Revell's 1/24 Pro Finish |  |
Overview
United Parcel Service of America, Inc., the official delivery company of NASCAR, is known across the country for their trademark big, brown trucks. Unfortunately those trucks aren't quite up to racing in a NASCAR race, so UPS turned to Dale Jarrett and the Ford Taurus to make their NASCAR name. A three-time Daytona 500 winner, Dale accomplished less than he expected during the 2000 season. In 
2001 he teamed up with UPS and drove #88 at the 2001 Daytona 500. The Ford Taurus race car is making quite a name for itself in the NASCAR lineup and UPS & Dale Jarrett hope the vehicle will lead their team to victory this season.
The Kit
This kit of #88 shows the car as it appeared at the 2001 Daytona 500 and comes with a pre-painted body and colored plastic parts. The body is molded in white, with the rear brown parts painted on, along with the hood logo and numbers. All the sponsor stickers are provided as decals, as are many of the details (like the 'headlights'). The rest of the kit comes in several bags and is molded in black, red, white and silver gray plastic.
Don't let the pre-finished body through you, though. This isn't a slammer. You get a separate hood to display open or closed, and there's a complete engine to show off under that hood. After putting the 12 basic parts together for that engine, you'll be very tempted to add a little extra, such as the 
plug wires. The chassis is molded as one piece, with separate pieces for each of the sides, resulting in that sturdy NASCAR car box. The basic seat and interior crossbar are well represented and some careful painting here will really pay off in bringing out the detail. Of course the kit comes complete with a driver figure, so if you toss him in there much of this detail will be difficult to see. By the time you add the top to the rollcage and the dashboard, you'll have a very full interior that looks very much like the real thing.
Moving underneath the car, the suspension is not too shabby either. The shocks & springs are all molded separately, while the drivetrain & rear axle are molded as one. The front suspension looks very nice and includes a pair of metal pins to mount the wheels on. This is a nice feature as a small plastic peg could very easily get broken off 
here. Toss in the radiator and add the exhaust to the engine and you're set to drop the body on. After all the work you're going to put into doing up the interior, having that prepainted body will be kind of nice.
You've still got some work to do to the body, though, and that's with adding all the decals. The decal sheet has a total of 34 decals for you to apply, although some of these find their way onto the driver figure. The decals have a high gloss finish to them, but they feel thin and should go down with no worries at all.
Conclusion
Revell seems to be coming out with quite a few of these pre-finished kits and they seem like the perfect solution for the entry-level modeler. You can spend a lot of time learning the tricks of the trade on the insides but still have a nice looking model on the shelf when you're all done. In this day and age of instant gratification it also cuts down on the time needed to finish a model, providing a feeling of accomplishment hopefully soon enough to keep that beginner modeler interested in the hobby. Even for advanced modelers, though, these kits have a place, as it gives you a chance to focus on other aspects of model building without having to worry about the final painting stages. All in all these kits are a welcome addition and modelers of all ages and types should take a good look at these kits the next time they're in the hobby shop.
Our thanks to Revell-Monogram for the review sample.
