SCALE MODEL NEWS

It just goes to show that perhaps we shouldn't take promo material literally. Model guru Mat Irvine points out: "Incidentally and re: yesterday's posting, in no way is the Italeri boat the 'biggest kit' - if by 'biggest' you mean longest/tallest - and I presume you do as you quote 'metre'?" "Revell's 1:96 Saturn V is 4 feet tall and Lindberg's Japanese submarines are almost five feet long! Pretty sure Renwal's Visible Chassis was longer too." Well, we had another look at the Schnellboot, and strictly speaking, Italeri declares it as the "biggest 1:35 scale plastic model kit", so maybe that claim still stands. No matter, it's a good one!

SMN Report Good news for model ship enthusiasts with Italeri’s announcement that ‘popular demand’ is bringing back the metre-long  (well, 999 mm to be precise) kit. The Italeri 1:35 scale Schnellboot - ‘fast boat’, also known to the Allies as the E-Boat - really is one of the best-ever World War II naval models in any size, but especially in the big military scale, and it certainly dwarfs the 1:72 scale competition from Revell and Airfix. Smaller-scale Schnellboot built in Germany Of course not all - even most - of us have room for the Italeri giant, and those smaller alternatives are decent kits in their own right. The German website 'Das Modellboard' has some fine build pix of the Revell 1:72 scale Schnellboot, two of which we show below, and as you can see it’s beautifully built. It might be nice to see some crew aboard this latter-day Marie Celeste , but that’s up to personal preference. Restoring the S130 Meantime in Cornwall, UK, work continues with the restoration of the...

Mat Irvine reports It’s one of the mysteries of the modelling universe - why has there never been a conventional injection-moulded styrene kit the Batmobile in traditional 1:25 scale? Well, now there is. Batmobile on a tight schedule The vehicle in question is the Batmobile, as built for the 1960s television series, starring Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin. The series was less ‘dark’, more ‘comic book capers’, than the more recent movies, and in keeping with the action-adventure rhythm, the TV studio decided it needed a ‘star car’ in just three weeks. The well known car customizer Dean Jefferies started work on adapting a Cadillac, but had to turn the job down as being too impracticable in the time available. However, another Los Angeles customizer took up the challenge - mainly because he had the raw material parked outside his workshop. George Barris and the Lincoln Futura The man in question was ‘King of the Kustomizers’ (his spelling) George Barris, and the car in quest...

David Jefferis goes up close Here is a smart new addition to Corgi’s ever-growing Truckfest range. The 'big cat' graphics decorating the sides of the 1:50 scale Scania tractor unit are extremely well done, and represent the markings of Wayne Catt Transport, a ten-year old UK-based haulage company. Corgi Truckfest hauler The Wayne Catt Truckfest Scania is covered with photo-realistic vinyl graphics, the full-size equivalent of scale model decals. Vinyl technology means that today it’s possible to have any visual treatment you like on your machine. Once printed on to the thin plastic sheet, the designs can be draped over a vehicle, and with some skill by operatives using hot-air blowers, the vinyl wraps smoothly on and around even the most complex curves. And when it’s time to sell the vehicle, the vinyl can be removed without harming the paintwork underneath. It’s a far cry from the super-talented work of a retired signwriter friend of mine, who spent his working days painting v...

SMN Archaeological Dig We ’ ve done rather a lot of hunting around in the SMN Cellar of Secrets of late, and in the process have found all sorts of tasty stuff. Latest find is the beautifully produced Hasegawa product catalogue of 1988, named The Fantastic Odyssey of Hasegawa . It has survived the years pretty well, even if the cover has some battle damage. So here's a glance through some of the pages that show a gorgeous combo of an interesting range, beautifully assembled models, top-notch product shots, and handsomely designed publication. Enjoy - and if you see something you ’ d like to see make a comeback let us know. For us, those large-scale cutaway kits are, well, desirable  - though the word hardly begins to sum them up... Big-scale Fokker Dr1 Triplane was a top quality production. Click on the pic for a blowup size (as with the others, then click your back button to return) and note the fishing line that suspends the model - no chance of that these days, with Photoshop an...

David Jefferis looks at some classic science fiction It was couch potato time the other evening, with a chance to munch some sweetcorn while eyeballing a sci-fi movie from more than 60 years ago. George Pal’s Destination Moon of 1950 remains one of the best of its kind - a realistic future vision, dressed up as fiction by the addition of a lukewarm plot and wooden actors. Destination Moon may have been shot in black-and-white, with indifferent acting, but... it also featured a handsome spacecraft, the Luna , looking like a sleeked-up version of a World War II German V-2. And Luna became the prototype design for virtually all sci-fi rockets of that era, streamlined beauties that soared through the midnight depths of space.  A post-Apollo rant... If only it had turned out that way: here we are now, more than four decades on from the first Apollo landing, with any thoughts of returning to the Moon pushed into a vague and distant future. US astronauts may have got there first, but h...

SMN reports on the 1:24 scale Revell Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG kit Until the New York Motor Show of 1954, Mercedes-Benz street cars were seen mostly as somewhat ordinary, if safe and sensible, four- and five-seaters. Then things changed dramatically, when M-B wowed the hordes of show visitors with its new 300 SLR (picture below the jump), a roadgoing version of its SL ‘Sports Light’ competition car. But what set the SLR apart from anything else on wheels was the pair of upward-opening ‘gullwing’ doors. The 300 SLR became an instant icon, and in one fell swoop, turned Mercedes-Benz into a desirable brand. Gullwing up to date The modern version of the car is the Mercedes-Benz SLS of 2009, a hugely desirable performance machine, capable of an official 317 km/h (197 mph) though we’re told that a keen driver could reckon on blowing well past the 200-mark with the right road and weather. The SLS also has those gullwing doors, and the top-spec edition is made by AMG, M-B’s performance subsidiary ...

Mat Irvine goes visiting Just south of Tucson, Arizona, is the Pima Air and Space Museum, the world’s third-largest aircraft collection. Here is a vast collection of aerospace items, some located in specially-built hangers, some sitting out in the desert sun (and weathering occasional sand storms). The 35-year old museum is mind-bogglingly huge, with more than 300 aircraft and 125,000-plus objects and artifacts to pore over, spread across five hangars in an area of some 80 acres (32.4 hectares). Wide variety of aircraft Naturally enough, most of the aircraft are American designs, though there are odd interlopers - from France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and a good showing for the UK, with a Hawker Hurricane, Bristol Blenheim, Avro Shackleton, and an example of Anglo-American co-operation, the AV-8 Harrier. Just the place for model fans One of the hangers is especially interesting for model fans, as it contains no full-size machines, instead housing a terrific collection of models. The s...

SMN report We’re using ‘unboxing’ in its widest sense here, as most of this new product is actually flat printed paper. Still, who’s quibbling - what we have is the first in ‘the definitive collection of Batman vehicles’, and this starter for what could be a l-o-o-n-g partwork series makes a terrific package, and as is usually the case with partworks, it’s offered as a knockdown price to lure you in as a faithful subscriber. Excellent package Well, suckers we’re not, and this looks like one of the better offerings around. For just £2.99 GBP ($4.84 USD) you get a big 477 x 326 mm (18.75 x 12.8 in) double-sided backer board, on which is mounted a 12-page magazine, an eight-page series intro, three free-offer sheets and a Questionnaire Survey. This last asks far too many personal questions for this good ol’ boy, but those less sensitive about their private lives may well fill it in for the chance to win one of 10 Batman DVDs. Diecast Batmobile And now to the prime component of the package...