Table of contents for April 2017 in Scale Auto

The 1966-1977 Ford Bronco has been a popular compact SUV for five decades, and it’s surprising there have only been a couple of resin kits (derived from vintage toys) but never a plastic kit of the first Bronco. Revell’s new Bronco kit was a musthave for me. Looking at publicity images, there’s a well-detailed 302 V-8, full chassis detail, excellent interior detail, a removable hardtop, and a movable swing-away spare-tire carrier. A couple of items stood out in the photos asking for further scrutiny when the kit was in my hands: The wheels looked quite small inside the tall sidewalls, and the grille looked too flat. Would the production kit appear any different? The kit as a whole is good: crisply molded and well detailed. The box illustration seems to…

PICTURE THIS: you spend many hours on your latest project. You drive two hours to a model car contest, hoping you can win something and get it photographed for Scale Auto. You fill out you entry forms and place your model in its category, and as you look around the contest table, you see many models built to the same quality as yours. It would be great if your model had that something extra to make it stand out among the rest. A nice set of wider custom made tires would sure make it stand out in that sea of competition models. Let’s face it: wider tires look cooler on almost any car. So why not increase the rubber on your next project and give yourself a nice edge? Here’s…

During my 50 years as a scale plastic modeler, I have built just about everything. I have found it invaluable to look beyond the confines of “only model cars.” Our interest might be confined to civilian vehicles, but there is much to be learned from the military plastic modelers who build aircraft, tanks, ships, and figures. Regardless of the subject matter, the basics are similar, but each “branch” requires certain unique skills. One such skill that military modelers use frequently, but is virtually unknown in car modeling, is drybrushing. Drybrushing is a form of weathering. But it is more than that, because weathering implies “making something look old or dirty.” This is anathema to car modelers, because we like everything to look shiny and new – unless, of course, you…

Heller Ferrari P4 IT’s a safe bet that most US model car builders had never heard of automotive kitmaker Heller during the 1960s. For many of us, our first exposure to these French kits came via AMT, which introduced two “reboxed” combination kits around 1970. Each of these kits paired two European race vehicles: a Ferrari 330/P4 with a Porsche 907, and a Gordini A210 along with an Alpine R8. These reboxed Heller kits did not receive much attention in the muscle-car-oriented hobby-kit market, and they quickly disappeared from AMT’s catalog. Several years later, I stumbled upon a shelf of imported “Heller” 1/24 scale model car kits. After checking with modeling experts who assured me these imported kits were indeed worth the high price, I plunked down a $20 bill…

Revell Corvette C7.R This kit features engine detail with a removable hood and racing interior with a full roll cage. All parts are molded in white, and are flash-free. The windshield, side and rear windows are predecorated with black trim. There is only one decal version: the 2016 Rolex 24 at Daytona-winning car. The nine-piece engine does offer some nicely molded bits; too bad you really can’t see much after installation. The assembly is a little simplified (no transmission or drive train). “Simple” pretty much describes the chassis assembly too. The front lower A-arms have the brake discs and calipers all molded into one piece. The A-arms have some detail, but are mostly twodimensional. Brake disc detail is bit sketchy too, with the disc venting molded as bumps rather than…

This issue’s T.O.M. is just about as helpful as you can get. Our friend Rich Williams has come up with a simple and inexpensive way to securely hold round rod and tubing. As you’ll see, Rich made the crucial part using a hobby lathe, but this can also be done with a drill. Here’s Rich to tell us how he did it: “Every time I have to glue or hold a round piece of anything, I have a terrible time with normal tweezers. I decided to make a special pair of tweezers that would hold round shapes. “I started with tweezers with wide, flat ends: not the kind with a point. I drilled a small hole in one side of the tweezers, then made a V-shaped block with a smaller…

This article will cover some of the methods I use to shade and lightly weather the chassis of most of my car models. They can be applied in varying degrees to create different overall effects, ranging from nearly new to aged. Whether it is a simple curbside chassis with only molded-in details or a full-blown superdetailed kit, the procedures are equally applicable. I usually build subjects that mirror what I see on most well-cared-for but daily-driven cars: the interior and exterior look nice, and the outer portions of the wheels and tires are clean, as are the brakes. Under the hood they are relatively clean, at least on the top, to a certain degree. The rest that is not seen, unless the car is on a rack, is not nearly…

IN THE DECEMBER 2016 ISSUE, we featured an expanded review of Revell’s 1930 Model A Coupe, featuring the channeled version. I completed a second model with some modifications for realism and variety, using primarily the extra parts in this kit and Revell’s companion 1929 Model A Roadster kit. I’ll also show how to improve accuracy of the firewall and the roof opening.…

Fifty-six pieces. It’s about half the parts count Revell gave us in its C5 and C6 Corvettes, and that number is about where the Corvette faithful and the more-serious adult modelers abruptly break off their attention spans. And even more dire than that, it’s no secret that the Corvette development team at GM refused to share any design data with Revell. They actually had to go to a dealer to measure a car. So based on these two pieces of information, you might be inclined to write this kit right off. And you might just find yourself missing out if you do. REDECORATING THE PREDECORATION It seems that the simplified, predecorated kit concept is something that gets revisited every so often, and we’re now in Revell’s latest wave – applied…

Wes Salazar’s Revell 1941 Willys has a lowered suspension, frenched headlights, and modified 1962 Impala wheels. The finish is House of Kolor Violet Pearl. WANT TO SUBMIT A PHOTO? A well-engineered kit,” says Leonard Poppe about this Revell 1972 Olds Indy 500 Pace Car. He detailed the engine and used Tamiya paint. QUESTIONS?…

Sunbeam Tiger For this column we’re going stay in the Shelby American racing stable. One of the lesser-known cars that Shelby built and raced was the Sunbeam Tiger. Originally thought of as a Cobra follow-on by Ian Garrad, the West Coast manager for the Rootes Group, the job of shoehorning a Ford 260 V-8 into the Sunbeam Alpine, making it into a Tiger, was given to Shelby. The car had reasonable success from the get-go, winning several races in 1964, including its first B-production race at Willow Springs with Lew Spencer driving. However the car had a short career racing as a Shelby American entry because of Shelby’s coming commitments in 1965: the Ford GT, the GT350, and the World GT Championship. However, no collection of Shelby race cars would…

I BUILD MOSTLY VINTAGE DRAG MODELS for my collection. Most of my subdjects were never offered in plastic kits. This type of building uses a lot of kitbashing and scratchbuilt parts. One major component has been the exhaust headers. I found rosin-core solder works well to make headers; it’s easy to bend, and it comes in a varitey of sizes. My goal today is to help fellow modelers attain realistic exhausts for their builds. The tools needed are basic; you probably have them in your toolbox. Some new parts are now offered to help build custom headers for yourself too; I’ll show some here. So let’s get started with my latest build: a replica 1965 Plymouth Super Stock Hemi Belvedere.…

In Part 1, we covered the basics of the GT and began construction. Here we will add detail and complete assembly. Although some builders scoff at simple models such as this, I find them fun because they’re like a blank canvas, and they’re also great slump-busters. Putting modeling skills to the test on models like this typically yields great results, usually without the need to spend the amount of time that most full-detail kits require to build competently out of the box. They’re great kits for those who primarily enjoy paint and bodywork. Of course, I’d prefer a well-engineered full-detail kit of the GT, but there’s no guarantee that will happen; so if I want to build models of the GT while it’s new and hot, the snap kit is…

“Maybe it was in my genes,” says Mopar Mike Dowd “Mopar Mike” Dowd lost a long battle with pancreatic cancer in October 2016. He was working on a Cushman Duster article for this issue, which sadly was not completed. In its place we give a “victory lap” to his Portfolio from the June 2014 issue. Why Mopars? Maybe it was in my genes. My dad had a DeSoto, and my grandfather drove a Plymouth during my early years. Perhaps it was those visits to Great Lakes Dragaway during my teens where I fell in love with the looks of the mid-1960s Dodges and Plymouths. I think my first model car was a T-Bird, which I received as a Christmas gift. Things really kicked into high gear when Monogram released the…