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Revell 1/25 "Orange Crate" '32 Ford Sedan

By Rick Barry

The Kit

This is the first model car kit I've assembled since about 1974. I built this kit back in the sixties when I was maybe twelve or thirteen years old. I remembered the "Orange Crate" as being a pretty finely detailed kit as opposed to some AMT kits of this period. I also remember it being somewhat difficult. But I thought it was a cool looking drag/show rod.

The "Orange Crate" seemed like just the thing to get me back into car modeling. On opening the box I wasn't disappointed to see that it was pretty much as I remembered. It was a plethora of chrome parts: frame, front-end assembly, rear end assembly, roll bar, steering linkage, wheels and most of the engine.

The hood is made out of resin. That is new. There was a lot more trimming and fiddling of these parts than I expected. The chrome parts, which I had been so excited about initially, had lots of flash that needed to be scraped off. This ruined the chrome finish and needed to be touched up with chrome paint.

I could never get the resin hood to fit properly either. Despite these drawbacks I was able to get it together. I sprayed four coats of Testors rattle-can competition orange over a coat of gray primer. I followed this up with a coat of gloss clear. All the interior parts received a coat of flat black paint. This was a very simple paint scheme that was perfect for a returning modeler.

Conclusion

I'm pretty happy with the results of the kit. On looking back, some of the problems I encountered may have been a result of my rusty skills instead of a poor kit. Still I would hate to recommend this kit to anyone without some good modeling experience behind them. Otherwise this kit may be too challenging.

My sincere thanks to Revell-Monogram for this review sample!