It's worth noting that (according to Dr. Graham's history of Revell) that old Revell kit was released in 1953 - months before the real Nautilus was launched. The kit designers had no idea of what the real thing would look like; the plans were strictly classified. Three plastic kit companies, Revell, Aurora, and Lindberg, raced each other to get a model of her on the hobby shelves. According to Dr. Graham, Aurora guessed a little better than the other two, but none of them would qualify as a scale model today. But it's an interesting museum piece in the history of plastic kits.
The Revell kit, however, was one of the company's best sellers well into the 1960s.
The designers made it a little more sophisticated-looking than the competition by adding the Loon missile, launcher, and "hangar" tank - none of which the real Nautilus ever carried.