Tamiya 1/24 Enzo Ferrari

As you can probably imagine this latest offering from Tamiya is something to behold. Not just because of the subject, although to look at this kit you can only imagine how impressive the vehicle itself is. Unfortunately I don't have 2 million dollars lying around (it's very busy indeed) so this is the closest I'll ever get to owning one of these land based rockets.

History

In September 2002 Ferrari officially introduced the all new Enzo Ferrari at the Paris Auto Show. The revolutionary all carbon-fibre body uses design elements from the Ferrari F1 cars with an elongated nose sprouting vertical blades that integrate with large air intakes. Drive by wire electronic speed control is capable of shifting in 0.15 seconds. The car features a 6 litre V12 engine, called the type F140, capable of delivering over 650 horsepower, reaching 67kgm of torque, and propelling the car at speeds of over 350kph. The Enzo Ferrari was made with not only speed but superior downforce aerodynamics in mind, hence the addition of a retractable rear wing that affords 775kg of downforce at 300kph. For speed control, this stable stallion is the first road car to be equipped with state of the art carbon-ceramic brake discs.

The Kit

Well if that's not enough to impress then try this. There are ten sprues in total in the box, I thought I was going to have to take my socks off to count them, Red, Black, Grey, Clear, tinted Orange, tinted Red and a lovely matt chrome one with the wheels and other detail items. A beautiful set of Bridgestone Potenza's round out the box contents with the windscreen masks. There is one thing that I wish Tamiya would start to do, and that's replace the bits of cloth they give you for the grills, with some wire mesh or a small PE sheet. What they do supply is a delicate little set of chrome stickers for the rocker cover and body badges. You can just make them out at the bottom of the image on the right here. Sweet!

The 16 page instruction book is probably the best I have ever seen. The usual nicely detailed instructions that call out the detail painting throughout. The sectional construction technique actually follows the build process they follow for the real car. The doors open after construction and with a nice piece of engineering will stay open through a locking mechanism in the hinge itself. The engine bay also has an arm to prop it open to display that fantastic power plant.

Conclusion

Build it straight from the box or add a little detail like seat belts and some engine wiring and plumbing. Either way you'll have a model that would be a talking point in any collection. Go on build one! You know you want to!