Revell 1/24 Ferrari 360 Modena Spyder

 Ferrari 360 Modena is a two-seat, mid-engine sports coup that was produced by Ferrari from 1999 through 2005. It replaced Ferrari 388 and it was replaced in turn by Ferrari F430. The body is an all aluminum space-shell that was developed with help from Alcoa that was 40% stiffer than 388 while being 28% lighter. The styling was done by Pininfarina and indicated a sharp departure from the Ferrari styling that had dominated Ferrari mid-engine cars in ‘80’s and ‘90’s. Instead of having a sharp, wedge-like shape that was initially introduced with 308 in 1975 with pop-up headlights, 360 had a rounded shape with fixed headlights that harkened back to the days of Ferrari Dino. The design in some sense is informed by Ferrari’s F40 and F50 super cars with the “engine under glass” look that is now the standard for all Ferrari mid-engine cars, i.e, F430, Enzo and Ferrari Italia.

The engine is a 90 deg., 3.6L, V-8 engine that produces 400 hp and allows the car to go from 0 to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds. As a V-8, the car is not very fuel efficient with city mileage rated at 11 mpg and the highway mileage at 16 mpg. The transmission was originally a 6-speed manual that was later replaced with a F-1 style 6-speed manual.

The Spider is the convertible version of the 360. It is, in my opinion, an instant classic. Its lines are clean and smooth and streamlined. It is a vast improvement over the targa version of its wedge-like predecessors. Although now it has been replaced in the Ferrari stable by the new Italia, 360 is in my opinion the car that set the example for all sports cars in the first decade of the 21^st Century.

Just as the original ushered in a new era of design for Ferrari, this kit ushered in a new era for Revell Germany. Right now, Revell has produced the entire Ferrari commercial car line for the 2000’s and this was one of their first kits. As such, it does not have the level of sophistication and detail seen in some of Revell’s newer kits (for example this does not have a rear suspension). However, it is serviceable kit with few vices.

My kit was a reboxing of the original Revell AG kit by Revell USA. The kit comes in several white sprues, a clear sprue that includes the windows for the hard top version of the kit, a chrome sprue, four rubber tires and a square plastic mesh that is to be cut up to produce various grills that festoon the car.

The molding in general is OK with seem mold lines on the body. The worse part though is that there are ejection pin marks on the doors and on the intake manifold. Although the ejection pin marks are on not on the detail side of these parts, they have left an impression on the detailed side. Fortunately, the ones on the doors are not that noticeable and the one on the engine practically disappears under the engine window.

The seats don’t have a back but that is not noticeable once they are in the car.

The engine compartment on this car does not open and while not a “curbside” model in the classic sense (no engine and no opening engine compartment) by some it could be considered as such.

The chromed parts consist of the tail pipes, the rims, the brake discs and the center console. On my sample the chrome had not taken and parts had a flat appearance. I did not care, however, as I intended to get rid of the chrome and paint the parts with Alclad and Metalizer as needed.

One curious think about all of Revell’s recent Ferrari cars is that wheels are not realistic. They each consist of a back plate/rim (like a barrel with the top open) that goes on the axel and is held in place with the brake/caliper assembly allowing the wheels to rotate. 

This kit does not have the convertible top although I think the top only distracts from the beauty of the car.

The first job was to paint the rear body panel/rear frame part as well as the main frame. Since Tamiya TS-8 Italian red spray cans were not available, I decided to give Testors Custom Lacquer System paint a try. This is a two part system with a base coat and a clear gloss. After several trials (I spent more money on paint than I did on the kit), I think I have finally gotten the hang of this system.

The first task is to thoroughly wash the parts that you want to paint. Following the instructions on the can do a dusting of the paint first and after a couple of minutes give it a wet coat. The trick here is to not move very fast as you are spraying thus allowing the paint to build up sufficiently without having too much of an orange peel/grainy appearance. If you happen to get some orange peel after the paint has dried (although the instruction says 2 hours, I would give it 24 hours just to be sure) do not worry; you still have the clear coat to apply.

Follow the same procedure for the clear coat as you did for the base color and let it dry. Usually you should not have any orange peel at this point but if you do, you need to crank out the micro mesh/sand paper. Start with something like 1500 grit and go up all the way to 12000 grit on the micro mesh. Note that as you are sanding you should only be polishing the clear coat and not the paint. As soon as you see paint on your sandpaper/micro mesh stop; wash and dry the part to get rid of sanding dust, and apply another layer of clear coat and start polishing again after it has dried. Make sure that you alternate the direction of your sanding every time you change grits (think “Karate Kid” up and down on one grit and side to side on the next grit). After you are done with you last grit, break out the polishing compound (available from automotive stores) and rub it all over the part, and start polishing it with circular motions. This should give you very good finish.

After the Italian red part had gone on the body and various other parts (including the interior of the head lights and the headrest/roll bar assembly and side view mirror shells), I masked the rear body panel and painted the rear frame and main frame with Model Master Flat Black. After painting the rear lights the appropriate clear red and clear orange and attaching it to the rear body panel with Microscale Krytal Klear. I then attached the rear body panel to the frame.

Next came the engine/transmission/rear axel assembly. The transmission was hand painted with Model Master Lacquer silver (my favorite silver now).  The engine block was airbrushed with Metalizer non-buffing aluminum and various details were hand-painted silver and Model Master dark gull gray. The tailpipes were chromed. I removed all the chrome with Easy Off. I then airbrushed them (along with other parts that required the chromed look) with Alclad Lacquer black. After that had dried, I airbrushed Alclad chrome. The tailpipes look rather crude and someone with better modeling skills than me may want to scratch-build replacements for them. The rear axel was airbrushed with Humbrol semi-gloss black (#85) and its tips were hand-painted silver. Note that there is no rear suspension.

The rear axle was fitted to the transmission and the whole thing was attached to the frame. The fit was excellent with positive lock. Then the engine block was fitted on top of it. The fit in general was excellent. I then painted the engine support brace/lower intake manifold Metalizer gunmetal and hand painted the lower part of the manifold dark gull gray and attached it to the engine block.

The front suspensions were next. These along with the tie rod were painted Humbrol semi-gloss black. After they had dried, I painted the springs Model Master dark gull gray and attached the tie rod to them by using a hot screw driver to blunt the tip of the pins on the suspensions that attach them to the tie rod.

The cabin/interior was now constructed. I airbrushed the floor with MM dark gull gray. I also airbrushed part of the door interiors and the shifter MM Lacquer silver. I then painted the center console Metalizer aluminum. Afterwards, I masked the floor and area that was painted silver and airbrushed everything with Humbrol semi-gloss black including the seats, the dashboard, the steering wheel, the steering column and the rest of the door interior. I had to wait a couple of days for these to dry. I then picked various details with appropriate colors, including painting the vents with MM flat black, the pedals with MM Lacquer silver, the speakers in the door with MM dark gull gray and the boxes and lids on the center console Humbrol semi-gloss black.

The assembly of the cabin was rather simple. I decaled the dash dials, the radio and the shifter part of the console. After these had dried, I assembled the steering wheel and the steering column to the dashboard. Then I attached the shifter and the parking break to the console. The problem that I had was that I could not see where the hole for the shifter was through the decal. I solved that problem by poking a needle through the hole from the bottom of the console and puncturing the decal. After the shifter and break were attached, the console was glued to the cabin floor. This required a bit of sanding to make the console snap into place but it was not too much of a problem. I then attached the dashboard and the door interiors to the cabin floor. Finally, the seats went in. These snap into place so I did not glue them in. Finally, the entire cabin assembly was attached to the frame with front suspension sandwiched between the cabin floor (which include the front wheel wells) and the frame.

Next up was the engine manifold. This had to be trimmed since the entire chassis is used both for the spider and the hardtop version of the car. This was done rather easily since the cut line was marked in the molding. I then painted the manifold first by airbrushing Humbrol semi-gloss black, then painted various details with Humbrol satin red (#174), MM aluminum, and MM lacquer silver. The manifold fitted into place with no problems.

I now worked on the wheels. First I painted the inner wheels with Humbrol semi-gloss black. Then I painted the brake discs and the outer wheel with Alclad. The calipers were painted with Humbrol satin red and Humbrol gunmetal. After these had dried, I attached the brake discs to the inner wheels, added the tires and put the inner wheels on the axels and glued the calipers on to keep the wheels in place. After this the black “Ferrari” decals were put on the calipers. Finally, I added the outer wheels and decals the “Prancing Horse” Ferrari logos on the hubs. The chassis was now finished.

Now it was time for the body. The body was already painted so I had to assemble different parts to it. First was the roll bar. This part gave me the fits in terms of fit and painting. I had painted it first with Italian red and after masking it, I had sprayed it with Humbrol semi-gloss black. However, that paint did not hold as I was trying to fit it to the body. I had to strip the paint and repaint the whole thing and then attached to the body. I then cut the grills both for the roll bars and for various intakes and outlets on the body. I attached the body grills with superglue and attached the roll bar grills with Krystal Klear.

Next was the head light/front lower panel. I had painted this Italian red and hand-painted the radiator intakes MM flat black. I painted the back of the headlights silver and painted the turn signal light Tamiya clear orange. I attached the front panel/headlight assembly to the main body with the headlight lenses sandwiched in between.

Next I attempted to add the clear engine cover. This along with the windshield had been dipped in the Future at the very beginning of the build. The grills on the side of the engine cover are presented by decals. I had decaled the engine cover and had let it dry. However, I did not notice that when I bumped my workbench it had drop on the ground and I stepped on it and heard a loud crack. The cover was damage beyond repair so I went on line and ordered the replacement part along with a new decal sheet from Revell.com. The items arrived in a couple of weeks free of charge (thanks Revell for great customer service).

Meanwhile, I had acquired a Tamiya version of this kit and it had masks for the windshield and the engine cover so that parts of the glass could be painted black. I made copies of these masks in following manner. I first marked the outlines on the Tamiya mask with a pen. I then made a photocopy of the masks. Finally, I attached this copy to a sheet of Frisket with double-sided tape and used a Xacto knife to cut out the pattern from Frisket.

When the new cover arrived, I first dipped in future and let it dry. I then masked it and used the Frisket mask on it and on the windshield and painted both with Tamiya semi-gloss black (X-18, I had been using enamels because they are more durable but in this case, I wanted something that dried quickly so I could finish the job). I added the decals to the engine cover and attached to the body using Krystal Klear.

Before attaching the windshield, I hand painted the seal and inside the windshield frame on the body as well as the triangle on the door where the side view mirrors attach with Humbrol semi-gloss black. I also attached the windshield wipers (paint Humbrol semi-gloss black) to the windshield with Krystal clear. The fit of the windshield is not good at all. After applying Krystal Klear to the windshield edges, I used clamps to keep the windshield attached to the frame. This did the trick.

The final bits and pieces were the rearview and the side view mirrors. These were painted appropriate color (Italian red for the side view mirror shells and semi-gloss black for the rearview mirror with silver for the mirrors). The side view mirrors were attached with superglue and the rear view mirror was attached with Krystal Klear.

The final stage was attaching the body to the chassis. The fit here wasn’t very good. I used superglue and rubber bands to attach the body to the chassis.

I put on various decals in their prescribed locations. These are rather thin and go on without any problems. The only real options here are choosing the license plate (I used the German plates) and whether or not you add the Ferrari shields on the front fenders (I did).  

This was my second car kit since I have come back to modeling. Before that, I hardly ever made cars. Although it is not perfect, it still makes a nice replica of a very beautiful car and makes me want to build more cars. As an aside, Tamiya also makes the same car in the same scale, and although it is about $20 more expensive than the Revell kit, I think the price difference is worth it (see the review here in Modeling Madness. Overall grade: B+.

Shervin Shambayati

November 2011