Revell Deal's Wheels “VAN”
By Ward Shrake
Personality. If I was going to try to sum up this kit's appeal in only one word, that would do the job nicely.
“Subtle” might take some explanation, since the bodywork and tires are so wildly distorted – but I'd use that word, too: offering an explanation to those not familiar with the other vehicles in this series of 1970s re-releases.
Muscular hot rod cars like the Zzzzz-28 or the '57 cHEVY focus one's attention on the huge racing engines, which stuck through the hoods. (Arguably not huge enough, since those who mastered the engine parts chose to make them a lot smaller than Dave Deal drew them, in his great art!)
This model, however, de-emphasizes the engine's size. In fact, they make fun of the engine's size! The hood opens, in back. If you look very carefully, you can just barely make out a four-cylinder, air-cooled, “3.6 HP” Volkswagen engine. (The real thing, if I'm not mistaken, had 36 HP.)
In case the cartoon engine is too small to see, one of the clear parts is – I kid you not! – a magnifying glass. As a kid, I didn't understand the joke. As a former racer, much more familiar with auto engines: now, it's pretty funny!
As I've said before, in my other ‘First Looks' at this series of recent re-releases – including the Spitsfire aircraft: I'm a long-time fan of these cartoon models. They each appeal to me, however, to one degree or another; and for various reasons. This one's just about perfect, I think, right out of the box: very well-proportioned (for a ‘toon!); looks great from any angle (as any good sculpture should); and it's a fond representation of a Hippie-era Volkswagen Van. “There's no need to go nuts hot-rodding my engine,” it says, “or tucking my tires in. Just have some fun painting me, and stick me on a shelf.”
THE PARTS
Sprue pics will show 62 parts total; most of which are large enough to be kiddie-hand-size friendly. Because the designers got cutesy with the engine's size, youngsters may (or may not?) want help with those parts – especially in the case of chrome parts, since some of the plating has to be scraped off, first, where parts glue to one another – but there's plenty of medium and large parts, for those all-important “Team Builds,” which may bring youngsters into our hobby, and may give Old Hands a new perspective.
INSTRUCTIONS
Original-style (1970s) instructions, with cartoon diagrams and text. Four pages long. Shouldn't prove to be a problem for youngsters – heck, I built plenty of Deal's Wheels kits when I was a whippersnapper! I always enjoy seeing the helpful and humorous instruction sheets in this series.
DECALS
The sides of the box say waterslide decals are included, but unless my kit just didn't get any – there's no decals. It's no Big Deal (pardon the pun!) since imagination and creativity are what “painter's kits” like this are all about. Raid your spares box, or skip decals entirely.
BOX ART
As is becoming almost-comically common, the only faults I'm finding with the box art for this series is the writing on the sides: they could use better proofreading. This time, the sides say this was molded in a “brown metallic” – when it's actually more like a gold metallic. However, no harm done: I'd rather have the gold. I suspect they originally planned to use a color that I think (?) they used for the 1990s re-release? They may have had the boxes printed way in advance; and then later made a decision to use the same plastic “formula” for this kit, that they used for the Messaschnitzel 109 aircraft. (Kit collectors could also be the reason: sticking with one color for each re-release, so that kit collectors would know at a glance which release they're looking at – regardless of what box parts are in.)
As I said about the box art, in my '57 cHEVY ‘First Look': “As long as they put Dave Deal's artwork on the cover, they could leave the sides blank or print random pages from a phone book there, and I'd still be a happy camper.”
CONCLUSION
This is a nifty kit. I like it. If this wasn't (allegedly?) a male-dominated hobby, I'd have called this model “cute”. Such things may not be readily accepted in some circles, so I guess I'll just stick with “Lotsa Personality”. Another nice kit, which folks will hopefully snap up several copies of ... ‘cause the kit has a lot of potential; and it would likely help the “we want more re-releases, please” cause!