The final creation of the legendary designer Harley Earl, the ’59 Chevrolet caused a big “Wow!” reaction when it was introduced – the total redesign sported a long, low hood, and tail fins about as appropriate for an aircraft as a car. Automobile enthusiasts were impressed with this total metamorphosis, particularly since the predecessor ’58 Chevy had all softly-rounded corners and a jellybean look.

Revell’s kit is a re-issue of the 1993 Monogram offering, but the “2 ‘n 1” boxing means it now includes customizing parts such as lake pipes, a tubular grille, spinner hubcaps, fender spotlights, and decals. The continental kit and fender skirts are still included and can be used on either the custom or the stock version.

Once again, Quickboost offers us an upgraded set of propellers for a current kit, the Hasegawa B-24 in 1/72 scale. The bag includes four sets of propeller blades and spinner and an alignment tool for assembling the props. Each set of blades and spinner includes four blades, but, of course, you only need three. If you’re like me, you’ll probably appreciate the extra parts (they don’t call me "Ol' Ten Thumbs" for nothing).

As you can see from the attached photos, the hubs provide just that little bit of extra detail over the kit parts. The tool guarantees the blades will be set at the correct angle when you assemble them to the hub.

1/72 model aircraft builders, like 1/48 model aircraft builders, now recognize that not all Quickboost detail parts are grey resin. Some are yellow, red and blue! Among the latest releases from Quickboost are sets of multi-colored aircraft recognition lights. This one, set #QB 72 338, is sized for 1/72 scale models. It includes three sprues; one each of transparent yellow, red and blue resin, which contain three small cylinders that will fit typical bezels found on most 1/72 scale aircraft.

After carefully drilling out the lights that are cast on the underside of an aircraft’s wings or fuselage with a drill bit that matches the diameter of these little castings, just fit each of the cylinders in their corresponding hole and anchor it with a drop of future, epoxy, or superglue. It should make an easy job of enhancing the detail in that area of any kit that does not include clear parts to do the job.

I was looking forward to building another Smart Kit, and I wasn’t disappointed when the RSO and PaK 38 arrived. These are wonderfully engineered kits and very realistic. Thirteen sprues and one chassis make up the 321 light grey plastic (3 are clear) parts which greet the lucky modeler upon opening the sturdy box, along with 29 photoetched parts and 144 smart tracks. 58 of those parts on one sprue will be used to build the PaK 38, 13 parts are not used, and one entire sprue is just for the optional Winterketten tracks stored on the RSO. The remaining parts are for the RSO, and you can build the wooden framed version or the metal framed one. The gun can be built in 3 ways: set up for firing, set up for towing on the RSO, or set up for hand towing and positioning using the optional 3rd wheel.

On the 70th anniversary of the Hawaiian Operation (as the Imperial Japanese Navy called it), Model Art Winter quarterly is all about Kido Butai, the Japanese fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Most of this issue is devoted to building detailed 1/700 models of the major Japanese warships (light cruisers and larger) and the submarines that attacked Pearl Harbor. Thus, this issue is strictly for IJN buffs.

Model Art quarterly issues are a larger format than their monthly issues. As usual, almost the entire text is in Japanese, but the pictures tell a thousand words. Page 1 has the usual four postcards of IJN warship paintings by Yukio Mizuno. Pages 3-7 are the Table of Contents and ads. Pages 8-15 are a new kit review of Hasegawa’s 1/350 Hikawa Maru liner.