Kit:

ABC Brianza 1/24 Ferrari 340 Mexico 53’Carrera Panamericana

Pros:  

Very nice P/E parts, accurate body, simplified construction and decent fit makes it a very nice kit for first time resin builders. Amazing decal sheet, with 99% correct markings. Decals are very thin and respond good to setting solution (Microsol). Good wire wheels with aluminum rims and very nice tires.

Cons:

Many holes and bubbles in resin castings that need filling and sanding. It took me several days to fill and sand them all. Curbside. Simplified chassis, no suspension details to speak of, and no brake detail of any kind, which is definitely a con with such beautiful wheels. Headlight lenses provided in the kit were 2mm smaller than bezels, maybe just my kit? Awful hand drawn instructions with absolutely no color guide. No decal placement guide.

Verdict:

Because of poor instructions, assembly involves a lot of guesswork and test fitting, which together with lack of good reference makes it such a pain! When you start building a resin kit, you expect some cleaning and filling work, but this one was just terrible. A lot of drilling out bubbles, filling and sanding. But with accurate overall body proportions and great decals completed model looks good, plus this is the only 1/24 model of Chinetti’s Carrera Panamericana legendary Ferrari 340 Mexico.

Chassis plate is very simple in this kit. I flocked floor to simulate the carpet (although I'm not sure this car was ever carpeted). Chassis plate was painted with WM Color Place flat black spray.

Steering wheel and column are one-piece white metal casting that required a lot of clean-up. After painting, the rim of the steering wheel was detailed with very thin stripe of BMF and tiny dots of silver paint to simulate the  rivets.

Chassis is a very simple resin casting of average quality with holes for exhausts and two blobs of resin slightly reminding an oil pan of mighty Mexico engine and its transaxle! Exhausts were painted with Testors burnt metal metalizer and fitted with polished aluminum tips.

Finally, the dashboard was glued to the interior. The whole assembly slides over the seats glued to the chassis.

Seats are molded quite nicely. They were cleaned, primed, and painted with Tamiya semi-gloss black.

Slots for the rear axle were  too big, and rear wheels were sitting very low. I made two brackets from a soda can to keep them on the required level. Brackets were glued to the chassis with superglue.

Here is the chassis with installed PE pedal assembly and seats. Interior with dashboard just slides on top of it and sandwiches rear axle between chassis and interior.

After painting and decaling, inside of the body was painted Tamiya flat black with wide brush.

Another view of the chassis. Simple as this kit is, it portrays the original very well, cause 340 Mexico was stripped down to the bones racer.

I painted wheel arches flat black as well. I’m not sure if they were painted black on real car, but since model has photo etched wire wheels, painted arches look much better.

Picture of the interior with attached spare wheel assembly. Belts holding the wheel were made from real leather and PE buckles. The assembly was quite challenging – but it looks amazingly real!

On this picture you can see bizarre Michelloto door wings, and rear brake cooling ducts. They both PE pieces on the model, and cooling ducts were attached before painting and then reinforced with putty and sanded flush with the body.

Kit wheels are very good, but very delicate pieces. Several wires were slightly bent, and required fixing. Tires are “no name” but high quality with accurate thread pattern. I also added brake drums made from thin plastic painted Testors burnt metal metalizer.

Glass is made from clear styrene that came with the kit. I used PE window trim as a guide to cut it from the plastic sheet. Wipers are very nice photo etched pieces. Hood straps were also made from real leather supplied with the kit.