Justin Porter

Yes. What you built is Revell's old 1/25th scale Austin-Healey 100-6. That's a pretty good kit especially for its age. To the naked eye a 100-6 and a 3000 look pretty similar but they are entirely different cars with the 3000 being bigger in just about every dimension to make it a more comfortable tourer while still being an able and successful sports car.

With Revell plugging the modern Land Rover and E-Type kit gaps (FHC A-pillar gaffe aside) one can hope they decide that classic British cars are a good theme to keep going because we've never had an Austin-Healey 3000 kit in 1/24th scale. Still seems weird that Gunze Sangyo didn't kit one in the 80's along side their TR-3's and Lotus Elans.

That's really something that jumps off the shelf! Looks great.

When Tamiya announced this reissue, I knew it was one I was going to have to make a "one for inventory, one for me" order. Sure enough, Tamiya came through with the additions to the kit. On top of the self-adhesive metal transfers that were in the kit the first go-around, Tamiya has included a nice new photoetch fret with grilles to take the place of the old vinyl mesh, faces for the brake rotors, buckles for racing harnesses, badges and locks, plus printed belts for the harnesses and a new sprue with nicely rendered RS Watanabe style wheels and a GT style wing as seen on some of the Europas in period. Assembly so far is, well, it's Tamiya. To this point I have the engine together and the frame with suspension fully assembled. Paints are mostly a selection of Vallejo Metal Color, Model Color, and Model Air.

There are several slot car drag strips nearby my shop and those are my customers who are most hotly anticipating the Nova wagon. They're also the ones who made the Revell S-10 my highest volume selling auto kit of 2020.

The Eduard situation is definitely a nail-biter since they're one of the most routinely hot manufacturers in aircraft modeling. Thankfully in their most recent press release regarding the fire they stated they're already in talks with fellow Czech model kit manufacturer Special Hobby to subcontract to run some of their tooling to help make up the difference of the losses. Especially made me happy because Special Hobby is a personal favorite brand all on their own.

Why? Revell successfully brought the Model A roadster back to shelves despite having to do significant work to make that possible. It has been delayed. So have an infinite number of other newly tooled projects. Granted, it's not the most hotly anticipated new item that Revell has announced (that would be the all-new 1/48th scale SR-71 Blackbird they announced this year) but it's still on the docket.

Catches my eye that it appears Revell is going to have another go at an issue of the Fujimi GT40 kit in their box. Unless by some crazed miracle it's actually a new tool MkI GT40 OR by some sadistic cruelty it's a reissue of the old Aurora MkI with really inaccurate decals.

I'm definitely disappointed by the gaffe on the pillar height. It seems that they nailed so much that has long been a complaint on FHC kits but that's really strange to miss. I can only imagine that some time between Hobbico and Blitz there was a breakdown in communication that meant these things didn't get properly handled. The separate windshield frame, at least to my eye, really exacerbates the issue because of how thick it appears to be. Thinned to about 2/3 of its current thickness it would likely at least fool the eye enough into making up some of the lost windshield height. That said, no prior E Type kit has had this level or quality of engineering underhood, the interior looks lovingly rendered, and they've done a remarkably good job with the actual contour of the roofline and of the main body. I feel fairly comfortable parking it alongside the Gunze Sangyo 250GTO or Cobra Daytona in terms of "not right, but not bad" sports car bodies. As to whether or not this SHOULD have happened, clearly not. But then, as recently as this year we had a kit manufacturer (Bronco) design a P-51D Mustang kit with an inaccurate landing gear bay so this stuff does slip through despite the tools available to prevent it.

Fairly incontrovertible. I like that it appears the Revell hits most of the dimension marks but it does seem they missed on the pillar height. The thickness of their windshield frame doesn't help much in that regard either. I'm still willing to build the kit since it's obvious that they came up with a kit that's quite nice on the whole. It's a bit like how the Gunze Sangyo 250GTO has a lot of fundamental errors but because it was the best available for so long some stuff was forgiven.

I do build primarily vintage sports cars and as such 1/24th is for me. 1/25th scale I call an aberration because only the US domestic manufacturers make use of it and only for domestic subject matter. That makes it an aberration along the lines of Revell's 1/28th scale WWI aircraft kits (when 1/32nd scale is the commonly accepted choice for "large" aircraft) or continuing to reissue the 1/32nd scale Aurora armor kits despite 1/35th scale being the commonly accepted scale for armor internationally. In fact, to my mind the only international examples of 1/25th scale being adopted lie in Trumpeter's abortive attempt to break into the American classic car kit market. Even Arii's lovely '58 Cadillacs were 1/24th rather than 1/25th. Within the sphere of American classic cars, 1/25th is just fine. But it's a scale that should be kept to JUST that subject matter.

There is nothing about the Revell Jaguar XJS kit that makes it a preferable option to builders interested in a Jaguar XJS in comparison to the Hasegawa kit. The Hasegawa kit has been offered in street, touring car, and cabriolet versions AND is full detail with a lovely representation of the Jaguar V12. Plus anyone building classic sports cars in this day and age WANTS 1/24th scale so that aftermarket parts - the bulk of which come from either Europe or Japan - actually fit properly. 1/25th scale is a US domestic aberration and I'm glad Revell under its new ownership is only regarding it as appropriate for US domestic targeted kits. If the new Land Rover or E-Type FHC had been 1/25th scale it would have made them functionally irrelevant to their target audience.

It looks superb. I really like seeing all the small changes made to match the model better to the subject.

Most kits of recent cars do pretty well provided they're worthwhile kits of popular subjects. I had a hard time keeping Revell's Mclaren 570S and BMW i8 on my shelves.

It's exciting that Tamiya is rolling out a McLaren given that the company is notoriously prickly when it comes to road car licensing. I agree with many people regarding the aesthetic deficiencies of the Senna, but its namesake is particularly revered in Tamiya's home market and the car is a technical marvel so it makes perfect sense as a subject.

Amazing to see one of the Simil'R kits put together and definitely to see such good results too. Great build!

Always interested in seeing one of these completed. So far so good!

Replace "Pony" with "Omni" or "Valiant" or "Vectra" or any number of other small cars that people have a personal connection to in their domestic market, then remember that in terms of Korean auto manufacturing the Pony is a significant car, Korea is a significant modeling market, and Academy is a Korean kit manufacturer. I have no doubt that Academy isn't at all concerned as to whether or not they sell a single one in the US market.

Huge fan of AK's Real Color line for general paint work. Their Xtreme Metal has proven to be quite good too even if I generally prefer Vallejo Metal Color just because I've grown so familiar with it.

This is a beautiful "best of the era" build for sure.

Various small instances where they molded subassemblies together to make them more robust like the front friction shocks. They managed to pack a lot of detail into a relatively tiny kit without making it a fussy mess. It's going to sound hyperbolic, but it's very much akin to the Tamiya Mini Coopers or Lotus Seven in 1/24th scale for how it's designed.

Always awesome to see one of these go together. They're really fantastic builds that don't get enough credit for how clever the tooling is.

Revell of Germany IS Revell especially in the now. You cannot throw out Revell of Germany simply because it doesn't prove your "modern sports cars by Revell don't sell" narrative particularly when these same kits ALSO end up in Revell US boxes and do quite well. As to the variant issue, would you care to hazard a guess as to exactly how visibly discernible the differences are between an Fw-190 A3, A4, A5, and A8 in 1/48th scale? I'll give you a hint, discernible enough to builders that Eduard felt it necessary to release kits in their Profipack line representing all of these variants, and each with 6 or more marking variations worth of decals inside. In all forms of building, you have casual builders for whom "looks like it" is enough and you have enthusiasts who want accurate representations of specific vehicles. Smart companies find ways to cater to both builders to nab as many sales as possible OR pick one or the other to cater exclusively to. Moebius caters exclusively to enthusiast builders who want detail and accuracy and they charge those builders accordingly so that they don't have to sell as many units.

I'd love to see the data that supports that Revell's BMW i8, McLaren 570s, Audi R8 and R8 Spyder, Mercedes SLS AMG and AMG GT, and Porsche 918 and Panamera haven't been highly successful kits on global market? I mean, that's a lot of all-new tool exotics (nearly 1 a year since 2010) for Revell to have done so clearly they're not failing in competing globally with Aoshima and Fujimi in that genre otherwise they would be course correcting.

A completely astonishing model for sure.