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Trabant 1:24 'Fahrschule Nikolaus'


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Hi all, 

 

This is my 1:24 Revell Trabant 601S. The box is from 2009 and was the first version of their new line of Trabant kits (they reissued it with some special paints, and also made a station wagon 'limousine' version) and looks nothing like their previous Trabant kit from decades ago. It actually is the nicest car kit I have ever built and yes, I did build quite a lot of Tamiya kits. None of them beat the way this kit falls together. I don't like parts like bonnets laying loosely onto the model, also, rotating wheels always end up being a bit flimsy. None of that in this kit; the hinges of the bonnet and trunk hood work perfectly, and are very well secured inside of the body. None of them will fall off when handling the model. Also, they shut seamlessly which also is a big plus to me. The wheels and steering mechanism are movable yet sturdy, I did put some non-acidic vaseline inside of the plastic bearings before closing them up. The model rolls quite well now (not using it as a toy though ;))

The only price you pay for the movable hoods is the way the hinges look; a bit toyish. If you put this car in a diorama with the hood(s) up you'd have to remove them and replace them with scratch built hinges that look more like the real deal. 

 

I built this kit pretty much straight out the box. I added some decorations to make it an instruction car from the DDR (home made decals and a styrene L sign on top) and some wiring in the engine compartment. The 'Fahrschule' this model represents is fictional as well as the phone number, it is built up like the actual DDR phone numbers from the East-Berlin area though. I did find some photos of actual DDR instruction cars which all had an L-sign that looked like the one I made. The decal sheet gives you a wide choice of license plates from various countries, including two from the DDR and one from modern Germany. 

 

I hope you like it! 

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greets Jelle 

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Hey all, thank you very much for your comments!! 

 

To be honest, I'm not a very good painter. I never manage to get  a good glossy but realistic finish on a car model. I normally build airliners and I know the trick for white paint, but other colours never turn out nice. For this one, I used Revell enamels, but I forgot the exact colour number, sorry. It was a matt light grey. I used a paper towel (no toilet paper, we call it 'kitchen paper' but I'm not sure if you know what I mean) which I found to be a very good polisher! Without much effort you can give a matt finish a satin appearance without risk of damaging the entire paint job. It's also very useful for polishing transparent parts, really, give it a try. I then coated it with Humbrol gloss enamel. 

 

Thanks again,

greets Jelle 

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Brilliant looking car model of a unusual subject, got the Estate version few years back, and very impressed how detailed the parts look, Revell are doing great things with car kit, very nearly as good as Tamiya.

We do need more ordinary vehicle types, as they are more interested to everyone, nice to make Ferrari now and then, But a nice Mk 2 Cortina would be very nice as well 😁

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On 31-3-2017 at 3:29 PM, Billydick said:

I really like this. Well done.  I think Ebbro do a ripple bonnet 2CV pick up.  (British built in Slough version)

 

 

Thank you! You're right about the Ebbro 2CV but it's a 'stripped' kit without any engine, so the price is far too high for me. It'd be nice to get just the ripple bonnet parts somewhere to upgrade another 2CV kit like Revell's or Tamiya's. 

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