ICM 1/24 Admiral Cabriolet

The Opel Admiral was a luxury car made by the German car manufacturer Opel from 1937 to 1939 and again from 1964 to 1977.

The first Admiral was introduced in 1937 as an attempt to challenge large luxury cars from Horch, Mercedes-Benz and Maybach. It was available as a 4-door saloon or cabriolet. The car was equipped with a 3.6 litre straight 6 with a top speed of 132 km/h (82 mph). The production of the Admiral was cancelled in 1939 when the Opel factory started producing war material.

Molded in ICM's grey plastic the detail level on the various parts and the amount of detail is superb. There are eight sprues, one of which is for the clear parts and there is the rubber/vinyl sprue for tires. The kit is not a curbside and comes with a fully detailed six cylinder engine, full transmission, and complete drive line. The kit also has a full chassis with front and rear suspension. The X-frame chassis has both inside and exterior sections with lightening holes. Each of the four tires is vinyl or rubber, unlike the ones provided in the 1/35 kit.

The body of the car is based on a rear fender/interior floor on which all of the other car parts are attached. There is a separate trunk along with separate interior door sections. The windows simply slot into the upper door edges, meaning you can leave them off until later in the build if you wish. The kit is not designed to have the trunk or doors open, but you can pose the hood sections open if you wish. You may need to provide a prop if this is how it was on the real car as none is given in the kit.

 I should point out that this kit does come with chrome for the bumpers, grille, door handles, window winders and some other small pieces. There are also several bits that are not chrome plated that will need to be so painted. The kit can only be built top up though it does appear that a lowered top is included but not used. A neat option is the trafficators which can be installed either closed or open. If you do not know what a trafficator is, then this is your opportunity to use your google skills.

The kit comes with four license plate options, the two military and one civilian option are in overall black while the fourth option has grey main body panels and black fenders. I am assuming that the HB and VH prefixes are not military, but I do not know. No dates are provided for any of the markings options. The decal sheet includes plate codes as well as instrument and hub cap markings.

Quite a few modelers like kits like this. Since the Opel Admiral was not built specifically for the military, there are no military bits and pieces on it. Those wanting to do civilian versions, a good Google will pick up some color information. It seems the four door was mostly in black, greys and perhaps a few blue shades, with all of them tending towards the darker colors as befits a luxo-mobile. The two door soft tops had several nice two color schemes, but again, those were the shorter two door cars.

December 2013

My thanks to Squadron Products for the preview kit. Get yours today at this link.