Kurtis Midget Racer Edelbrock Equipped V-8/60 with Trailer

Published on
November 11, 2021
Review Author(s)
Scale
1/25
MSRP
$24.95
Product / Stock #
85-4249
Company: Revell, Inc. - Website: Visit Site
Provided by: Revell, Inc. - Website: Visit Site
Box Art

Frank Kurtis founded the Kurtis Kraft Company in the late 1930’s. They designed and built race cars and in a twenty year period they built over 1,100 midget racers. 500 were built ready to race and another 600 were sold as kits. The midget racers came with different engines, most notably the Offenhauser and the Edelbrock V860. The Kurtis midget racers won several events all over the country for decades. Some are even still running today in vintage race events. Revell has released a brand new 1/25th scale model of the Kurtis Kraft Midget Racer. This model represents the midget racer as seen during the ‘50’s and onward into the ‘60’s. This kit is all new tooling and Revell makes great use of slide mold technology to give us a beautiful rendition of this small racer. Revell has released 2 versions of the midget racer: One with the Offenhauser engine that has a choice of carbs or fuel injectors and the other with the Edelbrock V-8/60 engine. Each kit will have a unique nose and bumper with a choice of markings for which ever version you are building. The kit also comes with a small fret of photoetch for the instrument panel, steering wheel spokes, and hood straps. The kit includes a two wheel trailer and a bumper hitch for either a 1948 Ford Woody station wagon or a 1950 Ford F1 pickup truck.

The decals in the kit include extra markings for which ever tow vehicle you decide to put in front of the trailer.

This is a skill level 3 kit and though not difficult to assemble care needs to be used during assembly. Most of the attachment points for the in-scale front and rear nerf bars are extremely small and this results in a very fragile assembly. Once these parts are placed on the model, care needs to be used. It is very easy to break these off during handling. The instruction booklet is drawn clearly and is made up of 12 pages, which includes 14 construction steps and decal placement diagrams for the two sets of markings for the model.

The chrome plated parts come in both shiny chrome and a satin chrome. The model is molded in white plastic and the parts are all flash free and require the minimum of clean up before attaching to the model. Revell has thoughtfully placed all the sprue attachment points for the chrome parts on the backside or lower portion of the parts. So when the chrome plating is damaged during clean, up the touched up spot is in an area not easily seen.

Revell made good use of slid mold technology in making this model. The rear body shell is one piece that is molded very thin. The exhaust pipes are also molded with hollow ends. The axles are molded with the ends hollow. The wheels are pressed into the axles with pins. However, before assembling the axles to the model, I suggest test fitting these pins. I didn’t and had a small issue with the left rear wheel not fitting properly. It would have been a lot easier to resolve this issue if the axles weren’t attached to the model. As usual with automotive models, assembly begins with the engine. The Edelbrock V-8/60 is very accurate and I went a step further and added wiring from the magneto to the spark plugs. This can be seen clearly because the hood is separate and can be displayed open to show off the engine compartment.

I assembled my body before painting. This created an issue with masking. Next time I build one of these I would leave off the chrome radius rods until after painting. I think that would make the masking go a lot quicker.

I painted my midget racer as the black number 8 car sponsored by Smitty’s Muffler Shop. I chose to use the gold stripes and markings. There are red stripes included as well. I painted the model with Testor’s enamel gloss black, the interior I painted in Tamiya Semi-gloss black. The frame and suspension members were painted with Testor’s gloss red and the driver’s seat painted Testor’s flat red. The decals went on well for the most part. I did have an issue with the stripe that runs along the centerline of the engine cover. This was a thick decal and did not respond to either a setting solution or decal solvent. The decal just would not snuggle down around the vents on the top of the engine cover. All of the other markings went on well and did settle into the compound curves of the body shell. Hopefully when the aftermarket boys do their thing they will release markings with thinner decals, which will be able to settle onto the vents properly.

This was a fun build and I intend on building more. I would like to build the Offy powered one as well, and I am looking forward to the aftermarket decals that are sure to come. This is by far the best midget racer kit available and should be on the wants list of anyone that enjoys open wheel racing. The only bad comment I may have about the kit is when Revell included the nice PE sheet it did not include a seat belt harness or a set of buckles to make a harness. However, I still enjoyed building this kit so much; I ran out and brought the Monogram ’48 Woody Wagon, just to have a tow vehicle to put in front of it. Do yourself a favor and build a few of these. I am sure you will enjoy the finished product. I would like to thank Revell for the review model and IPMS for letting me review it.

Comments

Submitted by Scott Smith (not verified) on Mon, 2022-04-11 08:18

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A likely reason the kit does not include seat belts in the pe fret is that cars in the era represented did not have seat belts...believe it or not. I'm not certain, by any means, but I don't think belts were required in midgets until some time in the '60's, I wouldn't be surprised if it took until the '70's. '40's-50's era cars, as represented here would not have them.

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