Ferrari California (closed top) – Review

Here is a short review of the Ferrari California (closed top) from Revell.

I think, and this is my personal opinion, that with the model kits from Revell, it is a hit or miss. The 58 Corvette Roadster from Revell I had finished a while before this one, had some faults. The body did not fit well over the interior. With this model, it was no problem. To be honest, I did not had any real problem with the whole kit.

But there are some things I found strange, or I had to pay attention to.

Decals

Some of the water slide decals were a bit small. Maybe for others, they are okay, but I found them too small to my liking. Mainly the Ferrari logo was a bit small. I know that in real, they are also not that big, so for the scale, they would be okay. But if you had to place them, it was not that easy.

Also the details on some, I had some question marks. For example, the speedo and the tacho had some good details on it. They were not easy to place, but at least you could see what the function was. For the multimedia screen on the center console. this was just a gray square. There were no details at all. And why just a gray square? I also could just paint it grey or silver. Why not like the Speedo and Tacho, maybe why they did not place some kind of map or other things on it? This would look better than just a grey square.

Also, the rearview mirror was just a grey-colored square. Why not a chrome-plated part, like the side mirrors? To keep it simple, I had just painted the inside of the rearview mirror silver.

Think ahead

At one part during the build, it was good that I was thinking ahead a bit.

At one part, you had to glue the headers to the engine. On most models, when you place them, they will point in the right direction or angle. Not this time. The risk is now, that when you glue them to the engine, they will stick under the wrong angle. Then when it is time to place the engine on the chassis, the headers are not lining up with the exhaust. What I did, was stick them on the engine, and place the engine temporarily on the chassis, and line up the headers with the exhaust, before the glue would set. This way, when you had to place the engine on the chassis for the final time, everything was lining up.

Clear Parts

The placing of the clear parts is always a tricky thing. The change is so big that you could get glue on the wrong part of the clear part. And this will leave a mark and there is almost nothing you can do about it. Luckily there is some kind of special glue, that when it sets, you cannot see it. The regular glue when it sets, it can turn white. You still need to be careful with the glue, because it can still leave a mark.

From previous models I know that the windows of the cars are normally one part, and you glue it to the inside of the body. This way you have the front, rear, and side windows in the car in one go. For this model, you had 4 separate clear parts. A little bit more tricky. Because the chance that something could go wrong, is 1 or 2, out of 4 times. When I had placed the front and rear windows, I did not place the side windows. I just left them out. Personally, liked that better. Something different for a change.

Final Result

I am quite happy with the final result. And what I said first, it looks like that the models from Revell are a bit of a hit-and-miss. I think it mainly depends on the model. And that for some models it is easier to build them and others need (much) more care.

The interior color I choose looks nice with the red color on the outside. And I think it is also the color you could get for the real car. Because I chose the lighter color, the decals that go on the seats (the Ferrari logo), and some model names on the dashboard, you would not see them. The decals had a very light color. Because they also were small, I just left them.

A final picture of the finished model.