Revell Land Rover Series III 1:24

[Paul H]

The Italeri 1:24 Land Rover is a very old ex-Esci tooling, and all are variants of a 109 pickup, as opposed to the Revell which is a 109 station wagon.  All the Esci / Italeri ones are curbside, so no engine detail aside from the sump, but everything you see underneath is pretty well detailed.  The only instructions I can find online are here, but this should show what the detail is like:  https://www.scalemates.com/products/img/1/3/0/228130-79-instructions.pdf  Depending on the release, it comes with a hard top (like the fire truck one), soft top or military parts.

 

 

Edited November 17, 2019 by Paul H

[rayprit]

This months (December) Airfix Model World does a full kit build on this kit as well as the Airfix Hunter F4...…………...First one I bought in over 2 years, all because I wanted a Calendar for next year!!!  

[dcrfan]

11 hours ago, jyguy said:

The NZ 109 V8's are around 34 Years old now which I guess is edlery by modern car standards.

 

The bonnet on the 109 V8 is very similar to the pre Puma defenders,the ANZAC V8s were generally 24 volt and featured locally made bush bars.Some vehicles were used in Kosovo under the UN flag on peace keeping duties.

It wold be great to see one of the cottage industries produce a Bonnet ,grill and engine conversion set.You'd have to delete the red and yellow leavers in the cab as the v8's were permanent four wheel drive.

 

I know of One ex NZ Forces 109 in the UK.

If your meaning Kiwi V8s in Kosovo it was actually Bosnia and they were converted to a diesel engine for the deployment. Recognisable as the bonnet could not be closed properly.  

[jyguy]

Thanks drc fan for correcting my geographical error.I did not realize they were re engined,that would have squeezed a bit more range from the twin fuel tanks fitted.Do you by chance have any pictures of the 109's you could post?

[rayprit]

On 11/18/2019 at 12:30 AM, rayprit said:

This months (December) Airfix Model World does a full kit build on this kit as well as the Airfix Hunter F4...…………...First one I bought in over 2 years, all because I wanted a Calendar for next year!!!  

Here we have a full kit review of the Land Rover Kit

 

 

[Natter]

I picked up the December 2019 Airfix Model World magazine mainly for the for the build article for this kit.  The model as built in the magazine seems to sit a bit high, but that may just be the photographs.  Having seen the magazine build and a youtube review there are a couple of things to note though.  The diff lock and high/low ratio levers (yellow and red tops respectively) sit to the right of the transmission tunnel on both RHD and LHD vehicles.  Revell provide two different transmission tunnels, but only one is correct for Series Land Rovers.  The hand brake lever mounts on the front of the seat box on the driver's side of the transmission tunnel; ie to the right for RHD vehicles and to the left for LHD vehicles.  I am no rivet counter, but the builder in the magazine has used the incorrect transmission tunnel piece and the diff lock and high/low ratio levers are on the wrong side of the transmisison tunnel.  I can't see the handbrake in the photographs.

 

Neither LHD nor RHD Series 3 Land Rovers are exactly rare to check for references, so this seems to be a significant mistake on Revell's part that may well catch out many other buiders of what appears to be a lovely model.

[Natter]

Well my Christmas present landed early!  As well as my Defender I also have a '72 early Series III 88' (Series II door tops and brake lights) so I have an ineterest in building this 'right' and a reasonably good reference source!  With the internet being an excellent reference, as long as you are careful abaout what you choose to use, there are some notable errors in the Revell parts and instructions.  Ignore the chunky and inaccurate hubs and steering rods made necessary by the decision to have steerable front wheels, the naff representation of the gearbox, and a slightly 'odd' roof and the model is pretty good.  The following parts of the instructions are incorrect however - and in defence of the Airfix Model World builder, he followed the instructions for the RHD gear stick positions; which are wrong.

 

Sections 22 and 23 show the handbrake positioning for LHD and RHD variations. These are the wrong way round.  Section 22 should be for RHD and section 23 for the LHD; the handbrake lever sits on the front of the seat box driver's side:

 

 

Section 24 is simply wrong.  Land Rover didn't make LHD gearboxes.  The diff lock (yellow) and high/low ratio levers sit on the right of the transmission tunnel for LHD and RHD models.  Ignore section 24 and refer only to section 25 for building LHR and RHD variants:

 

 

Finally, so far, section 53 is incorrect.  The Series III has a single indicator/high beam/horn stick switch.  This sits to the right of the steering column, not to the left as show for the RHD variant in section 53.  It should go the other way round from that shown in section 53 so the switch stalk points toward the door, not toward the centre of the console:

 

 

I look forward to building this one, hopefully before the end of the year.

[Paul H]

Many thanks for all the info - the Series 3 88" I have access to is very dismantled, so I would have missed things like the handbrake position & column stalks - haven't had the chance to photograph the gear & transfer box but intending to do so shortly as those moldings really need sorting out.

20 minutes ago, Natter said:

 Ignore the chunky and inaccurate hubs and steering rods made necessary by the decision to have steerable front wheels,

The thing is that ESCI managed to produce a vastly more accurate & in scale front end set-up for their significantly older tooling Land-Rover kit (& also their Range Rover)- proper swivels, & links which could be built as either LHD or RHD underneath, and it all steers too, so Revell's one doesn't need to be anywhere near this crude.  Their springs & axles are not great either.  I don't know what Revell's reasoning is, but they have done similarly crude setups with the undersides of other car kits too (e.g. classic Mini, 2CV, Beetle) where others have managed to create significantly more accurate & in scale moldings, so I can only assume it is either company design policy for their vehicle kits to be this toylike underneath.  Possibly they are trying to make the models more robust so they can survive being 'driven' around? 

 

I will certainly be contemplating cannibalising one of my ESCI / Italeri kits to fix this - possibly also liberate a suitable bonnet to run the spare up front.  It really is a pity that Revell decided to cut corners there (from the point of view of tooling, I cannot see any notable cost implications), as the rest of the kit looks very good.

[Noel Smith]

Jim Whalen's article about building this kit to appear shortly in Airfix Scale Modelworld Magazine.

[andyd]

You have confirmed my queries on the Revell Land Rover. I always use Google when building kits (I did start pre internet days though).

I did put the transmission tunnel in as per the instructions, but corrected it when looking at some images of the real thing. Thanks for the heads up on the indicator stalk too.