Best Models of 2014

[MG Brown]

What would you say were the best car models released during 2014?

To make this topic somewhat less of a free for all, please limit your comments to Model Car (not truck) Kits that:

• Were released and available for sale during 2014
• Are 1/25 or 1/24 scale
• Contain no resin, machined metal or photo etch parts
• Build only one model per kit - no double or triple kits
• Were priced at MSRP under USD $40
• Kindly limit your "best" nominations to no more than 3 kits

If you could please elaborate why you are nominating these models it would be appreciated. Photos illustrating your point are also appreciated.

GO!

[av405]

Why are you excluding truck kits? I think there's some good candidates there too. Are you talking about newly-tooled model kits or do reissues count as well?

[martinfan5]

Trabant Universal

So what you're saying is which Revell kit was the best"?

Edited January 6, 2015 by martinfan5

[StevenGuthmiller]

Trabant Universal

So what you're saying is which Revell kit was the best"?

Not sure which Mobius kits were released during 2014, but regardless, whatever it was has got my vote! All of the mobius kits have been engineering marvels in my opinion. Steve

[Erik Smith]

I don't think you should include a price limit...basically rules all Tamiya kits out.

I actually have to look back and see what kits were actually released in 2014...

[Chuck Kourouklis]

Well, here's one from Aoshima that pretty much had its nasty little cell block way with nearly anything else from '14 under the listed parameters:

Unlike Revell's '67 Camaro, this thing actually got better the more you looked it over. Thanks to the yen exchange rate, it came right under the $40 ceiling at the start from Japanese vendors, and is now discounted deeply enough to be only a couple dollars more than the typical domestic release. Pretty sure it's PE-free too.

Their McLaren F1 would be another, but I think it's pricier and comes with photoetch.

Probably should be limits of some kind, 'cause if not, this thing would rule the roost in '14:

[unclescott58]

My nomination for best model of 2014 maybe Mongram's Slingster. A fun and cool total redo of the old classic Sizzler kit. But, no parts can interchange between the new and old kit. The new version is scaled down to a true 1/25th scale. I may have been happy with the chance to buy a reissue of the original. But, I'm really happy and impressed that Revell went and redid this kit. It was by far the biggest surprise to me in the last year.

Scott

P.S. I think my nomination meets all the criteria above, but I don't really understand why there should be so many restrictions. I'd like to hear everyone's view. Even if it's not something I agree with.

Edited January 6, 2015 by unclescott58

[martinfan5]

Well, here's one from Aoshima that pretty much had its nasty little cell block way with nearly anything else from '14 under the listed parameters:

Unlike Revell's '67 Camaro, this thing actually got better the more you looked it over. Thanks to the yen exchange rate, it came right under the $40 ceiling at the start from Japanese vendors, and is now discounted deeply enough to be only a couple dollars more than the typical domestic release. Pretty sure it's PE-free too.

Their McLaren F1 would be another, but I think it's pricier and comes with photoetch.

Probably should be limits of some kind, 'cause if not, this thing would rule the roost in '14:

I am going to see you a Lambo Murcielago , and raise you with Aoshima Longtail GTR, its within the parameters (no P/E) and with the current exchange rate, its sitting at about $32 and change

Edited January 6, 2015 by martinfan5

[tim boyd]

Chuck - except that the Lambo kit appears to be missing an engine - looks like just a single engine plate/transaxle part in the upper right of your photo. and some parts that appear from the top view under the hatch. Can you confirm if this is correct, or did I miss the separate engine block/parts on the parts tree?

I just looked at my Aoshima Aventador kit and it has a separate engine upper but the only detail is on the very top surfaces - the front, the sides are all just a solid block with no shape, no engraving, nothing but a lump except for the top surfaces. There's no accessory drive/fan belt detail, no exhaust header, etc. The box art states " V12 Seperate Engine Parts" but I could only count the block, the top intake assembly, and two small parts that go on the intake. For me, personally, that's not a separate engine - not even close, Too bad, as the rest of the kit looks spectacular.

Jon, I just looked at my Aoshima GTR Longtail Pre-Season testing and it has a wonderfully detailed, totally separate engine assembly including a stand-alone engine block, the front end accessory drives, twelve glorious exhaust header tubes, separate cylinder heads, a multi-part intake assembly....Suberb! I feel like I have just built the engine on the workstand at the McLaren plant in the Midlands (I think it's located in the Midlands ")) . I can't recall for sure, but I think I paid way more than $40 for the kit, however. (I bought it at a store, not mail order overseas).

For me, personally, no separate engine, no consideration for kit of the year, full stop.

When I build a model, I want it to be a miniature experience of what the real car is. The Lambo approaches (as I understand them from Chuck's photo, and from my own Aventador kit) fall strikingly short in the second most important part of any model car replica (the exterior body being the first). But the McLaren is everything a kit engine should be, and then some.

BTW, I acknowledge that many of you do not agree with me on this point, but...

Hmmm.... This should be an interesting thread....TIM

[Chuck Kourouklis]

The Murcielago has a ten-piece upper block, exhaust, and intake insert, plus the pan down below. The R-SV version adds 12 separate venturis and a few other bits to bring the total parts count of that insert even with some of the better full engines

I'd have gone with the McLaren, not just for the engine, but for the pretty comprehensive rear structure too - but strictly speaking, without a discount, full Japanese retail on that one breaches the proposed cost limit by 35 cents. The Murcielago even at full retail comes in around 36.

And as you acknowledge, this is perhaps the single most crucial area where you and I part company: I consider each engine situation ad hoc, and in a circumstance where you get 3/4 of an engine in a bay where you're just not going to see it very well anyway, I fail to see how a kit with 160 crisp, well-fitting pieces comes up short by any rational engineering and design standard against, say, a full-engined 120-piece kit with a wonky wheelbase and details that get less accurate the more you pore it over.

Against a 160-piece high-water mark like the F1 GTR, on the other hand, well sure - but the F1 technically breaches 40 dollars in the most optimistic full-retail scenario.

I'm actually exactly on your page where it comes to what I want out of a kit - full engine, sump to beauty cover. But I view that as a strong personal preference, not an objective standard for evaluation.

[tim boyd]

Chuck...thanks for clarifying....the "engine" in your kit certainly sounds much closer in execution to the GTR than it does to the Aventador in my kit stash.

It's funny that, having been more the instigator most of my life, whether speaking professionally or as a hobbyist, I now find myself being the "old school" (spelled that way, intentionally) traditionalist, and probably being judged by some reading this thread as "old fashioned" and "out of touch", at least on the subject of 1/24th/125th scale full detail kit content.

That aside, my position steadfastly remains that any kit being considered for "Kit of the Year" must have an engine, and a fully done engine, for the reasons I stated earlier.

There is nothing on the face of the earth, now, or in the future, that will ever change that view of mine, even the respected thoughts of yourself and other people on this board whose opinion and reasoning I respect equally to yours. For I have also learned that persistence, when properly placed and done with the proper amount of respect, will eventually attain what many consider to be unattainable. That being in this case, the steadfast position that a full detail kit in "bi-scale" cannot be acceptable for such an esteemed honor as "kit of the year" with anything less than a fully detailed, stand alone engine, regardless of what market(s) it is designed and/or sold in. And that this is, indeed, a highly objective standard for evaluation in a market where there are a number of kits deserving of consideration for this honor.

So yes, we respectfully disagree on this subject. But at least now I know that the engine parts in the kit you are suggesting, on a continuum from being what I saw in the Aventador, to what I saw in the GTR, seems to be closer to the GTR in aspiration if not for total and complete engine accuracy.

And yes, if any agent of an overseas Model Manufacturer is reading this thread, you need to listen seriously - very seriously, to what I am saying.

At this point, having said my piece, I'm going to let others have their say on the topic. But I will be following yours and other's continued dialogue.

BTW, Happy New Year, Chuck and to all! TB

Edited January 6, 2015 by tim boyd

[Chuck Kourouklis]

Oh, I hear ya, Mr Boyd. I LOVE me some engines. Endorphins git to showerin' this swiss cheese brain of mine when I see block reinforcements and freeze plugs and dipstick channels just waiting for me to add a little scale tube. I love drilling for ignition wires and plug boots, I love winding little throttle springs, I luuuurve making the bitsy '70 LT-1 pollution control lines that nobody else thinks about.

Now, you back out for a second, you start to realize that you see cars in the wild far more frequently with their doors open and ABSOLUTELY more often with their front wheels off straight ahead than you see 'em showing off their engines. Even so, I don't penalize models for lacking opening doors and steerable wheels any more than engines, though if I get my druthers, there will be a full, 100% mill there, 'cause that's what American manufacturers traditionally prioritized and that's what I've been conditioned to prefer.

But back in 2002, when Revell/Monogram had its back against the wall and the '68 Firebird represented a considerable backslide by the design standards they had achieved up to that point, that kit found itself sorely out-engineered by not one, but two curbside kits. Tamiya's Mitsubishi Evo in particular had cockpit detail to thoroughly outclass anything under Revell's hood, and Fujimi's lousy Astro van wasn't far behind in interior detail and it had really good suspension detail too. Neither of those two kits had fit vagueness or temperament of any kind. For overall detail and building ease, it was a pretty cold thrashing, and there was no way I was going to prop the Firebird up artificially just 'cause it had an engine, particularly not with 50% fewer parts that were fussier to boot.

That was my message to the manufacturers, and it's a bummer the rankings fell by the wayside shortly thereafter. 'Cause even with that controversial humpback chop, Revell would have taken it worldwide with their custom Merc in 2007. Partly because the global market was soft that year, but mostly because that Merc was the biggest tour de force we'd seen from Illinois in quite some time.

Once cars are routinely parked with their hoods up, or that Italian exotic power-under-glass paradigm proliferates all across the board, I'll reconsider a full engine as an objective criterion. But far as I can make out right now - and as much as I personally would WANT that complete powertrain - there's simply no logical mandate to prioritize a fully depicted engine in a lesser kit over a kit with half again as many parts that builds a lot better and features far more comprehensive undercarriage and interior detail, even if it's at the expense of a closed hood.

But whatever.

And a Happy New Year to you too, Sir!

[martinfan5]

Jon, I just looked at my Aoshima GTR Longtail Pre-Season testing and it has a wonderfully detailed, totally separate engine assembly including a stand-alone engine block, the front end accessory drives, twelve glorious exhaust header tubes, separate cylinder heads, a multi-part intake assembly....Suberb! I feel like I have just built the engine on the workstand at the McLaren plant in the Midlands (I think it's located in the Midlands ")) . I can't recall for sure, but I think I paid way more than $40 for the kit, however. (I bought it at a store, not mail order overseas).

Tim, you are correct, and it is a nice engine.