Revell 1/25 E-Type Jaguar

[Matt Bacon]

This is the early 60s-vintage Revell Jaguar E-Type. Despite the oh-so-American scale, this was a product of the Revell shop in Potters Bar, following on from some smaller scale cars that had also been tooled in the UK - in 1/32 and the Cadets in 1/48...

This is built almost entirely OOB - the point of the exercise is to show how well some vintage Classic British Kits respond to a bit of TLC in construction for our CBK SIG display at Scale Model World 2010.

There are some challenges in getting it together - mostly building it in a way that allows you to eliminate the seams between upper body and chassis and around the nose of the bonnet, but generally the fit is very good, and the detail is impressive for a kit of this vintage. Some parts are a bit crude - notably the headlamp surrounds. The only additions are some fake fingernails to form the "sugar scoop" channels for the headlights, where otherwise there is a big hole behind the glass, and a "stalk" for the scratchbuilt mirror, rather than fitting the chunky chrome part to the dash. I left off the wing mirrors because they spoilt the lines (as do many 1:1 cars), and went for a bonnet-top number plate, because I think they are cool!

Paint is a homebrew from Zero Mica Silver and Blu Scozia to represent the original Opalescent Silver Blue, and the upholstery is mostly Citadel and Vallejo dark blues...

It's not a state of the art kit, for sure, but I think it scrubs up pretty well. Why isn't there a Tamiya E-Type, though? Its arguably the most iconic car EVER, and sold a lot in Japan!

Oh, and I couldn't resist this:

...cars looked better in the '60s, didn't they? One day, my dream garage will contain all of the above ;-P

bestest,

M.

[Swifster]

Nice job, but...

The steering wheel is on the wrong side...

[Matt Bacon]

I know you're joking, but seriously - it comes with parts for both right and left hand drive dashes. Why don't they do that any more? Eh, Mr Tamiya with your DBS...?

bestest,

M.

[sjordan2]

Great work Matt, especially fixing that body seam. And I appreciate the registration number over the nose, a bit of authenticity that always made me cringe while visiting UK countries.

Edited August 25, 2010 by sjordan2

[charlie8575]

That came out beautifully. I really like the colors and the overall execution.

Charlie Larkin

[ZIL 111V]

A beauty ...love the color, metallic colors are awesome on this car, a great kit for it's time

Potters Bar... was were the plant of Revell(GB) was located, (in greater London area)...distributing Revell US kits in their own boxes for specific UK &...Euro Market. Many of the box photos made by Revell GB were also used on later ADVENT/Revell boxes kits in the 70's early 80's.