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Revell 1/24 VW New Beetle Tuner

By Greg Plummer

Introduction

Bad guy Adolf Hitler rose to power and wanted a "peoples' car" for the masses - he turned to one Ferdinand Porsche and demanded a prototype. Porsche, not one to ignore a mad dictator, quickly made the first Volkswagen - a compact car with a pan chassis and an air-cooled flat four motor mounted in the rear. This layout was taken directly from the innovative Tatra T97, but the Czechs didn't complain much at the time for obvious reasons. So much for German originality...

After WWII, VW should have had to pay Tatra royalties for the design infringement, but Czechoslovakia had gone Communist by then so the issue didn't seem to matter much. Ironically, it was the British military in postwar Germany that started the VW factory going again - making Hitler's dream-mobile. The Beetle became a big hit and was the most successful post WWII automobile in terms of number produced. Millions of people worldwide enjoyed motoring without the worry of radiator trouble, and Porsche himself would tweak the VW form to make his legendary 911 series. I won't mention the inferior Volkswagen 411 here, though. Unfortunately, air-cooled engines are not eco-friendly, and the VW Bug was replaced by the banal Rabbit (Golf) in Western countries by the mid 1970s.

Now enter the New Beetle. In this postmodern world where there are no truly new ideas, VW recreated the Beetle in the 1990s as a front wheel drive, liquid-cooled, and low-polluting automobile. Sharing a chassis platform with the Audi TAT, the new Beetle is not a bad idea at all. It's a safe, reliable car with retro styling that stands out in a field of bland pod-mobiles. Around these parts, the New Beetle seems to be quite popular - almost exclusively with young women. In fact, as a man, I really couldn't be seen driving a New Beetle, as it is the automotive equivalent of putting on a dress and high heels. The thing comes with a flower vase built into the dash for goodness sakes. But the "Neo-Bug" does make a unique model and is a great subject for customizing.

The Model

As they did with the new Mini and the BMW Z-8, Revell of Germany made the molds for this glue-together kit of the new Beetle. Revell (of the U.S.) added a couple of extra parts to make the "Tuner" version shown on the box top, including lowered suspension parts, air dams, and a spoiler. Also included is a large decal sheet for the custom graphics. Like the other RoG car kits of late, the model has a one-piece chassis, a fairly well done interior, and a somewhat softly molded body with heavy parting lines and bits of flash. Even though I've only seen photos of Tamiya's New Beetle model, I'm pretty sure the molding is of a higher quality - but we're not reviewing that kit here.

Revell's orange and blue Tuner version from the kit is, well, ugly. However, seeing some of the comical-looking "personalized" cars on the streets here, I can't say it's inaccurate. My goal here was to build something a bit more tasteful, but still not completely factory stock. So off we go...

Construction

Car models usually start with the engine assembly but, since there is no engine in this kit, we'll go on to the interior. The instructions call for a gray colored stock interior or orange (!) and white for the Tuner version - I went somewhere in the middle and painted the major parts in a pale tan. The dash unit, parcel shelf, and upper side panels were airbrushed a very dark gray, and the floor was covered in the same color using Detail Master flocking. The tiny instrument panel decal was cut out and glued directly into place and the rest of the pieces were assembled. Knobs and handles were picked out in chrome silver for visual interest. Everything fit together fairly well and the end result looked good. The interior unit was then glued to the chassis pan.

The chassis pan itself had the exhaust system molded on and included no engine detail at all - only a three piece rear suspension and two front struts with a tie rod are provided as separate parts here. The kit is designed to have rotating wheels and posable steering (my model ended up having neither). I left those suspension parts off for now as I planned a lower ride height than even the Tuner version provided - more on that later.

The parting lines on the body were erased with lots of sanding and the stock valence panels were glued in. I found these parts required a little fiddling to fit right. The body and rear view mirrors were then sprayed with Tamiya's Gloss Aluminum lacquer right out of the aerosol can. Silver is the appropriate color for German cars, no? The paint went on smooth enough to require little polishing; it's nice stuff. The windshield, backlight, and side windows are all molded as one piece, and it's thin and clear. The front side windows and windshield were masked off and the part was given a single coat of Tamiya's spray gloss black on the inside. This paint is a bit translucent, making for a good "limo" tint on the back windows. The part was then taped into the body - why risk glue smears?

One popular customizing trick these days is to install "clear corners", or marker and tail lamp lenses that are clear instead of being tinted red or orange. Tinted light bulbs provide the correct color when lit. Since the marker lamps are molded in clear in this kit, it was natural to reproduce this custom feature. Small dots of clear red and orange paint reproduced the bulbs and a coat of flat lacquer on the inside of the lenses prevented them from being unrealistically too clear. The results were a bit mixed, but clear lenses all the way around looks especially good on a silver car. The best way to reproduce the clear corner look is to use colored scale railroad lenses behind the kit parts but I wasn't about to spend that extra few bucks on this kit. Fast and cheap is the motto here... The headlamps take a bit of test fitting to see how they should be installed but when assembled they look quite realistic.

The chassis pan (with interior attached) was painted black and installed into the body. Now the model looked like a car - without wheels. The custom chromed five spoke wheels included in the kit looked good and were used. In fact, the stock wheels all had sink marks on some of their spokes, ruining their appearance a bit. Kit Michelin tires and the plain wheel backs were also used. To get the desired low stance the front wheels were glued directly to the wheel well tops using epoxy. The front struts were not even installed - they weren't that detailed anyway. The same thing was done in back, although the wheels were first installed onto the rear axle in this case. The rear struts were also thrown away. Gluing the tires directly to the wheel wells may not make for a contest winner, but the underside of this model was not a detailing masterpiece anyway.

Final details included the VW logo decals and the California "TUNE IT" license plates, also from the decal sheet - being from California, I just had to use them. The windshield wipers and door handles are separate pieces (a nice touch) and were painted and installed. The rear view mirrors were also installed at this point. Included in the kit is a beautiful turned metal exhaust tip for the Tuner version. In fact, it was too nice for this model so I kept it for another project and used a bit of slash cut aluminum tubing as a substitute. A notch was cut out of the rear valence panel for this piece.

Conclusion

So there you have it, a conservatively customized New Beetle model. I was fairly pleased with the end result, especially considering I spent only a few hours building it. As I've hinted at throughout this article, this kit is not quite up to the standards of many newer car models but it goes together well and it certainly looks like a VW Beetle when finished. This is not a kit of a rare race car or the like, so the lack of an engine and brake detail, amongst other things, really doesn't matter much. I would say this kit is ideal for a young modeler looking to do his or her first glue-together kit, and perhaps the Tuner version looks really cool to them. Kids these days...