It is often quoted, and likely true, that Enzo Ferrari once said that the Jaguar E-Type, or XK-E if you prefer, was the most beautiful car ever built. That was in the early 1960s, but arguably it still holds true today.
A popular subject for model companies, with Revell producing a kit in 1963, a kit many thought might be the one when Revell announced it was releasing a Jaguar E-Type. But a second glance showed the announcement referred to a Coupé, while the old kit was a hard-top/convertible. This is a brand new 1/24 scale kit of the famous Jaguar E-Type Coupé. Heller, Aurora, and Gunze Sangyo have also all kitted the classic sports car.
That original E-type kit was a product of what was originally Revell GB, the second company, after Revell-Canada, to be formed by Revell Inc., outside of the USA. The E-Type was new in 1961, so with Revell GB making several home-grown products — 1/72 scale World War II aircraft, large-scale Spitfire and Hurricane, and small-scale cars such as the Morris Minor, Vauxhall Cresta, and the Jaguar Mk II, what more appropriate choice than the brand-new E-Type. It was also logical to make the kit in 1/25 scale, more common in America, as many XK-Es were sold in the States, especially in California, where they hardly rust, so many have survived intact. In fact, the first cars were made for export, so left-hand drive, the domestic market wasn’t introduced until four months later.
That original kit was - and in many ways still is – good, and could be built right or left-hand drive, with the hardtop in place or the convertible top down. But it’s an old kit – 60 years or so – and was beginning to show its age. The tooling starts to wear and starts to show signs of flash, where the mold halves don’t fit quite as precisely as they did when new. The fit of parts could be varying anyway, so all-in-all, it’s time for a brand-new kit.
Revell has done a very good job with this kit. Features include a movable bonnet — it’s a British car so it has a bonnet, not a hood — that flips forward to show the classic Jaguar DOHC 3.8 liter straight-six engine, independent rear suspension underneath with inboard disc brakes, and steerable front wheels. The last, similar to other new car kits from Revell, such as the Land Rover, is slightly over-sized, but that means the components are far less likely to snap! Personally, I’ll put up this slight sacrifice in scale to avoid constantly trying to cement together an extremely thin tie-rod!
The kit’s 142 parts are molded in red, light gray, and clear plastic, with one chrome-plated runner. Vinyl tires round out the contents. No red or orange transparencies are provided, so you’ll need to tint the taillights and turn signals.
Some subassemblies can be built before painting, namely cementing the engine block halves together, but I left off the oil pan. I also assembled the two-part exhausts, and the front suspension supports and under-bonnet
Revell has you paint most of the underside apart from the rear pan, which is the body color, black. But many images of full-size cars show the underside entirely in the body, except the center around the driveshaft and rear axle that are black.
Optional dashboard and steering column parts allow for either right- and left-hand drive. The washer bottle swaps sides. For clarification, the handbrake doesn’t change sides on the full-size E-Type although the kit gives you the option to change it. Just drill out the ‘LHD’ side for either.
The impressive decals provide a bunch of details for the instrument panel, with some specific to the version you are building, including speedometers in miles and kilometers per hour to cover just about every country. And yes, with a magnifier, you can read all of these details, so it is worth the effort. The complex center panel has optional decals for the four dial, again for either drive setup, and separate decals detail the radio, steering wheel hub, and more — 14 in all. At about 1.5mm in diameter, the smallest has to be the top of the gear shift, but you can read the shift pattern!
Revell molded the body parts in red, one of the traditional colors for the E-Type, though many other stock colors were available. If you plan to paint it another shade, especially a lighter shade, the red may bleed through the paint. Personally, if the final color is to be white, I would paint black over the red first, then primer gray, and finally white.
The windscreen has a separate chrome-plated frame, but the other windows will need Bare-Metal Foil for their chrome surrounds. Oddly, after supplying so many optional parts and decals for the alternative driver sides, the kit’s windscreen wipers are only given for right-hand drive cars. It is possible to swap them, but the blades would have to be separated from the arms and reattached. It’s an odd omission, but maybe someone will make an aftermarket set? (Even odder, and a fact I’d never noticed before, going back to the first Revell E-Type kit it also didn’t swap the wipers around, as they were molded integrally with the window glass, but they were only for a left-hand drive car!)
Separate knockoffs detail the one-piece wire wheels. Typical kit wire wheels, a wash of thin black paint will emphasize the spokes.
Deviating from the instructions in a few spots, I assembled the chassis and interior, rear bodywork, and bonnet separately. With all E-Type kits, fitting the curved bodywork over the interior and chassis pan can be a concern. But it was easy here; use a flat blade to help coax the sides over the edges. Similarly, I assembled the bonnet with the lower pan in place before fitting it to the pins that allow it to open. With care, I snapped it over the pins in front of the radiator.
Decals provide 11 license plates from a variety of European countries, plus a USA plate and a generic E-Type. A separate plate holder can be fitted to the lower opening at the front as there are no flat surfaces. However, many U.K. plates were applied directly on the E-Type’s sloping bonnet. This wasn’t technically legal — plates should be vertical front and rear — though I’m guessing few drivers were pulled over and fined!
It’s interesting to consider why the car is called an E-Type in its country of origin but is better known as the Jaguar XK-E in the U.S. The British designation follows from Jaguar’s C-Type and D-Type racing cars. But the maker’s previous road cars were the XK-120, -140, and -150, and these were very well known in the USA. Consequently, since it could be argued as this is a road car first and foremost, XK-E is more correct? But because of its direct connection to the D-Type, it really is an E-Type, and that is what the badge on the car’s rear hatch says.
Overall, I enjoyed building Revell’s new Jaguar with even the fiddly bits going together well. I tend not to measure just how long I take to build a model as I invariably have several on the go at any one time, but — on and off — I spent about 15 hours on this one.