts were… more

Kenworth W-900 Conventional

Published: July 16, 2015
Company: Revell

`The key word for this article is “big”.

Kenworth trucks are the “big rigs” of my childhood. I remember being entertained by “BJ and the Bear”, getting into CB-radios, Smokey and the Bandit, and being in awe of those truckers who could rattle on in CB-lingo for ten-minutes straight, and feeling lucky if I could manage to decode any of it. “10-4 good buddy – I got ya 5 by 5! Kojak with a Kodak in a gumball machine handing out invitations to meet the mayor at the Hilltop gun range. Keep to the double-nickel. Had me some hundred mile coffee last fingerprintin’ - on the way to a pickle park – over.” Even vaguely remember a series of trading cards with “trucker lingo” on them in a pack with a very stale piece of gum back in the day.

I’m lucky to have a close… more

Arado Ar 196 Undercarriage Set

Published: February 22, 2020
Company: Master-X

Master X, an eastern European company, has released a high quality resin beaching trolley/trailer for the excellent and affordable Revell 1/32^nd scale Arado Ar 196 float plane. The combination of the two provides a nice solution to the tricky question of how to display Revell’s masterpiece if you don’t want to purchase a $90 resin catapult by HPH, or leave it sitting unrealistically on the tarmac.

Opening the Box

The box contains 17 resin pieces, and a half-sheet of paper with drawings of parts with lines showing where each goes.

The parts include the frame and deck of the trailer, the main wheels and guide wheels, and the “fenders”, presumably for preventing rocks from being kicked up into the underbelly of the aircraft.

The pieces are all… more