Ford GT Revell-Monogram No. 0565 Reissue of Aurora kit Molded in White, Black,  Chrome, and Clear Suggested retail: $14.95

General
This model was built out of the box (OOTB) with no paint. I wanted to get to know the kit before I did a super- detailed one. I will be outlining the construction procedure step by step and adding my notes. The instructions have a building sequence beside each step that is helpful in certain areas that are complex, like the suspension and the engine. I have done no research on the vehicle (see below, ed.) so I cannot comment on the accuracy of the kit. Apparently recent articles in Fine Scale and Scale Auto are not 100% accurate. So do your research. No pictures of finished model yet. I doubt there will be any since there is not much to see.

Step 1
No general problems here. "Tunnel" and "Main body floor" (parts 11 and 1) did have sink marks that have to be fixed. A lot of flash on part 1 and some on part 11.

Step 2
The "Upper 'A' arms" (Parts 93 and 94) were a bit tricky to line up. Tweezers are recommended here. "Front shocks" (91 & 92) could be replaced with more detailed items. Watch the alignments of your "Spindles" (Parts 95 & 96) or your tires may toe in or out.

Step 3
Pretty straightforward here except for the "Front air scoop"(part 48). Not exactly sure at what angle this is supposed to be glued on. Save this piece until step 16 when the hood is placed on.

Step 4
"Fuel Pumps" (parts 50 & 51) could be replaced. I had a lot of problems with the "Air scoop" (part 117). I glued it in as I thought it is supposed to go in. Then I tried to fit the hood on but there was interference. To make a long story short I had to cut some tabs on the "Radiator" (part 25) to get the scoop to fit properly.

Step 5
No problem. The "Carburettors (parts 27 & 28) could be more detailed, but afterwards they are pretty well hidden.

Step 6
Sink marks in "Carburettor cover plate" (part 33). This can be replaced with polished sheet aluminium. The "Water and oil inlet pipes" (part 45) stuck out quite a bit when using the mounting holes. This doesn't matter in the final model as they are again hard to see and the plate that goes in front of it will push it into the correct position

Step 7
Exhaust pipes are a bit tricky but go together very nicely if done correctly. Follow the instructions and everything should be OK. Seam lines on the pipes will need a bit of work to clean up.

Step 8
"Engine support Brackets" (Parts 47 and 46) are handed so make sure you have the right one on each side. Engine went in easily. "Gear Shift Lever" (part 13) should be replaced

Step 9
"Muffler" (part 43) has sink marks that have to be fixed. I had a confusing time with placement of the "Engine Cover Support top" (Part 57) for some reason. Diagram wasn't very clear as to where the top portion glues onto. This part glues onto the very top of "Engine support brackets" where the top locating holes are. The muffler had a mounting point to a pin on the gearbox. This has to go in or the rear hood would not fit. My pin was too big so some modifications were needed.

Step 10
Steps 10 and 11 should be done at the same time for the suspension. The suspension parts are small and very fiddly and again tweezers are a must (fingers will not fit here). Plated and non-plated parts are mixed in along with small parts with a lot of flash. Again follow the printed instruction order and take parts off the tree as you need it. Quite a few handed (i.e. left rear 'A' frame) parts. I recommend building one side of the car at a time (in step 10). I made the mistake of completing step 10 on one day and then step 11 on another. There are several suspension parts in step 11 that aid in aligning the suspension all up. Because everything dried nice and hard the "trailing linkages" (parts 6 and 7) in step 11 took a bit of effort to line up .

Tweezer time for "Rear Shock" (parts 71 & 72) and "Lower trailing links " (Parts 67 and 68). Shocks could also be replaced with more detailed ones. I had a lot of problems fitting the shocks in and had to carve away at some of the frame to get it to fit in.

Step 11
"Rear Inboard links" (Parts 69 and 70) needed the tweezers. By mistake I glued the brake drums on. They are supposed to be able to rotate but I didn't see any problems here. Attaching the "rear window" (part 9) to the firewall looks a bit odd but it does fit and can't be seen from the inside when finished.

I recommend completing the front suspension and letting it dry first since this is easy to line up, then start on the rear suspension. Construct the rear suspension with tube glue. This has a longer drying time and you have more time to line up the parts. Do this on a surface you know is flat so you can measure the height of the spindles from the surface and the distance back from the body to makesure both sides are the same.

Step 12
The "Seat" (Part 10) was a tight fit while the rest of the assembly was no problem. The "Instrument panel" (part 19) could use some detailing, but this can't be seen so don't spend too much time here.

Step 13
You might consider replacing the "Spoilers" (Parts 86 & 70) with sheet aluminium or styrene. The ones from the kit fit well, but appear at a very odd angle from other race cars I have seen.

Step 14
The glass covers are a very good fit and the headlight reflectors could be replaced with more detailed ones.

Step 15
Tail lights are an excellent fit but again these should be replaced with ones that look better. A couple of mold seam lines on the engine cover, but this is very easy to clean up. These are actually better than some of the kits today.

Step 16
Here is where it all comes together.
The wheels could use a good wash to tone down the chrome and make the details pop out. Tires fit in OK but the treads are very simple. The "Knock offs" (parts 104) had a lot of flash on them and needed a lot of cleaning up.
When putting the wheels on it turned out that one rear wheel was rubbing the body work and one wheel is 1/8" off the ground. Constructing the rear suspension as recommended in step 11 would solve this.

Front hood assembly clipped in easily and the fit was very good with some small gaps. However due to the position of the air scoop, which I glued in during step 1, the hood could not tip forward enough to hold on its' own. A little muscle helped fix this.

Fearing that the hinges (parts 74 & 75) for the rear hood might break off, I rested one side on the rear headlight base beside it and added some glue. Depending on your preference you might want to try and install the hood now with the glue still soft. This would allow you to bend the hinge slightly to get them onto the model. I waited until the glue dried before installing it. This took some fiddling but they did go on.

There was some worry that with the hinges resting on the headlight base, the positions of the hinges might be incorrect to make the hood work properly. Note: When I got the hood on it appeared that it wouldn't fit properly. But this was due to the back of the hood hitting the exhaust pipes ends. My muffler wasn't installed properly in step 9. When fixed the fit is very good with slight gaps. For its age I would consider the fit of the hoods excellent.
Windows were a very good fit although the side windows needed slight filing on the top front corners to sit in.

Conclusion
For the price of the kit this is a very good bargain, go buy a caseload. The detail and fit of the kit is very good considering the age. Anytime you have opening stuff this introduces areas of problems. With a bit of work these can work very well and look excellent.

Decals in this kit are out of register and should be replaced if possible. I think Fred Cady used to make decals for this car, but I don't know if they are still available

This kit took quite a bit of time to complete considering it is OOTB with no paint. The suspensions have a lot of small parts and steady hands will be needed here. I rarely use tweezers but they are mandatory here. It is a bit fiddly and you have to have a very steady hand. Recommended for the experienced builder only.

Hopefully the aftermarket guys will make a detail kit to make this car look even better. Recommended changes:

1. Replace shocks with scratchbuilt items
2. Drill out exhaust pipes or replace withaluminum tubing
3. Replace headlights, taillights and parking lights
4. Replace Shift lever
5. I was going to say instrument panel but you can't see the thing through the windows,
so don't spend too much time here
6. Add seatbelts
7. Strip the chrome off the suspension parts and repaint
8. replace suspension parts 67, 68 (rear lower trailing links), 81, 82 (torsion links), 6,7 (top trailing links) with brass rod unless you can do a good job of cleaning the seamlines up.
9. Exhaust headers ae not bad but if you wnt to go crazy make new ones out of electrical solder
10. Replacing side windows with something thinner is an option. But if you do this then you can see inside and see the terrible dash
11. Fuel caps look a bit rinky-dink and can be spruced up
12. A windshield wiper would be nice.

Send e-mail to ask@interlog.com
This article is copyright Alex Kung, 1997. Reprinted by permission.

Kit Review by
Kevin Stewart and Tom Hiett

Body

Bodywork is molded in white. The castings are fairly clean, with good panel lines. The clear parts are good, with the exception of the windscreen, which is a bit warped.

Chassis

Chassis pieces are molded mostly in black, with the belly pan molded in white together with the lower body sides. The only obvious sink marks are on the bottom of this lower piece at the rear of the belly pan area.

Engine

The engine consists of 25 pieces molded in black with chrome plated pieces. The individual pieces don't have much engraving, but the whole seems to be nicely detailed and fairly accurate when compared with references for this car. I think the engine is the best part of this kit.

Wheels

Wire wheels are included that look very nice for this type of kit. You can see through them, and with just a little detailing they could be used right out of the box.

Tires

Tires are another story. The rears are particularly bad. They're too big, and the tread is wrong. Time to hit the spares box . . .

Markings

The kit comes with the bare minimum of decals, only the number 10, which is the number for the Bruce McLaren/Phil Hill car from the 1964 Le Mans race. But to build the kit as the 1964 car you would have to make lots of modifications (see Tom Hiett's observations below).

References

• GT40 The Legend Lives On, John S. Allen, Osprey, 1995
• Shelby GT40, Dave Friedman, Motorbooks International, 1995

  This kit represents the earliest Ford GT, as it raced at Sebring and Daytona in 1965. It could also be modified and built as a replica of the 1964 car. On pages 34-35 of GT40 The Legend Lives On there is an excellent picture of the prototype car, showing lots of engine details.

  In Shelby GT40 there are many great photos of the Ford GT as it arrived at the Shelby American shops in December 1964. Both of these books are indispensable references for GT40 fans.

  Also Tom Hiett, our resident GT40 expert, offers his observations about the differences between the mid-1964 and the 1965 cars:

  Although you could backdate the ex-Aurora GT40 to a '64, the nose is quite a bit different. About the last development Ford Advanced Vehicles did was the new nose in December 1964, right before Nassau, which is closest to the nose represented in the kit. '65 was a good year. They got the car sorted out, won their first races, and ran well all over Europe.

  The kit has the December '64 FAV revised nose, but with larger openings and no third (oil) filler cap, no front oil tank, and a wet sump engine, as well as those little scoops over the air inlets in the sides of the back window. With this configuratation, I'd say it's definitely a '65 Shelby car. The wire wheels were only used by Shelby in pre-season testing. After they made the aforementioned modifications, they had room to revise the brake ducting for better cooling, which allowed the use of alloy wheels.

  I always assumed since Shelby did their magic (and a lot of it!) in just a few weeks before Daytona, that they used wheels they had on hand from the Cobras and Cobra Coupes. I don't have any Cobra kits or photos handy to verify it, but if they are the same a Cobra kit of the same scale would provide good replacement wheels.

Buy Rating: 7*

I've heard others dismiss this kit as not being up to today's standards. I agree that it isn't as nice as the Fujimi kits. Of course, the Fujimi GT40s cost more and don't have any engine details, so there's that tradeoff. And I have no idea how this kit actually builds up. It looks like it would go together without serious problems.

I bought this kit without a second thought, because of the subject matter. I also think we should applaud Revell-Monogram for releasing this kit, and support their efforts. If we don't buy these kits, who will? So this kit gets an easy buy recommendation based on subject matter and price performance.

*1-10 scale, 1-5 = don't buy it, 6-10 = buy it.