Hasegawa 1/24 Lancia 037 Rally By John Jameson

Introduction

This 1/24th Scale kit from Hasegawa is of the Lancia 037 Rally 1984 Tour De Corse Rally Winner. For those of us in North America unfamiliar with Lancia, it is the brand name of the Italian carmaker Fiat. In the early '80's there were many rule changes for the World Rally Championship and four-wheel drive technology was evolving rapidly with Audi leading the way. Because four-wheel drive technology was still so new there were reliability problems and Fiat decided to stay with the traditional rear wheel drive format to chase the WRC crown and developed the Lancia 037.

The Lancia Rally or '037' first appeared in April of 1982. It featured a 1995cc, 300HP 4-cylinder engine that featured a mechanical 'Supercharger'. The car had a mid-engine (it was really in the back of the car but mounted forward of the rear axle), rear wheel drive configuration that had been tried and true in previous years. It featured a five-speed gearbox and a titanium roll cage. The car weighed just short of 1000Kg, a true flyweight. The car had tough time against the four-wheel drive cars in '82, but managed a first and second place in the '83 Rally of Monte Carlo and went on to win at the Tour de Corse, the Acropolis Rally, the Rally of New Zealand, and the Sanremo Rally in 1983 and actually won the Makes Title for 1983. The car went on the see service through around 1986. This kit represents the 1984 Tour de Corse winner.

The kit

This is Hasegawa kit #CR-30 in 1/24th Scale. The kit retails for 2400 Yen or about $24US. The kit features full engine detail that can be viewed through the rear hatch window. The kit also has a lift off hood that when removed shows the entire front detail such as the radiator, tube frame and front suspension. The kit is molded in white and contains in addition to the body part tree, and additional six parts tree. There is also a bag of four tires with poly caps and a small bag containing material to make the rear mud flaps and an antenna.

The kit also features a full interior, including two seats, a full cage and a full dash. Hasegawa has included seat belt decals. I prefer to use aftermarket belts and buckles so I am glad they didn't mold in the belts. All of this detail should be visible through the front, side, and rear windows.

The instructions are excellent and are typical of their modern rally car instructions. They lay out the build in 13 well documented steps that are accompanied by a few small black and white photos of the real car for certain steps such as the interior, engine, and rear suspension. There is also a template to cut the rear mud flaps. Also included are detailed painting instructions and a decal placement guide.

The decals look excellent, crisp and bright with non-existent carrier film. Included are all of the sponsor logos and numbers and driver/navigator names for either the #5 car of M. Alen or the #1 car of A. Bettega. The Perelli tire logos are contained on a separate sheet of 'reversed' specialty tire type decals. There is a second set of Martini stripes included that run the length of the car below the drivers window. This is apparently a corrected set to replace decals 3 and 4. The correction looks to involve the fitting of the decal around the rear wing. The correct set looks to have less of a cut out area at the rear of the stripe for the wing base.

Conclusions

This kit looks excellent! I didn't count all the parts but with the engine detail there has to be more than your average Hasegawa rally kit. Unlike some of the more modern rally kits this one features full engine detail. Although the engine should be visible through the rear hatch it would not be a big job to make the rear hatch removable as well. One thing lacking is the spare wheel and tire. The spare would have gone under the hood behind the front radiator and with the lift off hood, the kit would show better with an extra wheel and tire made up and placed here. Although the kit does not come with a small sheet of photo-etch as do some of Hasegawa's other rally kits, it is offered by Hasegawa as a separate item (see review). The soft mud flaps and metal antenna that are included are certainly nice touches that will add realism.

Studio 27 will be offering alternate sets of decals for various version and races that the 037 ran in. So get a couple of kits and start looking for your reference material. The Japanese publication 'Car Modeling Manual' vol. 8 has a nice build picture spread (and build review, but my Japanese isn't to good) as well as two full pages of reference pictures of the real car in Martini livery.

I hope this kit does well for Hasegawa and is a sign perhaps that more classic rally car kit will be issued with modern tooling technology.