Background:

A cracking looking WRC car, in a fantastic livery, from the best (in my opinion) era of rallying. And it's McRae. The only thing it really lacks is a championship, and a re-release from Tamiya to stop those prices spiralling further out of control.

Kit review:

Pros:

Usual high Tamiya quality of moulding. Lots and lots of detail - for example moulded parts of bits of the engine to sit under the bonnet vents, and a jack and wheel nut spanner in the interior. Driver co-driver figures included too. All fits together perfectly and easily except one thing, as below.

Cons:

The rear windows are a bit tricky. They fit perfectly into their holes, but there's nothing to hold them there. If you're averse to decalling and curved masking, there's a lot of the former (over 100 decals) over some tricky multi-direction surfaces, and some of the latter for that rear blue area. I'd also have preferred the Telefonica/Movistar decal over the roof-rear wing to be on-transparent and spray the blue myself.

Verdict:

Fantastic, albeit a lot of work, even for a rally car.

Build notes:

Built over the course of 6 weeks in June-August 2024. I added some seatbelts, a microphone each for the driver and co-driver, some photoetch bonnet and boot pins, the curving pipes behind the x-member behind the front grille, air valves in each wheel and two aerials made from flower-arranging wire. There's really nothing else it needs that you don't already get. The only change I made to the kit was to use the second door mirror on the co-driver's side. It's in the kit but this car at the Monte Carlo didn't have it. However I dislike asymmety, so on it went. 5 or 6 of the decals split into two or three pieces as they came from the backing sheet - certainly due to age. I managed to rescue them all with some care and luck.

---