Review - Hobby Design Transkit - Hamann Ferrari California

[agamo]

Hello everybody:
After a long absence because of house remodeling I’m finally back! And well, to resume my hobby activities I will make a review; this will be about the Hobby Design transkit to make the Hamann version of the Revell Ferrari California.

Later I will post the complete WIP for this kit which I think will be a nice addition to my collection and to pair my black Hamann 599 and this time I will use the HD transkit, so I don’t have to make everything from scratch as with the 599; and well let’s do start…

Note:
I’m posting this review here since this won’t be a WIP, but if you consider this should be in another folder, dear Moderators just let me know and I will move it to the right place or feel free to move it, thanks!

The car
Refining super sports cars is more than just business for the company HAMANN Motorsport. Their passion for detail, for something special and unique is the main incentive for extraordinary modifications and now the performance workshop has turned its attention to one of the latest Italian supercars in production, the Ferrari California.


With their modifications, Hamann not only focuses on improving the visual appearance but the handling and agility of the vehicle, the modifications to the body include a two-piece front spoiler with integrated side moldings in carbon-fiber. Hamann also adds custom side vents, new side skirts and a custom rear wing. All the body-kit parts are available in either fiberglass or carbon-fiber. These modifications create room for more performance, so, HAMANN-Motorsport applies their experienced know-how to adjust the motor management, reprogramming the ECU to provide a 20% improvement to the California’s standard 4.3-liter V-8 engine. This boosts the engine output from 460 to 552 horsepower.


Another technical highlight in the offered tuning program is the multi-part 21-inch HAMANN aluminum wheels called EDITION RACE ANODIZED, these black anodized rims with high-gloss polished rim flange emphasize the racing character and these wheels produced in forged technology are extremely light, thus reducing the unsprung mass which noticeably improves both the acceleration and the braking response. The wheel-tire combination is perfectly enhanced by the progressive suspension springs that lower the car by more than an inch.


The Transkit
Last year, HobbyDesign created a transkit to reproduce this special equipment and to complement the Revell Ferrari California, the Revell kit detail is already very good, so the expectations for this transkit are high.

As I mentioned before, I'm a fan of the Hamann transformations, that’s why I choose this kit to pair my black Hamann 599, but first I want to present a detailed review of the transkit, so onto the pics...

Kit: HD03-0072, Boxed in a very attractive package, with a great picture of the real car, the box says “Detail-up set for Revell”, but more than a detail up set this is a transkit…


The kit contains 6 bags; two of them contain the resin parts for the spoilers and side sills, rear spoiler and rear air diffuser, one more bag for the resin wheels with tires, two bags containing the photoetched frets and the last one for the wheels air valves…


The first photoetched fret (A), with a thickness of 0.10 mm, contains brake disk detail, Ferrari and Hamann badges (several sizes), rear cowling license plate cover, rear diffuser tensors, windshield wipers, mesh for vents, engine details as badges and lines of the induction chamber, hose clamps, and covers for the throttle controls, for the interior, luggage belts and seatbelt guides.
The detail on the badges down to the “Pininfarina” and “California” badges is very good…


The second photoetched fret (B), with a thickness of 0.18 mm, contains the radiator faces, disk rotor details, front grill (4 parts), Hamann plates, mirrors, pedals and foot rests, steering wheel shift pads, seat belt latches and buckles…


The resin wheels, including lug detail are a little on the rough side with some flash which will require time to clean up; the tires are extremely soft, but easy to clean, will comment on scale/sizes later…


The resin parts for spoilers and side sills, they are very well molded; no bubbles, small flash, and the parts on my kit do not present any warping…


The instruction sheet is very simple; I think some pictures of the actual parts on the model would help, as well as some pictures of the actual car for reference…


This transkit is made for the Revell Ferrari California whether open or closed version...


I will follow the order suggested on the instruction sheet, so the first part is the front grill, made out of 4 parts, one main frame (Part No 44) to hold everything in place and 3 horizontal sections (Parts 45, 46, & 47), the vertical sections in the frame have to be bent at 90° these sections have grooves for assembly with the horizontal sections which are a little bigger than the thickness of the material, giving some room for later adjustments.
Separating the parts from the fret is very easy since the cut points are very thin and very well marked…


Here the original chromed plastic front grill, the two parts at the top are the kit parts already separated, it is important to bend the PE frame to the plastic frame shape before continuing assembly…


The PE parts match perfectly the original plastic frame.
I feel the PE grill rests a little too deep into the plastic frame, but it can be solved cutting and sanding a little bit more into this part…
The Prancing Horse will be added in further steps…


Now it is time to prepare the intake plenum for some PE detail, so the molded hose clamps are removed as well as the machined stripes in the center (some perforations and plastic details are also added for further detail)…


The hose clamps (Parts No 14) for the air intake plenum are a very nice detail; they look really nice once assembled, the only problem is that the real car has 10 of these, five on each side and the kit only contains 8 pieces!


The hose clamps have some extra material on the adjustment bolt box that makes them look wrong, this extra material can be sanded or filed, but due to the small size of these parts this task is very complicated and requires some very good tweezers…


The machined surfaces of the intake plenum (Parts No 18) are finely reproduced with thin photoetched strips, which require only a little bent at the rear end to fit the intake plenum…


The intake plenum with all the detail added for the machined surfaces including the Ferrari letters (Parts No 26) and the Ferrari crest (Part No 9) at the front, I normally add these parts before paint and latter some careful sanding provides an accurate machined finish…


The PE hose clamps in their position, once the extra material on the bolts is eliminated, the appearance is very good, too bad the kit requires one extra pair…


The covers for the throttle servos (Parts No 51) are a very nice addition! This is the first time I see these parts in a detail kit I must say they look awesome!…


Then the instruction sheet takes us to add some detail to the interior starting with the brake and accelerator pedals (Parts No 37 and 35), these parts have correct shape and engraving and need just to be bent to shape to fit in the plastic pedals which I thinned to improve appearance…


Then the foot-rests in the pedal area, (Parts 38 and 39) fit perfectly over the ones molded on the floor…


The Ferrari badge for the steering wheel (Part 8) it’s a little oversized but anyway it looks well, in these cases I normally perforate the steering wheel to glue it easily from the back…


The center badge installed…


And talking about badges, the instruction sheet marks the installation of the Ferrari badges for the wheels (Parts No 12), the kit also offers Hamann badges (Parts No 63) but they are not mentioned anywhere in the instruction sheet and for this version these are the parts to use…


The Hamann Badge installed…


And now that we are talking about the wheels, this lead us to check the resin Hamann UNIQUE FORGED "ANODIZED” wheels, at first sight the shape is good, there is just the rim thickness which is out of scale, but I know that casting this rims with the appropriate scale thickness would make them too fragile so I think they are Ok…


In terms of quality, a close up shows some flash that is easily removed, but this would take long time to do it since there are 9 double arms per wheel, so, some patience is required here…


In terms of accuracy the wheels have an average diameter of 23.70 +- 0.15mm, so they fully comply with the measures of a 21” Inch wheel (23.66 mm in 1/24 scale), so, considering they are cast resins, I think they’re great.
The width of the wheels averages 14.8 mm equivalent to real 355 mm, this allows adjustments to 245 and 345 mm according to the real car specs, this vehicle runs on 9.0 J X 21 at the front and 12.5 J X 21 at the rear with tires: Front 245/30 ZR 21 and Rear 345/25 ZR 21


Then the tires…
The tires included in the transkit are completely wrong, according to their scale dimensions, they are 272/18 Fronts and 300/18 Rears; too far from what they should be (245/30 and 345/25 respectively), in fact these specs do not exist and they look way too thin, these tires have to be replaced or modified.


The tires have a big protuberance all along the thread width product of the molding process (left tire) but since the rubber on these tires is very soft, it is easily removed (right tire), some patience is required if you want to restore the thread pattern…


Then the instruction sheet take us back to the interior parts, this time is the turn of the seat belt guides (Parts 48), these parts have a nice stitch engraving and require careful bending to make them fit on the side of the seat to give them a natural leather shape…


The belt guide in the seat…


The Prancing Horses… The PE fret (A) includes three pair of Horses in different sizes, parts: 22 (4.56 mm), 20 (2.87 mm) and 13 (2.0 mm)…


The instructions indicate Parts 13 and 22 to go on the seat headrest, but none of them fit in here, parts 13 are too small and parts 22 are too big, so the parts that go to replace the headrest engraved prancing horse are parts 20…


The headrest prancing horse in place, the engraved one was removed…


Next, the rear speaker’s grilles, these parts have the right shape to fit in the rear interior panels; some bending is required to make them perfectly fit…


The rear speaker’s grille in place…


Then the instruction sheet takes us to the steering wheel parts, here the assembly of the original plastic parts, the shift paddles are chromed plastic parts too thick for the scale, so PE parts are more than welcome…


The plastic paddles are removed and the PE parts are bent to shape and installed…


The chromed section of the plastic shift paddles was dechromed and glued to the steering column so we can take a better look at the PE shift paddles…


Another view…


The base of the photoetched shift paddles protrudes between the steering wheel and the steering column, so it is advisable to cut it removing the upper half…


The transkit includes a cover for the rear fascia (Part 19); I clearly do not understand what the purpose of this part is other than correcting the sink marks on the body, I think would be more problematic to use this part than discarding it, because forming it to the shape of the body is not that easy…


The PE part in place, no modification to the body is required…


Another view…


The rear exhaust grilles (Parts 6 & 7) are cut and bent to shape, this is an easy task that becomes easier if you remove the plastic grill entirely; the shape of the PE parts is perfect and the parts fit smoothly into the rear fascia…


The rear exhausts grilles in place...


The instruction sheet takes us again to the interior detail with the seat belt buckles (Parts 41) that assembly very easy resulting in nice detail parts…


The assembled seat belt buckles...


The seat belt latches… the belt guide is very accurate, but the hole in the latch is too long, anyway the resulting part will be very good looking…


Then the belt guides for the rear panel, some bending is required to make them sit flush with the rear panel…


To obtain a better appearance of the belt guides it is advisable to perforate the panels to the guides shape…


The next parts are the side and rear mirrors, (parts 33, 34 and 36) they fit perfectly into the mirror housings so they are almost ready to go, just some polishing is required to make them reflective, this polishing is advisable to make it while the parts are still in the fret to avoid rounding the edges of the mirrors…


Once the polishing job is done, they’re ready to be removed from the fret…


The resulting reflective mirrors…


And well that’s it for now; let me go to take more pics…

To be continued...

[Hemi Killer]

awesome review. thank you

[BVC500]

Nice review. Problem with the wheels besides flash is all the grooving around the inside of the wheel rim.

[auw12]

Ramon product, which means all these science serious and inch perfect treatment ends up in a work of art. I'm a bit surprised that the fitness of this TK is this good, because I have their ordinary California PE set and the fitness made me think it was designed from pure imagination. I'm glad they have improved it. Great review and looking forward to a even greater model. Thanks for sharing my friend.

[da_ashman]

Great Review & Pics!
If you dont like the wheels you could always upgrade to the Cast Metal ones they produced... for 6x the cost of course!

[360spider]

Aaaaa! Ramon is BACK! Awesome review bud, good to have you back.

[RonCla]

Thank you for a very informative review and its nice to see you have received a H/D resin trans kit that has the resin pointing in all the right directions.

[sportracer02]

Nice review !!!

Any idea, why the resin wheels are red?
Nowadays the "injection" marks on the tire patterns should /could be avoided.

I´m looking forward to see the fit of the body parts, f.e. if their length is ok

[nugundam93]

amazing review. the detailed info really makes it a great read.

[Motometalix]

Could you recommend a tire to replace the tires from this transkit?

[agamo]

Thank you Hemmi Killer, BVC500, Tang, Alex, RonCla, Micha, nugundam93 for your nice comments, I'm glad to be back!

Originally Posted by BVC500

Problem with the wheels besides flash is all the grooving around the inside of the wheel rim.

You right, I forgot to comment on that, even when most of that grooving can be removed some of it will remain, tryin to remove it completely would be very complicated.

Originally Posted by auw12

I'm a bit surprised that the fitness of this TK is this good, because I have their ordinary California PE set and the fitness made me think it was designed from pure imagination. I'm glad they have improved it. Great review and looking forward to a even greater model.

Well, so far the fitness is very good, I don't know the other detail set, but as you can see, the parts I have tested so far are Ok.

Originally Posted by da_ashman

If you dont like the wheels you could always upgrade to the Cast Metal ones they produced... for 6x the cost of course!

Way to expensive, I'll stick to the resin ones, LOL.

Originally Posted by sportracer02

Any idea, why the resin wheels are red?

Not a clue, just the wheels are like this.

Originally Posted by sportracer02

Nowadays the "injection" marks on the tire patterns should /could be avoided.

Agree, they're very bad

Originally Posted by sportracer02

I´m looking forward to see the fit of the body parts, f.e. if their length is ok

So far I have checked the length of the side skirts and it seems it is not correct but we will see...

Originally Posted by Motometalix

Could you recommend a tire to replace the tires from this transkit?

I'm working on this, but still I have not found any, if someone can help here will be much appreciated, the problem is that the actual car uses 21" and unfortunately there are not many in scale for this size.

Thank you again to everybody!

[F1Tommy]

Good to see you back Ramon. This looks like another one of your great and amazing builds!! Can't wait to see that Ferrari 64 GTO kit built




Tom Tanner/Scale Designs/Ferrari Expo 2013-Chicago March 2013

[andybmw7272]

Awesome Ramon!

Good to see you back!

Reference I have collected in case you (or anyone else) wants it.
http://public.fotki.com/andybmw7272/...a/inspiration/

Some of it is off the internet, some I got from the local Ferrari dealership who hosted my son and I to go shoot some reference photos which was super nice of them.

Excellent work so far, another masterpiece in the making!
Keep it up!
Andy

[MidMazar]

Nice to see you back and great review. Looks like it could have passed in the WIP section.

BTW Did you use a compound for the pe parts to shine them up or just the sanding sticks?

[agamo]

Thank you Tom, Andy and Mark for your nice comments, great collection of pics Andy thousand thanks!

Originally Posted by MidMazar

Did you use a compound for the pe parts to shine them up or just the sanding sticks?

I used both, after the sanding sticks I used the Finish Tamiya polishing compound.

Ok, now that I’m back, let’s get onto the pics...

The polished mirror faces fitting perfectly into the side mirror housings, they go better mounted on the chromed plastic reflectors, you just need to remove the chrome...


The interior mirror, it also fits perfectly into the mirror housing...


Then the instruction sheet takes us to the radiator faces (part 29) which come together in the same part, so it requires some bending that is easily done...


The dimensions are exact to the plastic part to be replaced so it fits in the fan shroud with no problem...



Then the perforated brake discs (parts 23 and 24), they just don’t fit into the plastic parts! The diameter of the center of the rotors has to be carefully reduced to accept the photoetched part...


And once this is done, the fitting against the caliper is ok; the diameter of the disc is also ok…


To add more detail to the whole assembly, this set includes the center of the rotors (parts 31) which fit against the plastic parts perfectly…



The next part in the instruction sheet is the front Ferrari badge which from starts is way too big, the actual one measures 59 X 30 mm, this in 1/24 scale is: 2.46 X 1.25 mm against 4.06 X 2.37 mm from the HD part, I think this PE badge was designed based upon the decal included in the kit which is also huge and out of scale, below the pictures of the PE part and the actual one, you’ll see that the actual badge fits like 3 times in the space in front of the hood...



Then the screen for the hood (Part 21), this one appears to be a little bit bigger than needed...


And it is bigger, at first glance, it doesn't fit into the inside recess of the hood, if you try to apply it just as it is, it will result very deep into the air intake and it wont be visible from the outside...




So, to make it fit, the PE part requires having the upper border removed whether with file or mototool (easier)...


And the inner area of the hood requires also some very careful carving so you don’t break through the outer side of the hood...


Until the part fits...


Resulting now close to the real thing, the size of the mess pattern in the PE part is a little too big but even so it stills looks Ok...



Next, the grille for what I think is the AC air intake (Part 53), this grille comes molded in the body; (I forgot to take a picture before) so I perforated and removed the plastic closed grille...



The PE part has the exact shape for this cover so the fitting is not a problem...


Then the windshield wipers (Parts 54-59 for style A and 2, 3, 10, 11, 27, 28 for Style B)...
I'm not a fan of the photoetched windshield wipers, the lack of volume of the regular PE wiper blades most of the times makes them look unreal, very 2 dimensional; but in this case, the wipers are comprised of three parts each, one part for the arm and two for the blade, plus, the kit contains two different kinds of wipers A and B.
After checking the reference pictures, the set to be used is the pair shown at the bottom style A, the upper pair will be kept for another project...


The wiper blade requires some careful bending, first you need to curve it a little to conform to the curved upper part of the rubber blade and then bend the body of the blade where it fixes to the arm…


3 bends to 90°…



The resulting blade…



Then is time to bend the wiper arm, 2 bends to 90° and some soft bending along the arm…


The resulting wiper…
Now the problem is the size! It is too short!


Let’s build the other one to check the pair…



And again! It is too short!


Comparing both PE wipers against the plastic ones…


The left blade is shorter by 2.8 mm and the right by 1.2 mm, for the arms the difference is bigger…


When installed in the vehicle the difference is very noticeable…
The level of detail of these wipers is awesome, it is a shame that the size of the parts is wrong, I mean, you can still use them, but if you want an exact replica, you will need to modify these PE wipers, may be using the plastic arms and the PE blades you can get something closer to the real thing…



The other style of wipers included in the kit (Parts 2, 3, 10, 11, 27, 28) looks nice…


They look nice, but the curvature of the blades does not match the curvature of the windshield…



And then moving forward into the instruction sheet, the next part to check is the Prancing Horse for the front grille (Part 22), again, a little bit oversized, but fortunately not too much, less than 1 mm bigger, it still looks right…


The license plates (Parts 42) have very nice PE engraving and the size is perfect against the rear license plate holder (the Revell kit includes only the rear plate holder)…




Then I step into 4 frustrating parts, the rear diffuser tensioners (Parts 62), I just can’t find the way they should be bent…


The instruction sheet indicates bending 180° along the vertical axle so I gave it a try this way…



The resulting parts are not convincing, maybe they should be bent in a different way, I just can’t figure it out I wouldn’t use them…


Then, some very interesting parts, the AC vents for the dashboard (Parts 1)…


The size is perfect, but using them and obtaining a good result is kind of tricky, you can remove the detail from the dashboard air vents and add the PE parts, but the result would be a flat AC vent which won’t be really an improvement to the plastic molded part…


The best way to go with these parts is to perforate the AC vents in the dashboard removing only the diffusers not the outer bezels (drill #42 / 2.37 mm)…



Then carefully, with a thin saw cut the bezels and separate them from the AC vents…


The bezel removed and the PE part, it would be a very nice addition to this transkit the metallic bezels like those included in the HD detail set for the Mercedes SLS…


The resulting AC vent, you just need to add a little knob in the center to bring it to life!


And the last photoetched parts to add are the dashboard badges (Parts 50 and 59), first the “California” badge and then the “2008 F1 World Champion” commemorative badge, both have the right size and shape…


The transkit also includes the luggage belts (Parts 4) which aren’t mentioned in the instruction sheet, but to use these parts, the rear seats in the Revell kit have to be heavily modified, anyway these are a nice addition, and these are also the last photoetched parts in the kit…


And then the last metallic parts in the transkit are the valve stems for the wheels that are aluminum turned parts; I must say these little pieces are great!


The valve stem installed in the wheel, a small perforation (with drill #79) is required, you’ll require also a lot of care and patience, due to the small size of these parts (1.4 mm long and 0.6 mm diam) losing them or sending one into orbit with the tweezers would be very easy…


And the last parts to review are the 5 resin parts including all the Hamann aerodynamic elements, these parts will be reviewed in the next and last installment…


Thank you very much for your patience and see you next time…