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- Jakko
A while ago I came across a line of 1/24 scale kits of movie and TV-show cars from a manufacturer I’d never heard of, and eventually decided to buy Back to the Future DeLorean (rather than, say, KITT or the General Lee). Tonight, I thought I’d start building it.
Here’s the box, which looks pretty good, probably to attract non-modellers (he said with only a slight amount of cynicism).
It’s not actually all that big, but if pretty full of parts, enough that I needed to take two pictures because they didn’t all fit in my photo booth for a single one:
The body has some metallic finish reminiscent of the stainless steel of a real DeLorean DMC-12, there’s a clear windscreen, one chromed sprue, a couple of other sprues in grey plastic, four vinyl tyres, two steel axles, and a small sheet with two self-adhesive number places, one reading “OUTATIME” for the 1985 DeLorean and the other having a barcode for the 2015 version. The kit contains parts for both — that is, you can build it with or without Mr. Fusion on the back — and it also has the hook to channel the 1955 lightning bolt into the flux capacitor. Unfortunately, the wheels can’t be built rotated down to show the 2015 version in flying mode. The instructions (not pictured) look adequate, with step-by-step line illustrations like you’d expect. Also, the model is snap-fit, so you don’t need any glue. I’d say this is indicative of the kit being aimed more at movie fans than modellers.
When I actually wanted to start building it, though, I quickly saw this is going to be a lot more work than I had expected. Take a closer ook at a sprue:
Or the back of the one of the parts:
And it’s not like the parts are flash-free, either:
All this screams “American-made kit” to me, which decidedly isn’t a recommendation in this age of high-quality moulded parts from any Chinese or Japanese manufacturer you care to name, or new-tooled Airfix, or plenty others. Sure, it’s nothing a competent modeller can’t handle, but it does mean a fair amount of cleanup and suggests slight (at least) fit problems you’ll need to fix. On the positive side, there are several parts that needed multi-part moulds, like the seats, the steering wheel, and the rear vents.
Looking more closely at the interior, with my iPad with photos of the real thing at hand, I also noticed various missing, simplified, or naïvely moulded details that will probably take a good amount of time and effort to correct. For example, there’s a clear thing in the centre console just behind the gearshift lever, that has the handle on the front that activates the time circuits. Not only is it moulded as part of the interior when there is a clear windscreen provided, but the handle is missing entirely. There goes my idea of a quick paint-and-assemble job.
Here’s the box, which looks pretty good, probably to attract non-modellers (he said with only a slight amount of cynicism).
It’s not actually all that big, but if pretty full of parts, enough that I needed to take two pictures because they didn’t all fit in my photo booth for a single one:
The body has some metallic finish reminiscent of the stainless steel of a real DeLorean DMC-12, there’s a clear windscreen, one chromed sprue, a couple of other sprues in grey plastic, four vinyl tyres, two steel axles, and a small sheet with two self-adhesive number places, one reading “OUTATIME” for the 1985 DeLorean and the other having a barcode for the 2015 version. The kit contains parts for both — that is, you can build it with or without Mr. Fusion on the back — and it also has the hook to channel the 1955 lightning bolt into the flux capacitor. Unfortunately, the wheels can’t be built rotated down to show the 2015 version in flying mode. The instructions (not pictured) look adequate, with step-by-step line illustrations like you’d expect. Also, the model is snap-fit, so you don’t need any glue. I’d say this is indicative of the kit being aimed more at movie fans than modellers.
When I actually wanted to start building it, though, I quickly saw this is going to be a lot more work than I had expected. Take a closer ook at a sprue:
Or the back of the one of the parts:
And it’s not like the parts are flash-free, either:
All this screams “American-made kit” to me, which decidedly isn’t a recommendation in this age of high-quality moulded parts from any Chinese or Japanese manufacturer you care to name, or new-tooled Airfix, or plenty others. Sure, it’s nothing a competent modeller can’t handle, but it does mean a fair amount of cleanup and suggests slight (at least) fit problems you’ll need to fix. On the positive side, there are several parts that needed multi-part moulds, like the seats, the steering wheel, and the rear vents.
Looking more closely at the interior, with my iPad with photos of the real thing at hand, I also noticed various missing, simplified, or naïvely moulded details that will probably take a good amount of time and effort to correct. For example, there’s a clear thing in the centre console just behind the gearshift lever, that has the handle on the front that activates the time circuits. Not only is it moulded as part of the interior when there is a clear windscreen provided, but the handle is missing entirely. There goes my idea of a quick paint-and-assemble job.
