Reviews of products for scale automotive models, including motorcycles and motorized vehicles.

Review Author
Mark Costello
Published on
Company
Revell
Scale
1/25
MSRP
$24.95

This new kit from Revell is the 2015 Corvette C7.R that raced at Le Mans and in the IMSA racing league in the United States.

Kit

The kit comes packaged in the usual Revell 1/25 size cardboard box with 4 bags of white molded parts, 1 bag with a white body, the metal axles, rubber tires and clear red tail lights, and 1 bag with the clear parts. There are a total of 13 sprues of white plastic plus the body, 1 sprue of clear red, 2 clear sprues and the 2 metal axles and 4 rubber tires. All this adds up to a total of 64 plastic parts. The parts are molded with good detail and little flash. There are some ejector pin marks that will need to be addressed, but not too many.

Review Author
Jim Stepanek
Published on
Company
Revell
Scale
1/25
MSRP
$26.95

Revell put together a pretty wild kit with this Beretta. It’s almost straight out of the TV show “Street Outlaws”.

Engine

We have a supercharged small block with nitrous. Real life would be putting out massive amounts of horsepower. Instructions were a little fuzzy on the distributor angle. Straight up won’t allow the body to sit correctly, so it must be angled. Provides a pretty nice Lenco transmission.

Interior

There’s not too much to the interior. Very nice bucket seats are provided, a full roll cage, ton of gauges, fire extinguishers, nitrous bottle, and shifters.

Body

Body is a simple affair and has the Chevy bowtie molded in on the engine bay. After shooting the body with HOK black followed by a quick clear coat, I wasn’t able to get the decals to set as well as I thought they should. I even used decal solvents to try get them to lay down.

Review Author
Mark Costello
Published on
Company
Hasegawa
Scale
1/24
MSRP
$41.99

This kit is a re-release from Hasegawa of the #38 Denso sponsored Toyota 88C that ran in the 1989 Le Mans race. The car finished in 53rd place and did not finish the race due to a crash. This is a curbside kit and has no engine or suspension details.

Kit

The kit comes packaged in the usual Hasegawa cardboard box and contains 1 bag of clear parts with the tire marking decal sheet inside and 1 bag of white parts with 4 rubber tires and polycaps separately bagged inside of it. There is a total of 7 sprues of white parts plus the chassis and body and 1 sprue of clear parts. All together there are 97 parts in this kit, although 14 of those parts are for other versions of the car. My kit had quite a bit of flash on the parts, but none that was difficult to remove. Just be careful to clean up the parts before assembly. There were also some ejector pin marks that will need to be taken care of or they will be seen.

Review Author
Doug Cole
Published on
Company
Revell
Scale
1/25
MSRP
$24.95

The stunning good looks and performance of the Pratt & Miller Corvette C7.R were only surpassed by the performance of this incredible racing machine. A true race car, this triple threat vehicle only shares it outer skin with the Corvette as nearly everything else is custom made to handle the rigors of long endurance racing propelled by a 491 HP engine.

This review covers the skill level 4 (ages 12 years and older) new tooling release of the 2015 Corvette C7.R 1:25 Scale Revell Model Kit #85-4304. There are White, clear, clear red, metal axles, soft black tires with waterslide decals. You get a superbly detailed race car body with a racing chassis, safety roll cage and separate, but simplified, motor. This is a specific vehicle special subject kit and a historically accurate rendering of the 2015 C7.R. Final dimensions are approximately; Length: 7”, Width: 3½”, Height: 2”.

Review Author
Doug Cole
Published on
Company
Revell
Scale
1/25
MSRP
$24.95

Modelers have waited a long time for a kit of the first generation Ford Bronco and Revell has finally done it! This kit can be built as a 1971 or 1973 version (an air cleaner option) with the included 289 V8 engine. With the help of Jeff Trapp’s Bronco Graveyard in Brighton, MI, Revell has made a faithful representation of the first Ford SUV. I’m pretty sure that we’ll be seeing other versions of this rugged 4X4 too.

This review covers the skill level 5 (ages 14 years and older) 2016 new tooling release of the Ford Bronco 1:25 Scale Model Kit #85-4320. There are 137 pieces molded in white, clear, and chrome, with metal axle pins, soft vinyl tires and waterslide decals. Finished dimensions are; L 6-3/8”, X W 2-3/4”, X H 2-13/16”.

Review Author
Allan Murrell
Published on
Company
Plusmodel
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$70.16

Plus Model has provided another great resin kit of an East German cold war truck; the Multicar M-22. Used for all types of military cargo use, mainly on airfields across Eastern Europe by the Czech forces.

The detail quality is good in most areas. There minimal flash or other imperfections. Once removed from the mold base, the parts are ready to assemble. There was a very bad bow in the chassis which I managed to reduce a bit using hot water, but it is still a little visible in the final build.

The small parts are very delicate, and you must take extreme care when removing them from the mold base.

The Assembly is in 15 steps and is very quick and easy. The only issues encountered were the bow in the Chassis, as I mentioned previously, and the drive shaft was a little short, so I extended it. The steering shaft was also a little long so it needed to be reduced.

Review Author
John Kaylor
Published on
Company
Revell
Scale
1/25
MSRP
$24.95

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.

Review Author
Doug Cole
Published on
Company
Revell
Scale
1/24
MSRP
$24.95

It’s hard to argue with success and Jimmie Johnson has proven his abilities since he burst onto the NASCAR scene. This kit represents a snap together kit aimed at drawing the youngsters into the hobby with a great looking, easy-to-build race car model.

This review covers the skill level 2 (ages 8 years and older) 2016 release of the Jimmie Johnson Lowe's NASCAR #48 Chevy SS Revell 1:24 Scale Model Kit #85-1475. Molded in color and featuring colorful stickers this kit is the perfect “first model” for young builders. You will need one tool – a small Phillips head screwdriver to affix the body to the chassis. There are 35 pieces molded in black, gray and clear with vinyl tires to go with the pre-painted body. This is a “curbside” kit with no real motor and the interior and suspension parts have minimal detail. Finished dimensions are: Length: 8-3/16″, Width: 3-1/8″, Height: 2-3/8″.

Review Author
Joe Porche
Published on
Company
Revell
Scale
1/25
MSRP
$26.95

Parts Count

  • 71 White styrene plastic parts on ten spure with two individually wrapped
  • 69 Chrome styrene plastic parts on five spure
  • 10 Clear styrene plastic parts on one spure
  • 4 Vinyl rubber tires
  • 1 5 ¾” x 5 1/8” decal sheet
  • 1 16 pages, 24 step instruction booklet

All parts are in separate sealed plastic bags and appear to be free of any flash. The chrome is bright and free of scratches. Clear parts are individually wrapped and appear free of scratches. The molds for the rubber vinyl tires appear to be fresh and without flash or mutation. Of note, the white styrene plastic this kit is molded in is extremely easy to work with; carves easily, sands well and reacts nicely with liquid solvent style glues like Tamiya Extra Thin Cement or Tenex 7. Decals have many options, are crisp printed and covered with protective wax paper.

Review Author
Jarrod Booth
Published on
Company
Italeri
Scale
1/24
MSRP
$69.99

Iveco is an Italian truck manufacturer that builds some of the latest trucks and commercial vehicles in Europe. Acitoinox is a truck accessory parts company, and plays a big part in the fancy stripes and mirrored finish stainless steel 40th anniversary scheme of this subject.

The Iveco Stralis Hi-Way is a re-issued kit with new decals and adhesive “chrome” dress up “stickers”. It comes in a sturdy box that is well sized for the amount of sprues inside. The sprues are mostly individually bagged and protected.

This truck is beautifully detailed with parts reproduced faithfully to the original - outside and inside. I referred to various internet sites for picture references. The plastic is given in approximate colors of black, blue, white and chrome, so it could be built with no painting.

The instructions are well laid out with photo like pictures, a good parts map and paint recommendations.

OK, let’s build this thing!