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Revell's 68 VW Beetle


David G.

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The next kit on deck is Revell's 1968 WV Beetle. This is a reboxing of Revell of Germany's Euro-spec Type 1 in 1:24. Most of the cars I build are 1:25, but most people would never notice the difference between the two scales.

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This is a decent representation of the standard Type-1 engine.

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There were of course, a few compromises made in creating the kit, but nothing that detracts from the overall impression.

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The tan things that look like bratwurst are the heater boxes. The instructions called for them to be painted steel colored. Anybody who has ever built an air cooled VW engine knows that it only takes about three day's worth of driving to start to turn the pretty new heater boxes to a chalky rust color.

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Not exactly true to an 1:1  VW chassis, but good enough for this model kit.

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So there's about ten hours worth of work. I may get this one finished this year.

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As always, please feel free to comment and thanks for taking the time to look.

David G.

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23 hours ago, John Jacobs said:

How did you get the steel on the engine to look like it has some grime or carbon in the grooves?  Did you use a wash of flat black over the steel color?  I like that detail.  It looks very realistic.  Also, the rust looks good.

Thanks John.

That's exactly what I did. After painting the engine case and trans-axle with a combination of Testors Aluminium Plate and Titanium, I used a thin wash of Tamiya Flat Black Acrylic on them.  The heat boxes are painted with some old Poly Scale Rust and dry-brushed with Testors Flat Light Tan Enamel.  I then used various shades of powdered artists pastels to even everything out.

 

7 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Nice work so far.

Pretty amazing they left out the rear frame horns that hold the engine, however. They're kinda important in the real car.

Perhaps they're molded as part of the torsion-bar tube / rear suspension??

Thanks Bill.

The rear frame and suspension are installed as a unit, sort of K-frame style.

 

Thanks everybody for your comments. I hope to be posting more pictures soon.

David G.

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Time for a little bit of an update:

Wheels on the ground. I always consider getting the wheels mounted the unofficial half-way point.

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Chassis- complete with frame horns and lightly seasoned with weathering pastels.

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Started detail painting of the interior. I painted seats and most of the interior in Tamiya white primer with the intention of using that as the Flat White in the color call-out. It looks like I'm going to have to use a wash or some kind of weathering to bring out the relief detail.

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Test fit the bits.

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As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to comment.

David G.

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Wow, that is one nice looking VW.  That must be a retool from the original "Peace Sign"  Beetle.  I have built one of those and have another in the stash.  On the first one I spent a couple of days sanding down the fender flares and the mold lines.  May have to see if I can find one of these to replace the other one in the stash.

 

Volkswagen Gasser 004.jpg

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21 minutes ago, TarheelRick said:

Wow, that is one nice looking VW.  That must be a retool from the original "Peace Sign"  Beetle.

No, this is a completely new tool done by Revell of Germany. We are fortunate enough that Revell USA picked it up as a regular issue so we're not paying the import kit prices.  This kit has absolutely nothing shared or to do with the old Revell Beetles and their well used and worn out tooling.

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Your interior looks perfect. Your mentioned a desire to better define the folds in the seats and door panels. Some suggestions, and of course the spoon test before going near the interior. I have used Pigma Micron pens that I got at HL. They offer several different ink colors. I use their black for door lines and such but they have a gray that might work for what you're trying to do. Tamiya offers a translucent black called Smoke X-19. This may be to dark but if thinned just a little it may work. Also used often to give depth the engine and chrome parts. I like how you have detailed the chassis on this.

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10 hours ago, espo said:

Your interior looks perfect. Your mentioned a desire to better define the folds in the seats and door panels. Some suggestions, and of course the spoon test before going near the interior. I have used Pigma Micron pens that I got at HL. They offer several different ink colors. I use their black for door lines and such but they have a gray that might work for what you're trying to do. Tamiya offers a translucent black called Smoke X-19. This may be to dark but if thinned just a little it may work. Also used often to give depth the engine and chrome parts. I like how you have detailed the chassis on this.

Thanks for the tip David, I'll look into that.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Time for a little update

To bring out the relief detail of the seats and door panels I lightly traced over the pleats and seams with a mechanical pencil then washed most of it off with dish detergent and a toothbrush.

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Revell thoughtfully provides a decal of the Wolfsburg crest for the horn button. 

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It's probably not factory correct for 1968 but I had a '72 Super very close to this color and it just feels right to me.

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As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to comment.

David G.

 

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I'm going to see if I can finish this one this year. If I don't get it done, at least I'll have an early start on 2018.

 

I used gasket material to make some tar-board insulation for the engine compartment.

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It's probably not factory correct for 1968 but I had a '72 Super Beetle very close to this color and it just feels right to me.

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The dashboard is finished and ready to install.

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As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to comment.

David G.

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10 hours ago, Tom Geiger said:

Aha, I was hoping someone would use the right hand drive option!  I'll be watching.

Color wise, it looks great and the first thing to remember is that it's your model.  What ever makes you happy is the right choice.

 

Thanks Tom, I do try to be reasonably accurate in most cases, but I try not to be a slave to it.

I've owned a number of Volksies over the years and have always wanted to convert one from LHD to RHD but never did. When I learned that this one allowed the option, the choice was obvious.  I've decided to make it an Aussie Bug and have been researching 1968 NSW number plates.

5 hours ago, Eric Macleod said:

I ditto the previous comments. I built a Tamiya VW some time ago and always wanted to build another.  I think this is the kit to build. Yours is most inspiring. 

Thanks Eric. I'd like to build a Tamiya kit one day too. I believe that they are a little closer in design (chassis structure, etc.) to the prototype than this one is, correct? The Revell kit is a nice kit but having worked on many Bugs first-hand, the kit's chassis seems kind of weird to me.

David G.

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I am well known on the world's largest VW enthusiast web site. I''ve been involved with Bugs my whole 62 years (well since I was 2 years old anyway) and my dad worked for one of the partners in importing VW Bugs to the  US in 1952-53, then again in the late 60s he was an Engineer for VW US.  I have a '58 Bug that I met the day it was bought new when I had turned 2 years old 2 weeks before. I still remember that meeting. Then later it was my 1st car to drive when I got my license. I rolled it 2 weeks after getting my license, but it only cost me $55 to fix it well enough to drive. Had to remove the body to fix it though and learned a lot about the construction of Bugs. It now has well over 800,000 miles on it. Even though the odometer doesn't go past 100K, I know it has 800K because until the last 25,000 miles it didn't have a gas gauge and we all had to write down the miles when we bought gas. So there's a stack of those logs in a box. I converted it to a Baja Bug for my dad in the mid 70s. Its been a Baja for about 450,000 miles now.

Anyway, the model has some good aspects to it. But there are some real disappointments in how it's built. In many ways, the inner structure of the original 1968 Revell US kit is far more true to the structure of the VW Bug. As I spent 11 years working in the Plastics industry including manufacturing engineering and have designed and myself made molds for various plastic items, I feel it would be easier and less expensive to structure the model in much the same way the full scale car is structured.

For instance, not including incorrect inner fender wells all around would be less expensive than including them. Parts not included cost no money and can't be wrong...to paraphrase Mr Kettering of GM.

Using a rear firewall as the back wall of the interior would eliminate the need to make a cover panel for the rear luggage space as well as having another wall in the engine compartment.

The same is true of the front inner structure. The panel under the dash is far too steep. Much of the front wall is missing and visible that it is.

Unfortunately the gearbox, like most VW Bug model gearboxes, is really rather poorly shaped. Doesn't look much like a VW Bug gearbox.

The front axle is quite wrong.

And would it be so difficult for SOMEBODY to make a model kit of an IRS VW Bug. I know the swingaxle is simpler and was sold in most of the world right up to the last VW Bug built in 2003. But they're ALL swingaxle. EVERY Bug kit, EVERY VW buggy kit.

The outside of the body shell is quite good.

The engine in spite of some mild issues can make a good looking stock engine, but the way it's made renders it difficult to modify. And in full scale, VW Bugs are the most modified car in the history of cars. The vast majority of those some 20 million or more of them have been modified from stock. If any model kit is good to make ready to modify, it's a VW Bug.

Putting the new body on the old chassis would make a better model.

AMT, Revell, MPC, Tamiya, Gunze Sangyo have ALL done far better. Why go to the effort and expense of creating a new model kit, that is so wrong in so many ways? I bought one and found the above issues. I'm not likely to buy more, unlike the Revell US original kit that' I've bought several of over the decades.

 

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Obviously the model was engineered by some German way too young to be around when the roads were full of Bugs. And apparently the body shape was generated by #D Laser modeling. Good idea. But the inside and underside were not looked into by the kit designer. I would have thought that model kit makers had learned by now that builders of model cars are interested in far more of the car than just the outside shell. If that was what we were after, we would all just buy diecast toys from convenience stores and gas stations.

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