What's up with the engine block in the 1/25 scale Palmer Porsche 356 kit? It's a V8?

[Russell C]

Palmer kits being a riddle wrapped in an enigma when it comes to the various design aspects that went into them. Nevertheless, I couldn't resist bidding on a cheap eBay Palmer 356 gluebomb which I won for $1.50, should arrive in a week. I'll share photos of it in the Gluebomb thread when it arrives. But in an effort to try to figure out what scale it was, I ran across this Youtube video of a guy trying to see if a decent box stock build of it was possible (seems there's no hope of success on accomplishing that). What has me puzzled is what the kit engine block appears to be, before the 1-piece blob gets put on top. Is that not a V8 engine block that's utterly incorrect for the car? Or did Palmer engineers halfway replicate a rare 356 engine that wasn't a flat four? Or replicate somebody's outlaw V8 conversion, and the Palmer people didn't know it was custom?

[peteski]

I don't  really see any semblance to an air-cooled boxer 4-cyl engine. Could the engine parts be from another Palmer kit, and they just got mistakenly put into the Porsche 356 box? I also see more parts (black plastic) in the box which look like an engine block and transmission.

Edited 10 hours ago by peteski

[sidcharles]

Palmer kits require a certain amount of "suspension of disbelief."

once you embrace that, everything else will fit into place.

[Mark]

Engine is cribbed from one of the Revell 1/32 scale '55 or '55 car kits.  

They say it has an engine included, didn't say it's anywhere near correct.

I don't think it gets any better when it comes to the chassis...

[Chris V]

7 minutes ago, Mark said:

Engine is cribbed from one of the Revell 1/32 scale '55 or '55 car kits.  

They say it has an engine included, didn't say it's anywhere near correct.

I don't think it gets any better when it comes to the chassis...

As Mark says, Palmer literally just reversed the chassis from one of their other models to put something under the Porsche.

[Mark]

I've got the MGA kit (bought it cheap, the body looks about 1/25 scale).  I think it has that same engine and chassis.  I'll have to take a look at it...

[Ace-Garageguy]

Wow. That's pretty cool. Palmer seems to have reached new heights with this one. I had no idea.