SCALE MODEL NEWS

Mat Irvine: A classic custom car kit from the days of hippies and flower power, now a 1:24 scale reissue from Monogram. Boot Hill Express was created by Ray Farhner, a US custom car designer and builder who ran the Farhner Custom Shop in Independence, Missouri, until his death in 2005. He built a number of custom cars for the show circuit, but the best known has to be the Boot Hill Express, and now Monogram has reissued the kit, first produced in 1967. Box-art for this (below) showed the real 'wild hearse' vehicle in a Wild West town setting, with designer Ray Farhner dressed in suitably western gear. The real thing was based around a horse-drawn hearse of 1850 vintage, built by Cunningham of New York. But Ray ditched the original equine motive power, replacing it with a 426cu in (7 litres) Chrysler Hemi V8 engine with Hilborn fuel-injection, generating 450hp, running through a Chrysler A-727 TorqueFlite three-speed automatic transmission, all controlled by push-buttons. The m...

David Jefferis: In February 2013, Iran revealed a so-called ‘stealth’ fighter plane, the Qaher 313 Conqueror. And now we have Fantastic Plastic revealing its 1:72 scale model of what proved to be a ground-hugger hoax-jet. In the words of Fantastic Plastic: “What makes the Qaher 313 truly ‘fantastic’ is that it's an obvious hoax. Within hours of the plane's debut, aviation experts throughout the world were branding it a crude fraud. The plane was too small, the cockpit too confining and its controls too simple. “Even its clear cockpit canopy (above) was so distorted it would give any pilot instant vertigo. The plane looked more suited to serve as a movie prop than a front-line combat fighter. To answer its critics, Iran quickly issued a photograph of the Qaher 313 in flight - a photo (below) that within hours was shown to be a crude Photoshop!” So hats off to Fantastic Plastic for coming up with a kit of this weird and wonderful design - let’s call it a modern version of Luftwa...

Mat Irvine: Dean Jeffries, the famed American car customizer, died aged 80 earlier this month, May 5, 2013. He was probably best known as the designer and builder of the Monkeemobile, stylish wheels for the 1960s pop-band, The Monkees. And here it is again in 2013, a 1:25 scale kit re-released by Round 2 Models. The Monkeemobile was produced originally by MPC in 1967 (above) but it’s a model that has been reissued a few times since then, the last being in 2000, under the AMT name. This latest 2013 release restores the original box-art or, to be more accurate, ‘almost’ the original box-art. The 1967 box (above) featured the four group members (dubbed at the time, 'America's answer to The Beatles') from left: Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and lead singer and heart-throb Davy Jones, who died in February 2012. However, rights for their likenesses could not be obtained this time around, so the box-art now features musical notation instead of photos of The Monkees. ...

Mat Irvine: A newly-reissued Cold War missile set from Monogram, featuring 20 missiles from the opposing forces, all to the same 1:144 scale. This latest reissue kit dates from 1985, a time when, although the Cold War was approaching its end, the USA and USSR still had vast stockpiles of missiles. Reflecting this, the kit features nine missiles from the USA and 11 from the USSR. This is the third missile set Monogram has made over the years. The first, the US Missile Arsenal, was issued as long ago as 1958. This was modified as the US Space Missiles set in 1969, itself reissued in Monogram’s Heritage Edition in 1983. Both sets were in the larger, though non-standard, 1:128 scale. The 1985 set (above) on which this latest reissue is based had no tooling connections with the earlier sets, and was titled US and USSR Missile Display. It was reissued in SSP (Selected Subjects Program) Phase 4, in 1993. Now in 2013, this latest reissue has modified box-art and an adjusted name, the ‘US’ bec...

Mat Irvine: It’s perhaps a slightly odd decision for Hasegawa to model a spaceprobe that is more than 35 years old… but let us be pleased the company did, as it is a very interesting kit for any space enthusiast. Two Voyager craft were launched in 1977, their mission to study the outer gas giant planets of the Solar System. Initially these were just Jupiter and Saturn, but Voyager 2 was redirected in mid-flight to go on to encounter Uranus and Neptune as well. Currently the Voyagers are the most travelled objects to leave planet Earth, with Voyager 1 now some 18.5 billion km (12bn miles) from the Sun, far beyond the planets in the distant area known as the heliosphere. Just over 80 parts make up the Hasegawa kit, which measures some 325mm (13in) to the end of the magnetometer boom. The components are supplied on two black plastic runners, plus one in white and one gold-plated for the onboard ‘Golden Record’ message disc carried by each craft ‘just in case’ a future civili...

Fans of big 1:32 scale will be pleased with the latest from Tamiya, due on display at the Shizuoka show in Japan in a few days time. The F4U-1 Corsair, nicknamed 'Birdcage', was a big step on the way to the aircraft's final position as finest carrier fighter of World War II. It earned the nickname for the complex canopy framing, which had the unfortunate side-effect of severely interfering with the pilot's all-round vision. Once this was remedied by a frameless blown perspex canopy, the Corsair's place as a successful combat machine was assured. As for Tamiya's kit, we don't have too many details yet, but these cgi development drawings are enough to whet our appetites for the real thing. Looks like there will be plenty of detail in the cranked wing, with landing gear, flaps, and wing-fold mechanism all being featured. Mind you, Tamiya's smaller 1:48 Corsair is already an excellent kit, so we expect this new one to be a knockout. When assembled, the 1:32 ...