Scale Plastic & Rail

1/24 Mercedes-Benz 540 K Cabriolet A from Revell UK

1/24 Mercedes-Benz 540 K Cabriolet A
Revell UK
Catalogue # 07001

There is no doubt that the Mercedes-Benz 540 K holds a very special place amongst classic and vintage car aficionados. Of the many standard production cars built in the 1930s, it is amongst the elite of the breed along with the Jaguar SS100, Packard 12, Alfa Romeo Tipo 8C 2900B, Duesenberg SJ, Auburn 851, Aston Martin Le Mans and my personal favourite, the Cord 810/812. "Standard production" of course meant something different in the 1930s than it does now; in our modern terms, the Volkswagen Beetle was the most important standard production car in the world in that decade; but back then it meant unaffordable style, speed and glamour that could be bought by the wealthy few straight off the production line.

The 540K was equally loved by royalty, film stars and the very rich from the world of business or politics. With several different body styles, with 2 and 4 seat versions and different wheelbases, all of them had looks to die for. Developed from the earlier 500K with a larger 5401cc eight cylinder in-line engine, it had a Roots supercharger which, when activated, gave the car a top speed of around 110 mph. Nearly three quarters of the production run of 419 cars (in a factory that employed 1500 people!), from 1936 – 1940 were cabriolets – either the twin seat Cabriolet A, four seat, four side windows Cabriolet B or the four seat, two side windows Cabriolet C; no matter which style they were, they all looked magnificent (below) – as they needed to at over 20,000 Reichmarks per vehicle.

Credit and copyright: Wikipedia

I personally have never handled a kit of this famous car before; I am aware that there have been previous releases in 1/24 scale by Monogram, Revell and Italeri – whether any of these are just alternative boxings of a standard kit, I am afraid I have not been able to find out. However, here we have a reboxing by Revell of their older kit, another in their "125 Years of Automobile" range. After the disappointment of their similar release of a 1/24 Porsche Carrera RS 3.0 kit which I reviewed recently, I was definitely hoping for something with a little more finesse when it came to the moulding.........

So, in the box we have 6 sprues of parts (2 white, 2 black, 1 chromed and 1 transparent), a bodyshell and a small decal sheet. The first white sprue (below) unfortunately set the scene just as I was hoping it would not. Holding the roof in 2 positions, the wheel rims, the seats and one of the number plates amongst its parts, all readers will immediately see the unacceptable level of flash on the parts. Unlike Italeri with some of their recent re-releases, Revell have not attended to their old moulds, which results in the poor presentation you can see.

The second white sprue (above) shows the other major fault with this kit – the softness of the detailing. Examine the louvres on the bonnet sides – they are not crisp, are not of equal depth and have no openings. At least the main bonnet is a well shaped item that does capture the flare of the original. The body shell (below) is larger than you anticipate, but suffers from being about 4mm too wide across the front wheel arches, according to the drawings at my disposal. It is a cleaner moulding than the 2 sprues seen so far, but the actual part is a little thick on its edges.

The first of the black sprues (above) gives the chassis, cabin interior shell, rear suspension and rear axle with driveshaft amongst its parts. I found some photos of a 540 K under restoration and the chassis seems to scale up about right; this makes the error with the width at the front of the car even stranger to understand. The other black sprue (below) provides the modeller with the front suspension, exhaust, engine parts and firewall amongst its contents. The level of detailing here is even lower than on the earlier sprues examined, being "generic" at best; the engine looks nothing like the original Mercedes block.

A close-up of these parts (above) shows the softness of the detail together with the poor finish of the parts; it is extremely disappointing to see parts of this nature in a new kit. The chrome sprue (below) comes from age long ago that decreed that every detailed part, part with an original "shine" or of high prominence should be chrome finished. Again, the parts are poor to middle-quality, the engine cover, windscreen and large frontal radiator being the weakest parts.

I was shocked to find that even the transparencies (above) had some small amount of flash. I honestly cannot remember when I last saw such an occurrence – certainly not in this century. The transparencies are at least clear and distortion-free. After what I have written so far, you can imagine how surprised I was by the quality of the tyres (below). They are excellent, with a tread pattern very close to original photographs of cars from the 30s and 40s.

Finally, we have the nice little decal sheet, well-printed but which will prove very difficult to use properly when the number plate decals are placed over the moulded lettering of the kit's number plates. Ah, the troubles a modeller faces!

So, not even a curate's egg, really. Some wonderful tyres and good decals, together with an attractrive box can not disguise the fact that this is a poor kit by today's standards and will disappoint many who buy it.

So What Do We Think?
In view of some of the wonderful models Revell have produced over the last 3 years and the reputation they have re-established for themselves, I cannot understand why they would launch a model like this that has so many faults, not only in terms of accuracy but, more importantly, in terms of moulding and presentation. This kit simply does not do the company justice.

Nowhere near Revell's current high standards

Our thanks to Revell UK for the review sample. Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit www.revell.eu

Robin Jenkins.