Building Airfix's 'Wallace & Gromit Motorbike & Sidecar Model Kit'

By Michael Kendix

This kit was reviewed in Internet Modeler, January 2000 edition, so I will not repeat the entire background material. In brief, the kit represents a scene from the claymation film by Nick Parks, entitled "A Close Shave". Wallace (the man) and Gromit (the dog) have a window cleaning business, and they are pictured on their way to work. The kit depicts the two main characters riding in their motorcycle with sidecar, along with their window cleaning equipment; the ladder hooked on the side and the soap-blaster atop the side car.

The kit contains ten sprues of extremely robust plastic parts, ten small plastic tubs of Humbrol enamel paints of different colours, a tube of polystyrene cement, and a Number 3 brush. I chose not to use the paints or brush contained. All these materials and a large, clear double-sided instruction sheet, are packaged in a sturdy cube-shaped cardboard box.

The Motorcycle

I stuck mainly to the order of construction shown in the instruction sheet. I began with the wheels, which are well formed; the kit discriminates between the rear and front wheels, with the front ones having a different, lighter tread. Each wheel comes in two pieces, a left and right half, and the spokes and tyres are molded as one. After gluing together each set of wheel halves, the join needs to be sanded. I did not attempt to use any filler here, since that would have necessitated rescribing the detailed tyre tread. Fortunately, the fit was fine; the tyres were painted Scale Black and the spokes, Silver Chrome. The wheels looked quite decent considering the tyres were plastic and not rubber as in some kits.

With the exception of a few smaller parts, the petrol tank, engine and entire central frame are contained in two left and right half parts. The fit for these two pieces is far short of perfection, and considerable sanding and some puttying was required; I used a combination of Squadron White and Super Glue. Unfortunately, the task of sanding is made quite difficult because the kit's plastic is so hard. This is the most frustrating part of the kit since there was little I could do to really make the seams smooth and invisible without really damaging the model. Significant "problems" remained with respect to smoothness, despite my best effort.

I airbrushed the mud guard and petrol tank Insignia Red. Airbrushing the remaining parts would have presented a daunting masking operation so these were brush painted. The motorcycle frame was painted a combination of Aluminium and Scale Black and Black. The protruding casing for the rear light should be painted black, not red as depicted on the box art. I used a Gloss Dark Red for the rear brake light.

Parts 15, the rear wheel mounts, can be glued and painted without attaching the rear wheel, the latter can be added after the frame is finished. The foot rests, roll bars, shock absorbers, exhaust, front and rear number plates, and other bits were glued and painted to complete the central frame. The front shocks (painted Black) and front mud guard (painted Insignia Red) were then attached to the front wheel, which was in turn attached to the handle bars.

The front headlight comes as a single plastic piece, which I painted Aluminum on the light part and Silver Chrome on the casing. Finally, the front steering component was glued to the rest of the motorcycle. It didn't seem to fit quite right but I did not attempt to fix that; the motorcycle looks like it is turning slightly.

The side-car

The side-car is fairly simple to build. First, drill the necessary holes for the two ladder hooks on the left side and the steel bar that connects to the motorcycle on the right side. I did this at the end, which was a mistake; significant paint touch-ups were needed. I airbrushed the side-car Insignia Red, and hand brushed Silver Chrome on the trim. The seat was painted Leather, the wheel tyre was painted Scale Black and its centre Silver Chrome. The ladder was painted Wood and then dry-brushed various greys and browns, and hug on the hooks, which were painted Insignia Red. The kit gives you the option of having the sidecar top closed or to have the soap blaster atop the sidecar. Although not really accurate, I chose the latter since it seemed a shame to waste all those nice, weird-looking parts. The soap blaster was painted Brass, the gun-sight, handles and barrel were painted Scale Black, and the mounting unit was painted Silver Chrome.

Gromit

The Gromit figure has only seven parts. First I glued his head, 'arms', torso and 'legs' together. The joins around Gromit's tummy, neck and shoulder parts require significant filling and sanding. Once again, I experienced only limited success in sanding this hard plastic and covering the seams. I then airbrushed this with Sanyo Gunze 'Sail' coloured paint. This was my first time using this brand of paint and although it appears somewhat viscous, it sprays and covers well. I understand it can peel off when you try to mask it but since I wasn't going to do that, I used it. This paint also hand brushes on well; I used it for the inevitable touch-ups. I then painted his helmet Leather, the goggles' strap Dark Brown and the goggles' glass Aluminium. The nose and ears were painted Black, and the eyes were painted White with Black dots in the middle.

Wallace

Only eight parts make up the Wallace figure. I glued his torso, arms and legs together and puttied and sanded as best I could. I painted his overalls Dark Blue, the tie, Insignia Red and shirt, White. The White was from 'One Shot'; another experiment here. I hand brushed the 'One Shot' and this too was extremely viscous but once again, covered well. The flesh parts were painted with a thinned down Flesh coloured base. His helmet was painted White and the helmet's peak painted Black. His boots were painted Black and glued on; no need for filling here. His head joins the torso at an odd angle and there is barely any gluing surface on the neck to mount a relatively heavy head piece. Super glue was required and his head did get knocked off a couple of times during the remainder of the building process.

Final Assembly

Connecting the motorcycle to the side-car is a challenge, as most reviewers of this kit have found. During this process, several of the small pieces of the motorcycle came off and had to be re-glued. I glued and inserted the steel rod in place and then trimmed the plastic connecting piece until both the motorcycle and side-car were as straight as I could make them. During this process, the foot rest, to which the metal bar connects the motorcycle, broke off. This was unfortunate, since the broken joint was rather thin and receives a fair amount of stress when the model is moved around. I glued this back using polystyrene cement; hopefully, this will reduce the probability of future breakage. I could not get both the motorcycle and sidecar to be perfectly straight and perpendicular to the ground, and given that the handlebars are also not quite straight, the whole thing looks like it's about to turn a none too sharp corner. As per the box pictures, I added a brake wire made of thin copper wire to the handlebars, which was painted aluminum.

I did not glue the figures into place, preferring to simply sit them in position. This seemed preferable to me since I didn't want to make a glue mess and the figures stay in position quite well.

The Decals

The decals are quite good. The kit provides for the rear and front number plates "WAL I", the tax disc on the front wheel, and a speedometer. I added a Union flag decal from my spare decal collection to the rear of the side-car.

Conclusion

This is not a really difficult kit. but it is not straightforward. Granted, I have never built either a motorcycle or a figure, but the claim on the box that this kit is for eight-year-olds and over, might be a little optimistic. I think that a young child might be able to enjoy building this but he or she would enjoy it more with some significant adult supervision and help. Another issue is the kit's price, which at fifteen pounds from Hamley's in London, is not inexpensive. The kit does, however, contain a substantial amount of plastic, plus the paint, a brush and glue. It would be difficult to build this into a competition-level model, but it is not too hard to have an enjoyable time building this amusing piece; plus, of all the kits I've built, it's my children's favourite model.