Normandie liner

Timtam:

I don't think that there any plastic injection-molded kits of the Normandie available - you might find something in paper.

Glencoe re-releases a kit of the France in 1:450 now and then, it's a much nicer kit than the United States and builds up into a very impressive model (there are a couple of examples over at www.modelshipgallery.com, including a couple that have been converted into the Norway at various stages of her career as a cruiseship.

Regards,

Mike 

Civilian ships in general constitute one of the many glaring gaps in the plastic model industry's coverage of important transporation-related subject.  It actually isn't hard to compile a pretty complete list of plastic ocean liner kits.  Here's an attempt:

Titanic (Revell, Academy [in several scales], Entex, Airfix [reissued Academy] and Minicraft [some being the same kit in different boxes; I can't sort them all out)

Lusitania (Entex)

Mauretania (Airfix)

United States (Revell and ITC/Glencoe)

Brasil/Argentina (Revell - long out of production)

Queen Mary (Revell)

Oriana (Revell)

Queen Mary 2 (Revell and Heller/Airfix)

Queen Elizabeth (Airfix)

Queen Elizabeth 2 (Airfix and Entex)

France (Airfix and ITC/Glenco)

Canberra (Airfix)

Then there are a couple of pretty nice Japanese liners, in the 1/700 "Waterline Series," by Aoshima and Hasegawa.  I particularly remember the Hasegawa Hikawa Maru, a really nice kit that was also released in hospital ship configuration.  I don't recall the names of the Aoshima liners; I think there were two or three of them, but all were essentially reboxing of the same kit.  (I think.)

And Revell has released several tiny 1/1200 liners:  I believe I've seen ads for a Titanic, QM2, and a cruise ship called the Aida.  There may be a few more 1/1200 styrene liner kits out there. 

I imagine some other Forum member will think of a few I've omitted, but those are the plastic liner kits I can remember.  It's not much of a list. 

Revell has demonstrated a little interest in civilian ships lately.  I sure would like to see a series of 1/700 liners from the great age of the Blue Riband - to include British, American, German, French, and Italian liners.  What an enormous potential there is!

Is the Normandie the ship that suffered a fire?

TD4438

Is the Normandie the ship that suffered a fire?

Yep!      Before:

              After:

Very sad set of circumstances. She was a very beautiful ship:

Some years ago a 1/350 scale kit was produced in resin of Normandie.  It was a very low production kit and quite honestly trying to find it would be like trying to find a unicorn.  There are paper models of Normandie available in large scales but nothing in injection molded plastic.  WS

I was nowhere near there when that happened *points up to before and after pics ... I swear ... 

Prof, Tilley is right about the Revell tiny cruise ships. My daughter built the Aida, mainly because of the cool-looking eye and lip decals, but it sure was a tiny little thing!

CARMIKE, you are dead on correct.There is(or was) a 1/200 scale model of the NORMANDIE in paper.I do not know if it is still available though.Since I heard of the DEMISE of PMI ,I haven,t tried to buy paper anywhere but the manufacturers in their respective countries.This ,though isn,t easy.Maybe you can find some of them at model shows at vendors tables.That,s where I found the  1/200 S.M.S. KRONPRINZ and a good 1/200 BISMARK!! Keep trying though.The NORMANDIE can be elusive,but ,not to long back I found a 1/1200 model at a flea market.The seller had no idea what they actually had.Because it was almost pristine I paid my two bucks and went away happy. I usually don,t buy ships that small,but, we are talking about the NORMANDIE here!    tankerbuilder

Hello PROFFESSOR!! I would like to remind you of a small point in the REVELL line up.When REVELL had the BRAZIL and the CANBERRA they also had some that were labeled ORIANA. I bought both at the time and discovered that the nice caramel colored ships were EXACTLY the same EXCEPT the boxes!! The line up of REVELL ships for a time was nice and their S.S. UNITED STATES although difficult for a ten year old with tube glue and a worrisome grandma.(She smelled the glue and thought I was being bad!! ) was a pretty nice model for the time. The REVELL version of the SAVANAH( the NUCLEAR ship) was ,I think the best one ever made!! Oh,did you know you could transplant the SAVANNAH bow onto the BRAZIL??My shelf port didn,t like the wall anymore so when I tried to fix the ships I had to make one out of two.The SAVANNAH was the most damaged and the BRAZIL/ARGENTINA had the bow shattered..Believe it or not the "NEW" BRAZIL looked pretty neat.!!

To my knowledge Revell never did the Canberra.  (The liner, that is; the Baltimore-class heavy cruiser, originally issued in 1954 could be built with the hull number of the U.S.S. Canberra on it.  In 1956 Revell produced a modified version of that kit, "updated" with guided missile launchers replacing the aft main battery turret; in 1960 that kit was reissued as the U.S.S. Canberra.  My source on all this confusing trivia is, as usual, Dr. Graham's book on the history of Revell.) 

Airfix did have a (liner) Canberra on 1/600 scale; it's included in the list I made in a post earlier in this thread.

The Revell Oriana, according to the list in Dr. Graham's appendix, was originally issued in 1961, and reissued again that same year with an electric motor added.  It apparently wasn't one of the company's more popular kits; Dr. Graham lists no further reissues (as of the time his coverage ceases:  1979).  I think it may have appeared once or twice in Revell Germany boxes (which Dr. Graham doesn't cover).  And it was one of several kits that were reissued just recently by Revell Germany under its "50 Years of Revell" program.  As a matter of fact I saw one, with that logo on it, in a hobby shop in Newport News, Virginia, yesterday.

The Revell Brasil kit, according to Dr. Graham, was originally released in 1958 and only reissued twice:  as the Brasil and her sister-ship, Argentina, both in 1962.   (It seems the ship's name used the Portuguese spelling - with an S - and so did both issues of the kit.)  I think it also has appeared under the Revell Germany label at least once - though not recently.  There's one I'd like to see again.  (Dig those little pieces of pressure-sensitive blue-green foil for the swimming pools!)  But it seems ocean liners just aren't popular subjects these days.  I wonder how many Americans under age fifty know what the term "ocean liner" means....

John:

If you go to Flickr and search on "ocean liner" you will get pages of images of cruise ships.  I think that confirms that few people know what an "ocean liner" was.

Like you, I often wonder how kit manufacturers decide on what subjects to model.  The Brasil and Argentina were beautiful ships, but somewhat more obscure than American Export's  Independence and Constitution.  Another kit choice might have been the Andrea Doria (famous for having sunk following a collision with the Swedish American liner Stockholm) and which could also have been offered as her near-sister, Cristoforo Colombo.  Any what not a model of the America to accompany the United States in pre-war, war-time, or post-war configurations?

I bulit both the Brasil and Argentina around 1964 (I also had the good fortune to see the prototypes berthed in New York).  The kit depicted the ships as they appeared from 1957 through 1962.  According to "Great Passenger Ships of the World" Volume 6, by Arnold Kludas, the Argentina and the Brasil were refitted by Bethlehem in 1963 and had an additional deck fitted over the bridge and the dummy funnel lost its observation wings.  The ships were laid-up in 1969, sold to Holland-American in 1972 as the Volendam and the Veendam and refitted as cruise ships.

The foil for the swimming pools was great, although I recall that they didn't provide any for the small pool on the side of the dummy funnel and I had to use some aluminum foil and blue paint - which did not look nearly as neat as the blue foil in the kits.

Mike

Here's one to make the plastic ocean liner enthusiasts (all five or six of us) drool:  a Revell Germany boxing of the Brasil:  http://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php?detail=11553&page=2&cat=Civil%20Ship&manu=Revell .

Take a look at that price...zounds.

It is perhaps significant that Freetime Hobbies - which certainly seems to be one of the better ship model emporiums around - has as one of its ship model categories "Cruise Ships," and illustrates that category with a picture of the Titanic.  (To be fair, the phrase "ocean liners" does appear in the subtitle underneath the picture.)

Well, maybe some day....

A Normandie would be suitable

Nice kit- and further up the page some very fine early versions of the VC2, C3 and T2. Has anyone ever seen the "Long Beach"?

At the risk of advertising my Olde Phogie status again - yes, I built the old Revell Long Beach (the tugboat, that is - as opposed to the nuclear-powered cruiser - which, come to think of it, I also built once or twice when I was a kid) several times.  I always got a big charge of it, and it continues to be one of my all-time favorites.  I have one in my stash - the bright red version with the (probably fictitious) assortment of names currently being marketed by Revell Germany.

To my notion it still stands up pretty well to the competition.  (I especially like the three crew figures - who, suitably modified, made it into the crews of my Bounty and Hancock models.)  Just be sure to chop off those big ugly lugs on the sides of the main deckhouse, next to the maindeck - and fill in the dimples on the deck next to them.  The dimples originally were the locations of the metal screws that held down the deckhouse in the motorized version, and the lugs fit under the screwheads. 

I agree, I also wish somebody would produce this kit in a lager scale. ( I'm too old for the small stuff anymore), also the Ile de france and the andrea doria and on and on

Hi BOB: I do believe that the ILE DE FRANCE is available in paper in 1/200 scale.The CHRISTOFORO COLOMBO was available for a while.Some of the paper models are usually 1/350 and they are nothing to sneeze at!! All these ships can be superdetailed with P.E. and they look great.I have the VATERLAND in both  sizes and some of the others.They also have many cargoliners like the STOCKHOLM was.If you are very brave and have reasonable skills you can use these for patterns and produce the ship out of plastic sheet.I have done a few that way primarily because I changed them to ships the kits DID NOT represent.The CALIFORNIAN is an example of this(REMEMBER HER ???) She sat some miles away as the TITANIC sank!! There is in plastic a very noticeable shortage of liners.When I sailed on the S.S.LURLINE back in the late 60s!( a MATSON LINES ship) they sold the GLENCOE PRESIDENT LINER in a house produced box as the LURLINE!!! The LURLINE was from the same era though.I would like to find a BRASIL or ARGENTINA but not at those kind of prices.Besides I would have to build it,where is the market value then?? Oh well,I do hope you can find something in paper.They are not that hard to build. tankerbuilder

How is the paper Vaterland?  

While it is true that there are few examples of styrene ocean liners that have been produced, I have always wondered why there are so few cruise ships (if any) being produced! With the big boys.... Carnival, RCCL, Norweigein, Holland-America, and many others building "Class" ships, (Carnival's "Spirit" class is the same basic ship as Holland-America's "S" class, etc), creating a large fleet from a single basic kit would be quite possible. Aftermarket folks could have a good time producing the little detail kits that distinguish one ship from another. When a ship gets too old for the major lines, it is sold off to a smaller line and begins a new life in new livery... More possibilities!

With the millions of people who take cruise vacations each year, you would  think that someone would realize that an entire market awaits the first manufacturer who produces the first "Class" ship from one of the big lines.

Hi woodburner: I have got to tell you In 1/200 scale the VATERLAND is huge!!! There are five and one half pages to the hull alone! there are another seven pages dedicated to the rest of the ship. The model is from SCHREIBER and the coloring is a little off ,but magic markers fix that.I so far have used a quarter of a large bottle of ALEENS thick craft glue.One thing I have learned is being a smoker,I have PLENTYof light cardboard to use as stiffeners or panel thickeners.The frames are drawn out on another piece of paper then laminated with the cigarette carton paper on both sides. This definitely makes her strong enough. They also have a cruise liner but of hand I can,t remember what the name of that ship is.Most folks don,t realise that on paper models you don,t glue the frames to the outside skin.It still works well though.   tankerbuilder

Normandie would fill a glaring gap in 1/600 scale by Airfix.

Beats me why both Revell and Airfix did the new Queen Mary when one of them could have kitted the Royal Caribbean 'Oasis of the Seas' .  There is also plenty of scope with Royal Caribbean as many of their cruise liners are sister ships.