1956 Austin Healey 100-Six

[Plastheniker]

Hi,

The truism “More perfection - less fun” is true for 1:1 cars as well as for model kits.
I am always delighted when I have a reissued kit from the early days of styrene kits on my work-table. Opposite to the nowadays almost perfect Fujimi/Hasegawa/Tamiya shake-the-box kits they are still a challenge, and they have mostly unique subjects. If the finished model is presentable this is first of all the achievement of the modeler and not of the kit manufacturer’s engineers.

This said it is probably understandable that the following model is one of my favourites among more than 100 finished passenger car models that I still own.

It is a 1991 Matchbox re-release of Revell’s 1956 Austin Healey 100-6 first released in 1959. The latest reissue by Revell was in 2010.
I started my kit immediately when the 1991 Matchbox re-release was available.

My kit had the typical features of those early days: a multi-piece body, opening hood and boot lid, two-piece soft plastic tires, solid plastic “spoke” wheels. As I read recently: “This kit is not for the faint of heart”.
Actually the overall quality of the kit is amazing if you consider that it is almost 60 years old, so it really deserves to be reissued again and again .
Nevertheless for an acceptable result a lot of modifications are necessary. Really indispensable are realistic tires and real wire wheels.
I chose a typical and in my opinion the most attractive colour combination of the original car. I hope you agree.

[beaver63]

Excellent work.

[Martini Man]

very nice work, i do like that color combo.

Paul

[quadzero]

Beautiful.

[Kjenjak]

That looks like a true masterpiece!

[LeeABC]

Looks great.

[rgriffs]

that's cute, it looks real. my favourite colours too.

[Matwej]

A great result of hard work ..
Excellent clean work.

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

Gorgeous! What wheels and tires did you use? I have the same kit, and a restorable race version.

I also have a rare white metal 1/24th scale kit that's going to be a bear to build, but should be really nice when done.

[chris24]

A jaw-dropping 60 years old kit. Never thought it could be possible. But you're so right : to reach such an achievement with a Tamiya kit is so easy but so much less rewarding compared to this one.

[Mech@niC]

Wow....you made a very nice looking Austin of this old kit.
I think I have 1 in my stash aswell.
But mine (when I ever build it) will be a race or rally version I guess.
Atleast with racing numbers on it.

[Plastheniker]

Thanks for the comments!

Originally Posted by ZoomZoomMX-5

Gorgeous! What wheels and tires did you use? I have the same kit, and a restorable race version.

I also have a rare white metal 1/24th scale kit that's going to be a bear to build, but should be really nice when done.

As mentioned I built this model 25 years ago.
I only remember that I replaced the unusable kit tires by suitable tires from my spares box, but I have no idea from which kit they originally came from.

IMO the appearance of models in 1/12 or smaller scales is completely spoilt if modelers fit those plastic "wire" wheels of the kit. Even the best kit rims (in 1/24 Fujimi and, surprisingly, Protar) have thick spokes entirely out of scale.
In most cases you cannot replace them by aftermarket photoetched parts because you must be very lucky to find the appropriate size for your project. Compromising regarding the correct rim size makes things even worse. Moreover PE wires are expensive, and IMO it is doubtful , if adding purchased parts to nowadays almost perfect kits can still be called modeling.
This is why all my 1/24 and 1/25 models with wire wheels (except the E-Type I showed recently) have hand-laced wires.

[corrrado]

You did an absolutely great job with this kit! I totally agree with you that bringing an old kit to nowadays level is more challanging, more fun and not at last more modeling in the classic meaning than "shaking together" a recent kit. Btw, I also plan to do the 3000 rally version from the 60's.

[model freak]

Awesome!