Brief History of the Marque

The first generation Challenger bowed its head in 1969 and was a stable mate to the Plymouth Barracuda, the original Chrysler “pony car” to play in that segment as started by Ford’s Mustang. The second generation “Challenger” from 1978 to 1983 was a badge engineered Mitsubishi Galant Lambda. The current generation of Challengers was introduced in early 2008 again to do battle with the fifth generation Mustang and Camaro segments that were exploding in popularity.

Introduction

The “Back to the Future” (BTTF) movie franchise began in 1985 with the release of the first movie. The film series featured the adventures of Marty McFly as he traveled back and forth in time in a Time Machine built by wacky scientist Emmitt “Doc” Brown. That first plutonium-powered Time Machine creation had been built by Brown from a vintage DeLorean sports car. For the second movie, “Back To The Future Part II”, the DeLorean had been converted to a flying Time Machine. At the end of the second movie, just as order had been restored to the 1985 timeline (once again?), the Time Machine was struck by lightning which fried the time circuits and sent Doc Brown whirling back to 1885. A third iteration of the movie franchise was needed to rebuild the Time Machine using 1950s technology (is anyone else confused?) and to set the timeline straight one last time.

The Revell/Monogram 1/24 scale ’27 Ford Black Widow Hot Rod is a great kit with not a whole lot of flash to deal with. Everything fits together very cleanly. With only 55 parts in the entire kit and only one way to build it, there are no spare parts left over. The engine comes with a triple-carb setup and shows plenty of chrome on top. The interior is a bench seat with an elongated shifter handle.

As far as the body goes, it is a two-piece setup with the cab and the bed. There is a nice cover for the bed as well. I love the grille work, as well, with its chrome parts well represented. I proceeded to paint the roadster in Purple-Licious Metallic Lacquer by Testors. It came out extremely shiny and colorful. I painted the afore mentioned bench seat the same Purple-Licious purple with a semi-gloss white for the center ribbing of the seats to give the purple color a kick.

Background

Manufactured in Korea and marketed as a “premium sport sedan,” Hyundai’s Azera shares the marketplace with Toyota’s Avalon, Ford’s Taurus, and Lexus’ LS 350.

The Kit

Engineered to be built without paint or glue, Academy’s Azera seems targeted for the casual builder, beginning modeler, and the full-size Azera owner. Although targeted for less-experienced modelers, Academy has provided ample detail for the more serious or advanced modeler as well.

The Revell/Monogram 1/24th scale kit is a rerelease of a previously available kit known as “The Blue Beetle“. I am not sure of the exact offerings provided in that earlier release of this model but the version that I’m reviewing here was quite impressive . The box art only shows the build up on the side and the drawn box art on the front of the box outfitted in “The Blue Beetle” version. The only way I’ve seen this release come in. So, I was thrilled to open the kit up and see parts for both the pictured version as well as the roadster adaptation listed for these separate parts throughout the very well detailed instruction sheet which includes descriptions of all pieces by their part number and the name of the part. The majority of the parts come molded in a light blue with one white sprig of pieces molded in white which includes snap in white walls and a convertible top.