Model Expo seems to have gotten out of the plastic kit business. I'm sure other web dealers carry the Heller line - but I'm not so sure the Soleil Royal is in production at the moment. E-bay may be the best place to look.
We've discussed this kit at some length elsewhere in the Forum, and I feel obliged (maybe wrongly) to summarize briefly some of the points that have been made about it (by others as well as me). I built the kit when it was new. In those days I didn't have the sense to do my homework in advance; I spent about two years on that model before I encountered some contemporary illustrations, and some photos of the Musee de la Marine model. When I compared them with my model I was pretty upset. Maybe I can prevent somebody else from having a similar experience.
The basic problem with this kit is that it dates from fairly early in Heller's existence. (If I remember correctly, it was originally issued in 1975 or 1976.) At that time Heller's sailing ship kits were notorious for combining beautiful artisanship with historical nonsense. I get the impression that the people running the company were attracted to sailing ship models with elaborate decorations because they looked nice, and filled an otherwise empty niche in the plastic kit market. It seems, though, that the people who designed the kits knew next to nothing about ships.
The "carved" details on that Soleil Royal kit surely are among the finest things of their sort ever seen in the industry. In detail, proportions, and artistic subtlety they rival the finest carvings on the old English "Board Room" models. That's the highest compliment I can pay.
The other side of the coin is that, in terms of its resemblance to a real ship, the kit is pretty awful. In another thread Michel passed on some information from a book about the history of Heller, which said the kit was based on a "bakelite model" (whatever that is) by an individual whose name I've forgotten. That individual apparently took a casual look at some contemporary drawings, and at the big (but unfinished) scale model of the ship in the Musee de la Marine, in Paris. I have no idea how the process of designing the kit actually worked, but somewhere along the line the concept of scale reproduction apparently flew out the window. Apparently nobody looked at an actual set of plans, or even took measurements of the Musee de la Marine model.
The kit's hull is severely distorted, especially below the waterline. (I question whether a real hull shaped like that would float - at least at the waterline that's marked on the kit parts.) The massive ornamentation of the stern is badly messed up; Heller missed the fact that there's supposed to be an open balcony on each side of the ship. The structure of the bow is a sad joke. (The Musee de la Marine model is unfinished; it lacks its figurehead and all the carvings behind it. Heller provided a believable figurehead, but left an enormous hole in the knee of the head behind it. If the real ship were constructed like that, the bow would collapse.) The deck planks are ludicrously wide, and all the decks are perfectly flat. (Real ships, with extremely rare exceptions, don't have flat decks. The decks are cambered - that is, they curve gently upward toward the ship's centerline.) I'm pretty (though not absolutely) sure that the spar proportions are off; if those in the kit are right, it was impossible to strike the fore topmast. (I suppose it's conceivable that the real ship was built that way, but it seems extremely unlikely.) The belaying pins have sharp points. (Utter silliness.) The kit provides no means of fastening the yards to the masts. (Apparently they're just supposed to hang there.) And so forth.
Then there's the matter of the instructions. I hope Heller isn't packaging the kit with the same English translation that was in the one I bought. That curious document apparently had been written by somebody who neither understood French nor had attempted to build the model. And the rigging diagrams were sheer nonsense.
Different strokes for different folks; some modelers have different priorities than others. If anybody wants to tackle this kit as an exercise in creating a quasi-historical decoration, it's not for me to tell that individual not to do so. But potential purchasers of the kit need to know what they're buying. It's hard to reconcile this kit with any reasonable definition of the phrase "scale model."
The modeling press (including a review I wrote at the time) publicized the problems with the kit, and shortly thereafter Heller's sailing ships started to improve dramatically. (I have no idea whether anybody in the Heller office read my review, but some sort of major change in corporate philosophy seems to have taken place at about that time.) The next sailing ship Heller released, if I remember correctly, was the galley La Reale, on 1/75 scale. That one, in my opinion (though I don't claim to be an expert on French galleys), is a masterpiece. The carved detail is just as good (and almost as voluminous) as that of the Soleil Royal, and this time the designers took the trouble to work from a set of plans. By the time Heller got around to its 1/100 H.M.S. Victory, the designers had figured out what scale ship modeling is about. That kit has some problems (there's still no means of fastening the yards to the masts), but it indisputably ranks as one of the finest representations of that ship in kit form - and surely is one of the best ship model kits ever produced.
Heller has made some nice kits. I haven't seen all of them by any means, but I can enthusiastically recommend La Reale, the chebec, and H.M.S. Victory. (I don't recommend the latter as a first, second, or third project, but it's an excellent kit for experienced sailing ship modelers.) In the context of scale modeling, though, I can't recommend the Soleil Royal to anybody.