Monogram/Aurora? 1/24/5 Maserati 3500GT

[Matt Bacon]

Hi, all... I just picked up one of these for a very reasonable price, as the only bidder. I was bidding mostly because it's a European sports car of the 50s/60s... which is my preferred subject matter and period. I don't know much about it other than it's on a par with the DB4GT, I think. Anyone have one and have any more review/hints/tips to offer?

bestest,

M.

[Jim Gibbons]

I built that kit in the late '70s, early '80s when it was re-released from Monogram. I wish I had another. I can't recall any specific building issues other than fiddling with all the working panels, but it turned out to be a very nice looking model when done. It's one of my favorite Italian sports car designs from that era, and as Mark said, it's the only game in town for that car in this scale. Enjoy it, and be sure to post pictures when you're done!

[sjordan2]

I have two of these in the stash, plus a pretty hefty amount of reference material that I can send to you on CD-ROM if you PM me with your mailing address. It includes lots of full walk-around galleries with interiors/exteriors/engine/mechanicals, individual parts shots, an illustrated gallery of all known surviving models (one shot per car), plus road tests and original parts manual exploded diagrams.

The trickiest part is getting the wiring right. The distributor is nothing but a blob of plastic and totally unrealistic, so you'll probably want to re-do it. The thing is, this is a 6-cylinder car with 2 plugs per cylinder and 2 coils. So if you wire it, you'll have to configure 12 spark plug wires (picture below, which is from a later model but still accurate) and add two coils on the firewall. The other challenge is to add fuel injector tubes, which would make the final product very impressive. Plus, when I get around to building this, I'll want to bulk up the seats substantially and add the chrome seat hinges like those found on the Porsche 356 seats.

The kit omits the battery, which should go behind a swinging door inside the right rear fender, plus the air filter that goes inside the right front fender in front of the wheel (these wouldn't really be seen unless you want to geek out on detail and accuracy). The main irritation is that the roofline at the windshield sits too far back and curves upward, unlike the 1:1, and the nose could extend forward a bit further. The kit supposedly has decals for scripts, but neither of my kits have decals. But there are plenty of opportunities to add extra detail for authenticity that most builders don't bother with.

As 1:25 kits go, I think this is a bit undersized, and most aftermarket parts that say they are for both 1:24 and 1:25 models aren't for 1:25 models at all, especially this one. I bought a set of Model Factory Hiro PE wire wheels for this kit, and they're much too large.

Also shown below is a pro-built kit (not mine) which recently went for $200 on eBay. It's about as good as this kit can get.(Note that the side window chrome would look a lot better if it was detailed with a wash or Sharpie for the black rubber seals.)

Feel free to PM me if you want my reference material.

Edited July 11, 2010 by sjordan2