AMT/Ertl 1:32 Star Wars Episode 1 Pod Racer

by Lorna Jenkins

The History

The Podracer from Star Wars Episode 1, The Phantom Menace is a glorious fusion of a supercharged jet aircraft and a chariot. As with all racing vehicles the need for speed is crucial, sleek lines and gutsy engines are an integral part of a successful race vehicle's design. When your competitors have the same basic design to work with, the engines power and reliability as well as the aerodynamics and handling of the craft are as critical as driver ability.

Inspired by George Lucas's love of drag racing, the Podracer craft are a great expression of this. Powered by two huge engines connected to the pod behind by the towcables, it is a rather different looking craft and yet if you look closely you can see certain design features which will go on to be developed into fighters in later episodes of Star Wars (rather neat, that).

The Kit (click on thumbnails for full image)

AMT/Ertl are again the manufacturers of Star Wars model kits but thanks to the improvement in moulding technologies these kits are definitely different to the ones released from the original trilogy. This kit is a model of Anakin Skywalker's Podracer as seen both in the film and the highly successful game. Obviously, this is a new tool and the details are correspondingly crisp. This is AMT/Ertl's most detailed offering in the recent batch of Star Wars kits and it shows. Moulded in light grey plastic on 12 sprues, there are over 150 parts in all! Most of these are enclosed in one large plastic bag but due to the delicacy of the smaller pieces the parts don't stay long on the sprue trees. I was lucky and had no breakages or losses but how much better it would have been if the parts had been packed in smaller packages.

With most of the parts centering around giving you a good representation of the two Radon-Ulzer jet engines, it's just as well the pod is of such a sleek design. The pod itself fits together quite well although filler will be required. You get a quite well moulded pilot figure and seat to stick in the cockpit as well as the steering handles and instrument panel. All of these pieces will need a bit of cleaning up but nothing a few minutes work can't fix

On to the engines! AMT/Ertl have moulded all the parts for the left hand engine and the right engine on separate sprues which is helpful however you will need to pay attention to the instructions once you begin construction of the engines. Not because construction is difficult but because there are a lot of quite fine parts to be added to the basic engine frame. Once the smaller pieces are in place, the vanes which assist in the flow of air through the engiines during the race can be attached as well as the towcable attachments.

The decals are of good colour (though a bit thick). Care and patience is really the word when applying them in order to get that wonderful marking scheme to sit on the numerous curves of the podracer. Go slow and the result will be worth it.

Included in the kit is a stand which mirrors the marking scheme used on the podracer. Although many people don't like stands in this instance it's essential, due to the basic design of the podracer something has to support it once it's built. My compliments to AMT/Ertl for producing a stand which is not only less obtrusive than most but also contributes to the look of the finished model.

Another nice touch is the inclusion of the energy binder as a kit part. In flight, this acts as a power regulator and serves a secondary function as a stabiliser (main stabilisers being in the engines). According to all the images I've seen, the energy which runs along the binder appears as a very bright hot pink/cerise and there has been a creditable effort to reproduce this.

This sort of kit just cries out to be weathered and one of the best things about these racers is that they are dirty machines. The pod, the engines, the vanes all look better for a bit of "paintbashing". Go ahead, have fun!

Conclusion

How often do you see a well-detailed model of a science fiction subject in a recognisable scale? This kit is both. It goes together reasonably well, makes a nice model and is a good choice for a modeller with a few kits under their belt.