Cloud City Aircar

[Smiffy]

Cloud City Aircar

1:72 Retro SF

In “The Empire Strikes Back”, after escaping the Imperial assault on the ice planet Hoth, the Millennium Falcon heads for the safe haven of the planet Bespin’s Cloud City, for repairs. En route to the floating metropolis, the Falcon is intercepted by a pair of Twin Pod Cloud Cars, which then escort the Corellian ship to one of the cities landing pads.

Officially named the Storm IV, the Cloud Car is a two man patrol and traffic control vehicle, powered by a dual Ion engine and armed with twin blaster cannons. Developed from pre-production paintings by the late Ralph McQuarrie, it’s distinctive shape is designed to tie in with the Art Deco look of Cloud City. The simple, sleek design, along with the orange paint work, makes it very different from the many other ships featured in the original Star Wars trilogy.

The kit

Retro SF’s Cloud City Aircar kit arrives in a small but sturdy cardboard box. Contained inside are 21 parts, cast in a medium grey resin. A basic, single page instruction sheet is provided, along with a reference sheet which has upper, lower and side views of the original studio model.

Construction begins with the pods themselves. The castings are very clean, with some extremely fine panel line detail. The pods are made up from two identical upper and two identical lower halves. This means a small amount of modification work will be needed before assembly commences. The upper halves are moulded with a cannon mounted on either side of the nose. The studio model only has them mounted on the outside edge of each pod. So after choosing which will be your left and right pod, the inner cannon troughs will need filling in. I would recommend applying a sausage of Milliput or Apoxie Sculpt into the trough and then smoothing off with a wet finger. You want to avoid damaging those delicate panel lines, as much as possible. The lower halves have a small location hole moulded on each side. Only the inner ones are required, so the outer holes can be filled using the same method.

Some minimal clean up will be required on the mating faces of each pod half, before they can be joined together using either cyano or a two part epoxy. On the underside, you have the choice of adding the gear doors in the closed position or adding two lowered landing skids. Obviously, if choosing the latter, it would be sensible to leave them off until final assembly, to avoid breakage.

Care will be needed when removing the central engine section from its casting block. The wing aerofoil section has been reproduced commendably thin, especially at the trailing edge, but this also makes it look somewhat fragile. The engine block itself looks good, featuring the raised ribbing across the upper and lower portions, as well as some nice intake and exhaust detail. When the time comes to join the pods to the engine, the instructions suggest replacing the moulded location pins with metal wire for added strength. Sound advice. I would suggest carefully drilling as deep as possible into both the pods and the engine section, before adding brass pins of the appropriate length. This should ensure a good strong joint.

With the main assembly complete, you are left with a few small pieces. The canopies have been reproduced to mimic the studio miniature. They are supplied as frames, without any clear ‘glass‘. Careful clean up will once again be required as the frames look extremely delicate (that word again). However the resin ‘flash’ looks very thin and should be quite easy to take care of. Two pilots are included and a paint guide is given on the instruction sheet, even noting that the guy sitting in the right hand seat should have a moustache. The final part of construction is to add the two spoilers which sit at the rear of each pod.

The instructions have some basic colour call outs for painting. Flat black for the cockpits, engine intakes, exhausts and cannons, while the hull is orange with darker (red/orange or brown) panels. Humbrol have a colour in their enamel range, Orange Lining (82), which looks to be a good starting point for the main shade.

Conclusion

As a sci-fi modeller, you quickly accept the fact that many of the subjects that interest you are only ever going to be available as resin kits, produced by small garage companies. Some of these are perfectly acceptable kits, while others… well, not so much. Every now and again though, you come across a little gem. Something with a real quality feel to it. Retro SF’s Cloud Car definitely fits that description. Despite being a small model, it features some very subtle and exquisite detail. The kit has been broken down very sensibly and assembly should present very few (if any) problems.

You may get the impression that I like this kit, quite a lot. Well, I do and I’ve already got my eyes on their 72nd scale Snowspeeders and Probe Droid. I will also be keeping watchful eye on their future releases.

I imagine one or two of these Cloud Cars would look great displayed alongside the Fine Molds Millennium Falcon. Highly recommended to any fan of the original SW trilogy.

Review sample taken from my personal collection.

[Caerbannog]

Who is selling this?

Edit: -Ups - already a year old...

Edited April 5, 2013 by Caerbannog

[cjhm]

http://retrokitonline.net/

They have lots of good stuff

[Caerbannog]

Thanks!