Revell

1/25 2008 “Bullitt” Mustang

Kit Number: 85-4234

Reviewed by  Joe Staudt, IPMS# 39453

MSRP: $22.95 Website: www.revell.com Steve McQueen was probably the ultimate Hollywood car guy, and his 1969 movie "Bullitt" contains what is still considered to be the greatest car chase scene in history. McQueen drove a mildly customized Mustang in that chase, and Ford has capitalized on the popularity of that movie several times in the past by offering "Bullitt" editions of the Mustang, with extra power, the same Heritage Green paint as the movie car, and other stylistic touches to make a modern version of McQueen’s car. With the "retro" Mustang redesign in 2005, it was almost a given that Ford would have to do it again, which they did in 2008. Revell has taken their excellent rendering of the current Mustang and modified it to replicate this special edition. Much has been written about this kit already; it has been issued in various versions to match many of Ford’s special editions of the 1:1 vehicle. The basic body, interior, and chassis are retained from the other versions. Unique to this kit are the wheels, the grill, at least some of the engine pieces, and the decal sheet. The kit comes molded in white, black, silver, clear, and chrome. Metal pins for the wheels and turned metal exhaust tips (a very nice touch) are also provided. Many of the kit pieces are molded in their correct colors; aside from the body, hood, and some of the interior pieces, you could build this kit with reasonable accuracy without painting. Flash is practically non-existent, and mold parting lines are minimal. The 23-piece engine assembly goes together nicely. Exhaust headers and hoses are always the most difficult parts of an engine for me, but in this kit they all have good, solid attachment points that leave little or no chance of getting them installed incorrectly. The chassis is well detailed, with a separate one-piece exhaust system. The engraved copyright information can be easily removed, but it is also almost entirely hidden on the finished product. A Warner Brothers copyright is also printed on one of the frame rails, but this can also be sanded off quite easily. The front suspension is a simple five-piece assembly that goes together easily. My one complaint here is that the front struts do not attach to anything at their tops: they eventually nestle into depressions in the interior assembly, but they remain free-floating. This becomes an issue when attempting to install the wheels later. The 8-piece rear suspension is also very good, and is anchored much more solidly. Nicely detailed disc brakes finish off the chassis assembly. The interior is built up on a combined engine compartment and floor pan, with separate pieces for the side panels, firewall, front and rear seats, center console, and dashboard. A steering wheel with separate column levers, pedals that hang from the bottom of the dashboard, and separate shifter and parking brake lever pretty much round out the interior. A piece of clear plastic mounts to the back of the dashboard to represent the clear covers over the gauges; the gauge decals are glued to the back of this (still on the paper) to replicate the gauge faces. The side panels, firewall, and dashboard lock together with a set of slots and tabs that disappear when installed in the body, resulting in a solid and easily aligned interior assembly. There are even four mounting pegs on the chassis that mate to holes on the floor pan to provide secure attachment points and correct placement of the interior. The body is a good representation of the current Mustang; with separate hood, grille, and side mirrors. Chrome inserts are provided for the faces of the mirrors. A pair of sun visors with an integral mounting point for the inside mirror is another nice feature of this kit, adding both extra realism and an easy way to get the inside mirror installed neatly. All the window glass installs from the outside, which results in a realistic flush fit to the glass but makes painting the blacked-out window edges a requirement. The windshield is best installed by sliding it up from underneath, as the bottom of it has to go under the windshield wipers that are molded into the body while the top and sides go on top of their mounting ledges. Headlight covers and parking light, taillight, and CHMSL lenses are provided, but the lenses require clear paint of the proper colors to look right. The chrome headlights are a very tight fit; I had to flatten the tops and bottoms to get them to slide into their locations without removing the paint. Overall engraving was very good and stood up well to several coats of paint. Watch out for mold parting lines at the bottom corners of the rear window and on the corners of the front air dam. There is very little chrome on the Bullitt Mustang, and so there is a correspondingly small chrome parts tree. The bulk of this is devoted to the wheels, which is a shame because there is almost no chrome on the wheels of the 1:1 vehicle. Aside from that, the wheels are quite nice representations of the Bullitt’s Torque Thrust-style wheels. They are mounted on no-name tires with unidirectional tread patterns, so make sure to pay attention to the direction of the treads relative to the wheels when assembling them. Last, but definitely not least, is the extensive decal sheet. For the body, it includes insignias for the wheel centers and rear emblem, the rear side marker lights, and two different license plates. Under the hood, there are decals for most everything that is labeled, such as the oil filler cap and radiator cap, plus a couple of "warning" labels for the radiator shroud. In the interior, there is a center emblem for the steering wheel, a shift pattern for the gearshift lever, two different dashboard gauge decals, and the warning decals for the sun visors. All the decals went on easily and responded well to setting solution, with no silvering. The instruction sheet is your typical set of line drawings, with parts called out by name and number. Painting suggestions are frequent and fairly accurate. There are only two places where the instructions misdirect you slightly. One is the issue mentioned earlier with the windshield: the instructions show it being installed from the outside, but that is next to impossible; it is best to slide it up from underneath. The second is the placement of the sun visor decals. If you place them where the instructions appear to be pointing, they will end up facing the roof of the interior, never to be seen again (like mine). Instead, they should be placed on the "bottom" side of the visors, so they will be visible from the interior. For my build, I decided to follow Revell’s painting instructions as closely as possible, unless I had references showing me otherwise. The first issue to be addressed was the holes for the rear spoiler. While the spoiler is included in the kit, it doesn’t appear in the instructions: apparently no spoiler is available for the Bullitt Mustang. Revell provides plugs for the holes, but I opted to putty them closed. For the body and hood, MCW makes a paint that matches Ford’s "Heritage Green", but my local hobby shop owner recommended Testor’s British Racing Green Metallic as a good alternative. I painted the interior black, but from my references pictures it appears that a lighter gray might also be accurate. I stripped the chrome from the wheels and painted them Testor’s Anthracite Gray Metallic, which I think is pretty close to the correct color, then detailed the wheel centers, lug nuts, and wheel edges with chrome silver. The strut tower brace (which is chromed) was painted aluminum, and the rear shocks I painted blue. I followed the kit directions for almost everything else, though I occasionally substituted flat or gloss black for the recommended semi-gloss black to add a little variety. Assembly was uneventful for the most part, which is a very good thing in my opinion. Aside from the few issues mentioned earlier, I found it necessary to drill out the holes in the brake discs so I could install the assembled wheels without putting undue pressure on the suspension assemblies, especially the unsupported front struts. As a result, I had to glue the metal axles into the suspension. The body is a tight fit over the chassis and interior, but I found that if I got the rear end settled down first, I could stretch the front corners of the body enough to fit down over the chassis. I put a little glue along the sides where the body and chassis meet, but the fit was tight enough that I could have gotten by without it. Once I got the body on the chassis, I discovered that one of the exhausts was pushed too far up against the chassis; as a result, the metal exhaust tip wouldn’t clear the body on that side. Fortunately, I was able to pull that side of the exhaust loose from its attachment point, and the exhaust tip then went on just fine. Test fitting the hood showed that it would not open very far on its hinges, so I trimmed the pins off of them, allowing me to lift the hood off the body when I want to display the engine. Speaking of the hood, there seems to be a minor clearance problem with the strut tower brace, which keeps the hood from sitting down all the way. For that matter, the engine interfered with the strut tower brace. It may be that I didn’t get the engine seated all the way down on its attachment points: the fit was quite snug, and it was almost impossible to see once the engine was in place. In the final analysis, this is a very nice kit. It has no major fit issues, it is well engineered, and the proportions look and feel right. Less-experienced modelers can build a nice-looking version with very little painting, but there is enough detail available to challenge the experienced modeler as well. I recommend this kit to anyone who loves Mustangs. Many thanks to Revell for this great kit!