Italeri 54mm Quadriga with Gladiators
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Introduction
 The
Oxford English Dictionary defines 'Quadriga' as a chariot pulled by four
horses, harnessed abreast.
The Kit
The Italeri Quadriga is certainly an interesting subject. Molded in
waxy soft plastic, the kit can be more or less snapped together, which
I’ve done for this article. Like the Gladiators
figure set, also reviewed here, these parts all have mold seams that
will need to be removed in order to produce a quality finished product.
 It’s
impossible to comment on the accuracy of this kit, since there are no
surviving examples. But it looks like the Quadriga depicted in statues
around Europe, (typically carrying the form of ‘Winged Victory’,
which would be an even more interesting subject, but I digress). I would
describe this more as a toy or gaming piece than a true scale model. But
with a bit of work, one could produce a nice looking model.
The chariot itself is made of 8 pieces, including the yoke and the spear
box. Two figures are included, driver and spearman. The four horses, while
fairly well sculpted, are a bit disappointing since it’s really
only two horses, copied to make four. So unless one wants to re-pose two
of them, you will end up with a team that looks more like a chorus line
than four horses charging into battle, or racing around the Circus Maximus.
Painting them with different colored coats might help distract from that.
 The
3-sided spear box doesn’t really fit very well when installed as
per the locating pins. The sides just don’t come into contact with
the…what would you call it? The apron?
I also find the poses of the guys in the chariot a bit stiff, especially
the guy throwing the spear. And before writing this line, I went outside
and tossed a sawed-off broom handle around the back yard to justify the
comment. Throwing a spear is a very dynamic action that takes various
parts of the body through their full, extended range of motion. Granted,
I didn’t have a chariot to stand in while doing this experiment.
While I admit that throwing a spear from a moving chariot  would
be different than doing it from solid ground, I still think this spear
thrower looks more like he’s throwing darts down at the pup than
tying to kill something. Converting his pose into something more dramatic
would improve the end result. The driver isn’t as bad, with his
bent knees and arm drawn back to whip the horses. But due to the nature
of injection molding, the whip itself is constrained to a single plane.
Whenever I get around to painting this model, I will definitely be replacing
the plastic whip with something else. Probably soft wire shaped in a more
realistic curve across all three planes of motion, built up on the handle
end with white glue to make the taper.
 Another
area that needs to be addressed is the harness and reins. There isn’t
any. This is probably a good thing since it would have most likely suffered
the same shortcomings as the whip. But it would have been nice if Italeri
had provided; 1. Some sort of foil to cut harness straps from, and 2.
Some guidance as to how these horses would have been hitched up to the
chariot. But instead of complaining about it, I choose to see it as an
opportunity to do some research and learn more about this ancient piece
of equipment.
 Though
I suspect my search for information will likely take me to Italy, where
most statues and contemporary depictions of Quadriga are likely to be
found, along with the Italeri Model Company. This does cause me to wonder:
Could the guys at Italeri have just, say, looked out the window, and been
able to provide a little more information about the harness?
Conclusion
 In
conclusion, I would say that while this model will require some extra
work, potentially a lot of extra work, to produce a real show-stopper
to put on the table at the model contest, doing such work would be at
least rewarding, if not a character building exercise.
 And
the price, (about $30US) isn’t what I’d call cheap, it is
still a bargain compared to what one might pay for this same subject done
by one of the high-end, white metal figure producers. The high end figure
probably wouldn’t require the extra work, but it wouldn’t
build character either. So it’s a fair trade off.
 Thanks
to Testors and the DLV Company,
and Internet Modeler for the review sample.
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