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Revell 1/24 Dodge Ram VTS Pickup

By Tommy VanNess

The Chrysler Corporation debuted the Dodge Ram VTS Pickup Concept at the 1996 Chicago Auto Show. The VTS Pickup was attached to a trailer holding a Viper GTS coupe with matching blue paint job with white racing stripes.  The paint job wasn’t the only thing shared by the two vehicles.  Both were powered by an all-aluminum, 488 cubic inch, 8.0L, 400hp V10 Viper engine.  Thanks to the Viper engine the truck travels from 0-60 mph in 5.9 seconds, and finishes the quarter mile in 14.3 seconds. Chrysler announced at the Show that the VTS was a one-off concept and would not be mass-produced. 

However, this concept truck paved the way for the Dodge Ram SRT 10,  which was later produced with the new and improved 500hp Viper Engine.  The only other competition for this truck was the Ford F-150 Lightning.  I guess the reason for creating these hauling speed demons was to make it a lot more interesting to go the Home Depot.  Instead of having to separate your work truck from your sports car at home, this combined the two into a nice tidy package.


There is a quick and interesting story behind this particular kit.  Like many modelers I started building kits as a kid.  I grew up in New Mexico of all places.  I would put together some kits and place them on a shelf.  The hobby came and went, in the sense that I built models in fits and starts.  I would build a few cars and then put them away for a few months during baseball season and what not.  I grew up, got my own car, and a job to pay for that car. The unbuilt kits sat in a box and when I moved out of mom’s house, they went into the garage for storage.  Some time has passed and during this period I have lived on both coasts. 

I spent few years in Virginia where I resumed my love for building models. Now I am living in Washington and trying to perfect the art.  Moving right along, I visited my mom recently and found myself wondering about the baseball cards I had collected as a kid.  Mom told me they were in the garage with the other storage and I grabbed a ladder to investigate. 

Not only did I find a few baseball cards, but also an archive of all my older built models.  In the boxes I found a few unassembled kits, and one of these was the VTS. I had brought a single carry-on bag, and it seemed obvious to fill it with these untouched kits.  So, for me, this was a kit that I may have been nervous to build or ran out of time to build.  Either way, it was unfinished business and I don’t have many trucks in my collection so I was excited to build it.

 
Anyway, let me get to the kit itself.  I must say that the shelf life of these kits is amazing.  I was worried that I was going to have warping problems, discoloration and even plastic deterioration. The only problem I found was the regular and expected yellowing of the decals that’s part and parcel of old kits - something all modelers well know, unfortunately.  I also have the Viper GTS coupe in my collection and would have loved for this to match, but the yellow decals scared me away.  So I decided to change this one up a bit.

The kit is 1/25 scale, it’s rated Skill Level 2 and it contains 87 pieces for assembly.  All of the pieces fit very well and I liked especially the way the headlights fit onto the front end of the truck.  Not only that, but I like the look of the Dodge Ram with its big pronounced front grille.  I painted the body was with Tamiya TS-20 Metallic Green spray paint, and the interior with TS-42 Gun Metal.  The kit also comes with an optional bed.  I have given it a coat of primer but I am still not sure if I want to put the cover on.  Another change to the kit was the addition of a different set of wheels.  Since I wasn’t going to build it as the Concept, I decided to build it as a street truck. I used a set of Pegasus Chrome Irok’s.  When I test fitted the wheels, they looked small and needed something else.  I happened to have a set of Pegasus 23” sleeves lying around and these completed the look I was after.  Believe it or not, the truck has not been lowered.  This is just the way it came out.  I still want to learn how to lower cars by the way and will try it soon. I also enjoyed the appearance of the truck’s front end.  In retrospect, I probably should have cut out the plastic of the grille and bumper.  Instead, I masked off the grille from the honeycomb intake and painted it a flat black.  Looking at the truck head on, there is a pretty realistic look to it.   
    

This kit was a blast to assemble.  The build went very smooth and all of the pieces fit together without any modification.  I was surprised to find that this was only a concept vehicle.  I guess I really only noticed the SRT 10 and not the VTS pickup.  Either way, I enjoyed this kit and am very happy with the way it came out.  As I mentioned earlier, this kit is getting old so it probably won’t be available at your local hobby shop.  I am sure that all modelers have used eBay at least once; you should be able to find one there*.  I would bet that there are a few floating around out there.  Thanks for reading and happy modeling!

(*Note: the VTS pickup is currently available in Revell's "Trucks" series, as kit number 85-7204-Ed.)