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 Tuesday at 04:17 AM 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.  

[Mark]

A new high, in low!

[NOBLNG]

I agree with Bill. I had heard Palmer kits were bad, but I had NO IDEA! WOW! 😳

[mr moto]

Palmer kits are kind of like Free Jazz. Lots of improvisation. Take it for what it is.

[peteski]

I'm still wondering what the black engine block and transmission in the bottom of the box are for.

[stavanzer]

2 hours ago, peteski said:

I'm still wondering what the black engine block and transmission in the bottom of the box are for.

Me too.

That Yellow Steering Wheel doesn't look Porche Either....

[Russell C]

2 hours ago, peteski said:

...wondering what the black engine block and transmission in the bottom of the box are for.

Wow - I was distracted enough by the sight of the white V8 and my subsequent search for some mystery Porsche 1:1 engine, I completely missed the "bonus V8" in this kit. No offense to the Youtube builder, I always mute the sound in these kinds of videos and speed-watch through most of them, but I sifted through it again a short time ago, and there it is. Near as I can tell, the guy never said a word about it  .... Edit: Oops, at the 13:19 point for barely over a second, he waves his finger over the black-molded engine and says "look at that." But that was it.

Edited Wednesday at 04:08 AM by Russell C

[Bugatti Fan]

You will have to ask Palmer about that engine !

But you will need to go to a spiritualist to make contact with them.  Lol.

[Mark]

As with later kits, Palmer used some of the same parts trees across all, or nearly all, of their car kits.  The "other" engine is on the tree molded in black, which was needed in the Porsche kit for the tires.

[NOBLNG]

How could Porsche allow this to happen?

Edited Wednesday at 01:19 PM by NOBLNG

[Ace-Garageguy]

Holy what-the-thingamy?

[Russell C]

14 hours ago, NOBLNG said:

How could Porsche allow this to happen?

Yep, if I didn't know any better (and sometimes I don't), I'd swear the front axle for this 356 has a differential pumpkin right in the middle of it.

[Bugatti Fan]

Palmer kits.  Now a curiosity. There to be ridiculed, just like the old Commie era  Skoda cars before VW bought them out and completely turned the company around. They now build superb cars and you don't hear Skoda jokes any more!

[peteski]

23 hours ago, NOBLNG said:

How could Porsche allow this to happen?

Back in the days that kit was made car manufacturers weren't contacted for permission or licensing to make a model. Some kit companies did engage car companies to assist with the model's development (and that is often mentioned in the kit's instructions to imply the model is accurate), but a kit could be made without any input or knowledge of the car's manufacturer.  Things are quite different today.

[iamsuperdan]

I want to get a hold of an executive or designer from Palmer Models (if any are still around) and interview them for the magazine. 

Would love to get to the bottom of their whole philosophy and business model.

And why they did the things they did.

And how many drugs were involved.

And if any of their design team had ever actually seen a real car before kitting it.

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

23 minutes ago, iamsuperdan said:

I want to get a hold of an executive or designer from Palmer Models (if any are still around) and interview them for the magazine. 

Would love to get to the bottom of their whole philosophy and business model.

And why they did the things they did.

And how many drugs were involved.

And if any of their design team had ever actually seen a real car before kitting it.

 

Ya know...Palmer just may have been the vanguard of the all-too-common business belief these days that "we don't need to actually know anything about our product or even anything remotely pertaining to it to produce and sell it".

[Bainford]

24 minutes ago, iamsuperdan said:

I want to get a hold of an executive or designer from Palmer Models (if any are still around) and interview them for the magazine. 

Would love to get to the bottom of their whole philosophy and business model.

And why they did the things they did.

And how many drugs were involved.

And if any of their design team had ever actually seen a real car before kitting it.

 

I don't know if you are serious or not, but I think this would be a great idea.

[iamsuperdan]

9 minutes ago, Bainford said:

I don't know if you are serious or not, but I think this would be a great idea.

I wrote it because the idea is amusing, but if the opportunity came up I would 100% like to interview someone!

 

[Mark]

If you take a good look at their later kits ('63 or so onward) the engraving on some of the parts (like bumper/grille units) is not terrible.  They were limited by target price and the limitations of the tooling design avoiding slides to produce one-piece bodies.  Having to use one chassis and one accessory parts tree for everything didn't help either.  When they did get better tooling design and could shoot for a higher target price (PSM) they did get better, though they didn't really have any kit designers.  The PSM kits were cribbed from MPC kits (Mustang was a combination of AMT and MPC).  

But Pyro did do some interesting things even with the limitations of the non-slide tooling design.  Had they done their brass era car kits in 1/24 or 1/25 scale, they might have hung in longer.  Their Design-A-Car kit was ugly as sin, but they sold a BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH-ton of them.  They would have sold even better in 1/25 instead of the 1/20 or so that it was.