IPMS/USA Reviews

Veloce Publishing's mission is to "provide books of the highest quality in terms of content, accuracy, presentation, subject range and reader satisfaction to discerning automotive enthusiasts around the world." Ford GT: Then and Now fulfills this mission with a book full of large, clear, high quality photos printed on nice, semi-gloss paper.

Ford GT: Then and Now is a photographic history of the Ford GT, starting with the Lola forerunners to the original Ford GT MK I race car in 1964, and continues with the Ford MK II, through the MK IV and J car. The book was first published in June 2006 and this edition is a reprint from June 2017. Unfortunately, the book does not cover the third generation Ford GT currently raced by the Ford racing team in the IMSA GT Le Mans series.

This is a review of the Revell '85 Oldsmobile 442/FE3-X show car. I built it as a factory stock 442.

Engine

Zero to very little flash was on the engine components. Two items I disliked were the valve covers and oil pan molded to the block. Should have been separate pieces.

Interior

Extremely distinct engraving on the interior pan. Door panels are separate pieces as are the front seats. The rear seat is molded to the interior pan. Dashboard allows two different decals for the gauge cluster and there's two steering wheels.

Body

The body offers several variations. If you want to build the FE3-X version, additional body panels are available as well as three different front clips. Fortunately the front & rear bumper assemblies also attach to the frame when installing - makes for easier glue points.

I painted the car with Tru-Color metallic cameo white covered with a 2 part urethane clear.

This kit is a modified re-release of the Monogram GMC High Roller kit from 1981 (the parts have a 1978 copyright on them) with differences being different decals and the "Ground Hawg" sidewall markings are missing from the tires.

Kit

The kit comes packaged in the usual Revell 1/24/25 size cardboard box with 5 bags of white, clear, and chrome molded parts as well as the rubber tires. The tires were floating around in my box, as the bag they were in doesn't look like it was sealed all the way. The clear parts are bagged separately. There is a total of 5 sprues of white plastic plus the separate cab, 1 sprue of chrome, 1 sprue of clear, and the 4 rubber tires. All this adds up to a total of 92 plastic parts. The parts are molded with good detail and some flash. There are some ejector pin marks that will need to be addressed. I am hoping my kit was a one-off as some of the ejector pin marks were extremely deep, almost all the way through the part.

Summary

After the Porsche 956 was banned from competition in the IMSA GTP in 1981 on safety grounds because the driver's feet were ahead of the front axle centerline, Porsche made modifications to the vehicle to make it eligible for competition. The 962 debuted at the 1984 24 Hours of Daytona with Mario and Michael Andretti driving. It lead the race until lap 127 when it encountered engine and gearbox problems. These problems were worked through and it had a lot of success from 1984-1993. A total of 91 962s would be produced between 1984 and 1991, with its final victory occurring at the 1993 IMSA GTP Championship.

Kit Contents

The kit consists of a total of around 70 parts on two main black sprues; a clear sprue; several sprues with wheel parts; a rubber sprue with 4 tires; two sheets of decals, one large one with the decals for the car, and the other smaller one with two decals per tire; and an 8 page instruction sheet.

The Kit

The Eliminator was built for the rock band ZZ Top and has been featured in many of the band's videos. It's a sleek hot rod made from a '33 Ford Coupe in bright red with the ZZ Top logo on the side. The Revell kit of this car is faithful to the original with decals for the side logos and logos even molded into the valve covers and air cleaner on the engine, which is nicely detailed and with the addition of an ignition system would display very well with those logos highlighted in red. The interior consists of a seat, nicely detailed dash and steering column with the floor pedals molded into the floor pan part. Details of the upholstery are given in decals, which adds a nice touch. There are 70 parts in total molded in red, clear and chromed and four nicely detailed rubber tires. A younger modeler could build this kit without paint as it is molded in the prototype's color with the chrome accents, but the advanced modeler will want to add a higher gloss finish.