Kit: No. 24200
Scale: 1/24
Manufacturer: Tamiya, imported by Tamiya America, 2 Orion, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656-4922, phone 800-826-4922
Price: $22
Comments: Injection molded, 77 parts (4 rubber, 4 vinyl), decals, die-cut window masks.
Like its lumpy predecessor, there’s no mistaking Volkswagen’s New Beetle for any other car. Immediately familiar and immensely popular, VW’s New Beetle has been flying off showroom floors since its introduction. Although its shape is similar to the classic, VW’s New Beetle is the mechanical opposite of its older sibling: Its in-line, water-cooled four-cylinder engine goes in front, driving the front wheels. With 115 horsepower available, the New Beetle scoots from 0-60 in 10.6 seconds, and a hold-onto-something 150-hp turbocharged version is on its way.
Tamiya’s New Beetle is a curbside kit – no engine-compartment detail is provided beyond what you can see from the bottom of the car. Molded in black plastic, the chassis provides plenty of detail with a minimum number of parts, and everything fits together nicely. The separate exhaust system made things easier to paint; a molded-in one would have been a nightmare to mask around. The front wheels are poseable, and polyvinyl caps hidden in the brake discs hold the satin-chromed wheels in place while allowing them to turn.
Molded in bright yellow styrene, the body has separate hood and trunk lids, side-view mirrors, and door handles. The body represents the home-market version of the car, which differs from the U.S. version in small details, notably the license plates and front and rear side-marker lights. The yellow plastic is close to the factory color, so instead of painting the body, I polished it to a high shine with Novus No. 2 plastic polish. Afterward, I airbrushed the inside of the shell flat white to guard against the black interior components showing through the translucent plastic.
To make painting the trim around the inside edge of the windows easier, Tamiya supplies a small sheet of thin self-adhesive die-cut masks. Although the masks worked well on the flat rear-quarter windows, I had trouble applying them to the concave surfaces of the windshield and rear window. To remedy the problem, I cut the centers out of the masks, leaving a 1/4″ border. This made the masks more flexible and easier to apply to the windows’ complex curves. I replaced the cut-out center sections of the masks with frisket film.
The masks matched the outline of the engraved window trim fairly well, but I wish Tamiya would have included a sheet for the extensive trim on the outside surface of the side windows. I installed the windows using Micro Kristal-Kleer applied with a fine brush.
The 14-piece interior features a well-detailed dashboard, complete with a clear-plastic bud vase. Decals are provided for the instrument cluster, the steering-wheel badge, and the speaker grilles.
The body snaps securely over the completed chassis and interior. The chassis is narrower than the body; both sides have a 1/8″ gap between the chassis and the lower edge of the body. If I build another New Beetle, I’ll fill the gap with styrene strip.
Tamiya provides plenty of detail parts for the exterior of the car including separate windshield wipers, door handles, and chromed faces for the side-view mirrors. Chromed VW emblems are provided, but they’re too big to fit into the recesses molded into the body. I sanded quite a bit off the back of both of them, and they’re still not flush with the body as they should be.
The front and rear indicator lenses are included on the tree of clear parts. I painted them with Tamiya’s clear red and clear orange paint from the back, then airbrushed on a coat of silver paint to make them more reflective. All of the lenses fit perfectly; I installed them with thinned Micro Kristal-Kleer.
The side indicators are molded onto the body. I covered them with self-adhesive chrome foil and brushed on clear orange paint to simulate the lenses.
The finished model captures the look of the New Beetle, but the Michelin tires provided with the kit look a little small. The model scales out nicely when compared to dimensions published in Road & Track’s April 1998 road test. I spent around 20 hours on my New Beetle, about what I expected. With all its small detail parts, it might not be the best choice for a beginner, but intermediate modelers should be able to add it to their collections easily.
– Matthew Usher