The Box Art
This is Revell's latest offering, Williams BMW Fw23 in 1/24 scale. I paid US $22.50 from a local hobby shop, but the kit is extremely hard to find in US. So if you see this kit, I recommend getting one just because it is rare and you get to build the latest F1 car in 1/24th scale. And it is not Ferrari, if you are getting "color stress", painting red all the time, this is another reason to get this kit.
My review of this kit is that the kit itself is not the finest you will ever find. It is not what you would have expected if you are used to building Tamiya kits. If you are looking to build the latest F1 BMW engine, unfortunately the kit has no engine detail and it will only be built as a curb-side. Having said all these, I would recommend this kit to those who want to try different things and learning different building techniques.
If you are planning to build this kit straight out of the box, the kit can be built within very short amount of time. It has rougly 80 parts and the fits and finishes are acceptable as well as the shape of the car. I believe this is what Revell wanted to do at the first place, making the kit simple and easy.
The decal sheet is superb, it lays accordingly and flawlessly. I must say that the hardest part of building this car is painting. Since the car has two different colors devided by silver stripes, it is going to be a challenge for those who is not comfortable painting a car with multiple body colors. The trick is to measure the area where the color separates. One method is to copy the decal sheet and lay out the silver stripes first to mark where they will go.
At any rate, I must inform you that the kit does contain some horrible parts especially the tires. Everything else can be corrected with minor modifications, but the tires will require some tedious work. The shape and size are very wrong and they are also "ugly" to look at. I found that if I shave the outter area, they become somewhat acceptable though. However, if you build the car right, the tires won't hurt the finished car. Overall, the kit provides a good base and you can build on top of that as much as you like to. The kit is intended for beginners by Revell, but I would not recommend this for beginners as the painting process involves some work. If you are okay with building typical Tamiya 1/20th scale kits, try this one out. You will enjoy the kit.
For those who wants to know more about this kit, please read on.
