FDS 1/43 Alfa Romeo 33 TT3, previewed by Scott Van Aken

KIT #:	49
PRICE:	$13.50 when new in the mid-1980s
DECALS:	One livery
REVIEWER:	Scott Van Aken
NOTES:	Cast metal with rubber tires

The Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 was a sports racing prototype raced by the Alfa Romeo factory-backed team between 1967 and 1977. These cars took part for Sport Cars World Championship, Nordic Challenge Cup, Interserie and CanAm series. A small number of road going cars were derived from it in 1967, called Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale.

With the 33TT12 Alfa Romeo won the 1975 World Championship for Makes, and with the 33SC12 the 1977 World Championship for Sports Cars, taking the first place in all eight of the championship races. For more information see the link at the end of the article.

THE KIT

Back in the mid 1980s, I bought quite a few FDS metal car kits from a hobby shop in El Cajon, CA. I used to visit the shop weekly as it was a well stocked and the owner was fun to be around. Generally, I looked for things on sale and these car kits met that requirement with great regularity.

This kit is really quite simple as you can see from the image of the instructions. Over the years, this one has been bounced around a bit and so there are some bent body bits that need to be straightened, an easy job with a pair of toothless pliers. I say toothless as even the standard serrations on pliers will leave an impression in the somewhat soft cast metal.

The two largest pieces are the upper body and the floor pan, which includes the axles and seats. Bits to add to this pan, other than the wheels and tires, are some forward wheel wells along with a rear brace that holds the tail lights. On the upper side we have a roll bar, steering wheel and mirror. The mirror has three separate mounting legs and will be the trickiest part to the build.

Though the metal parts are fairly well cast, there are still sprue stubs that will need to be cleaned up and one will need to use files to deal with those. There is no transparency with this one as the real deal didn't have one.

Instructions are adequate for the build and include a photo of the completed model as well as a short list of colors needed. Decals are questionable, but are all that are available so one will need to do what can be done to restore them to usability. The livery is for a car in blue and white so some masking will need to be done. This car is an 'older' TT3 chassis with updated TT12 bodywork and engine as raced in the 1973 LeMans race.

I fully realize that 1/43 car models are a niche in the overall car modeling universe, but there are a lot of nice kits out there (though most of them are a bit pricey), and if one has the skills, these can be made into very nice models.