Classic Visible V8 models

I can remember several engines...The V-8 and the Wankel Rotary come to mind...I built the Wankel as a kid, took me some time to get the "spark plug" lights to work though. Dead batteries never do much good do they. lol Wasn't there a motorcycle engines too?

I see the Dodge Hemi...on the shelves at Hobby Lobby. I've seen these built up too, eiher they look good or really bad...those who used tube glue have some real stinkers...dried glue all along the seams. 

heheh, i know exactly what you mean about the bad seams. I have only seen one or two of these kits built up and just as with any clear bodied model, glue does horrid things!

Im going to try to locate one of the classic Revell kits in 1/4 scale, in the Star Wars universe it was used for many many prop parts.  I just don't want to pay an arm and a leg for a collector's boxtop.

Wow, the Visable V-8. That takes me back...

As a kid, I built one of those back in the early 80's. I used the good ol orange tube glue without too much mess. That in itself was a great accomplishment.

I tried to be careful and follow all the directions, but I must have screwed up somewhere. (I was only 11 or 12 and it was the most complicated kit I had ever attempted) After I finished it, the stupid thing wouldn't work! Either a part was on backwards, or some glue was where it wasn't supposed to be. Whatever the case, the thing didn't work. Since I used that super duper Testors Tube Glue, I couldn't take it apart to find out what was wrong, without wrecking it.  

It turned out to be a real dissapointment.

 

I built the Revell visible V-8 many years ago.  My uncle bought me the kit when I was a kid and I built it until I broke a part.  A few years later I bought my own V-8 and turned out a nice model.

My former hobby store owner told me that the original Revell V-8 was a good one, but the turbo model that came out later was more suceptible to breaking.

Dave

They are the same kit, but sometime during Revell's ownership of the molds, they changed the battery operated motor with a hand crank operated motor. The original Renwal and initial Revell release used D or C cell batteries in a battery compartment that was made to look like an elongated car battery.

It was either in the late 90s or early 2000s that I inspected an open box of the reissue and noticed that it no longer had a battery powered motor.

As a kid I had a neighbor's hand-me-down Renwal kit and in the early 90s I bought a Revell one. Both were the same kit and both used a battery powered motor along with red wheat grain bulbs to simulate spark plugs firing.

I think it was the last model I built as a teen. And for sure the most complicated. Mine was the original Revell kit that was battery powered. When I finally finished it and switched that puppy on and it actually worked, man what a feeling. When I went off to Navy bootcamp I remember putting on the top shelf in my closet so no one would bother it. Mom though apparently had other ideas and it was never seen again.

MattSix wrote:

Wow, the Visable V-8. That takes me back... As a kid, I built one of those back in the early 80's. I used the good ol orange tube glue without too much mess. That in itself was a great accomplishment. I tried to be careful and follow all the directions, but I must have screwed up somewhere. (I was only 11 or 12 and it was the most complicated kit I had ever attempted) After I finished it, the stupid thing wouldn't work! Either a part was on backwards, or some glue was where it wasn't supposed to be. Whatever the case, the thing didn't work. Since I used that super duper Testors Tube Glue, I couldn't take it apart to find out what was wrong, without wrecking it.   It turned out to be a real dissapointment.

I know what you mean by a dissapointment. A few years back, I built the Minicraft rotary engine. Firstly, the parts were a bit tight so it didn't run well, and then, I must have messed up or there was a loose connection in the wiring. After a month of hard work, I flipped the switch (the shifter) and, NOTHING!!!! AAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!

HawkeyeHobbies wrote:

I can remember several engines...The V-8 and the Wankel Rotary come to mind...I built the Wankel as a kid, took me some time to get the "spark plug" lights to work though. Dead batteries never do much good do they. lol Wasn't there a motorcycle engines too?

 

There was! I have an old 1/3-scale Entex kit of a Honda 750 Four motorcycle engine ("The Engine That Won Daytona," says the blurb on the box) sitting in my closet. I keep meaning to take the silly thing down to my local IPMS club meetings and sell it as I'll probably never build it. (I think Entex made the Wankel rotary engine, too.) 

djrost_2000 wrote:

My former hobby store owner told me that the original Revell V-8 was a good one, but the turbo model that came out later was more suceptible to breaking. Dave

   yeah turbos tend to break engines easy   lol

Rob thanks for the insight on the kit contents and thanks to all who responded.

Now I know that I CAN purchase the new eidition and get the parts we need for our SW replica props.

 

thanks!

David