Hi Harry, those pesky big marks are actually called ejection pin marks. They are the pins that push the part out of the tool. I have the new Italeri Lancia Delta Integrale. That thing is £240 GBP and is no different to what you have found in the 500!! Weak plastic suspension components with moulded on pins of 1mm diameter, AND heavy rubber tyres. Ejector pin marks everywhere, there are 22 on the hood alone!! Oh, and all the body parts are covered in sink marks. When you compare it to Tamiyas old 1/12 Porsche 934/935 for around half the price, or some of their 1/12 F1 cars for £100 GBP, it's a bloody joke.
Ha ha, so I have been told.. many friends said fill it full of rust and leave it broken down with the wheels off! Which if it was my kit I could have done, but it was a commission build to look like Jasons car from his youth
Have found that Italeria kits are a cat of a different color! Some good some just bad! I understand the let it stand and things just break! I have a Italeria Sherman and it’s the only 1/35 tank model that sheds parts just sitting in the shelf! Well, all the best to you Sir!!
@James Lochridge oh no the horror! Either replace anything thin which needs to support weight with a metal rod. Or expoy glue things so they never come loose or break!
I think I would have cut some clear posts for the bottom of it for support. Maybe 2 down the center. I've built a couple aircraft that needed it because all the weight was in the back to it would tip. Works great for display. You had a good go at it and most times even the best builder like yourself can't fix manufacturing mistakes. Keep up the good builds!
That has been a frequent suggestion… if it had been my kit, not a commission job with no budget, I would have epoxy glued up all moving parts and added supports on a base..
There are kits manufactured that are never meant to be made. If you went to italeri, you'd not see that kit in their showcase. I'd bet money. That suspension looks horrendous. Awesome video, Harry.👍👍
I've built many italerie kits, let me say it was a love/ hate relationship. just finishing up their f-14 tomcat on commission it is just horrible. I would rather build the Tamiya tomcat, even though the Tamiya kit cost as much as 3 times the cost the Tamiya kit is so much better in engineering and accuracy. And is a joy to build.
There you go… if Tamiya works for you great… I am yet to find an Italscary kit I’ve enjoyed building, and I don’t mind some fettling or scratch… but really poorly designed kits with just sloppy fit don’t float my boat.
Just got done building it myself, was looking to see if anyone had managed to get it to work as advertized. While I couldn't make the front suspension move, or the wheels roll, I feel like calling it the worst kit ever is a bit harsh. I found the build very pleasent, if a little tricky at times, I was able to make the doors open/close and I managed to botch a solution to make the steering moveable . I do think it overpromised, but it's deffinately not the worst kit I've built (even if we don't include the Airfix Lancaster that came with completely incompatable fuselage halfs from different varients)
Pfft. Let me introduce you to AMT.... the 68 Shelby GT-350 damn near made me loose my will to live. All the ejector marks and sinks of your Italeri, and nothing fits, absolutely nothing. The front and rear clips are about 2mm wider than the body ON EACH SIDE and look like they came from a completely different car. There's more putty than plastic trying to get these parts to line up. If you manage to build it rather than chuck it at a wall or set it on fire, the front end sits so high it looks like it must have come out of a 4X4 pickup. I have refused to buy an AMT kit since.
I'm not Australian so I don't know the lingo but what is a "Nigmare"? I did watch the video, you did say "nightmare" but I was wondering if that's the Aussie way of spelling it. Sorry for the Fiat model build. Like the real world, some are drivers and some are for show.
Australians tend to drop the T on most words, but good typo pick up.. 30 thousand others, including myself, missed it. I will have a chat with my art department then have them all flogged.
Well , I guessed right . I remember all your trials and tribulations . Can't say you didn't give it the ol' college try before you gave it the ol' heave ho . I binned my Shelf Queen Group Build . Just couldn't deal with it . I did really enjoy the Italeri DUKW and AB41 Autoblinda I built last year . Back in the 1980's , I built the Italeri M47 Patton tank . Great kit for that time . Then , I built their M109 self propelled howitzer . What a disappointment. Some fit problems and lots more molded on detail , whereas the M47 had lots more separate detail parts . Carry on , mate , you've had a really bad one . But think how much better everything else will seem .
I've built many Italieri Kits since the 1970's. I have a love/hate relationship. Love the choices of builds, hate assembly. Plastic thin, brittle, snaps etc but they had the only models of particular vehicles. Many were tossed because of bad fit issues, brittle parts, etc.....glad to know they haven't changed in 40 some odd years
The sad part of all this , There are different grades of plastic some are fairly strong. Clearly they use the cheapest weakest plastic they can find. Sounds very Euro to me.
No no, the worst kit is the Revel 1/48 P-61 Black Widow . I've tried 3 separate times to build that damn thing and it always beats me 😂 . I have one in the stash and one day I will take it on LOL 😂
If that is the kit I'm thinking of, it's an antique. A real dinosaur. IIRC it was first a Hawk or Aurora, then Monogram had their hand at it. HUGE raised rivets and panel lines, transparencies that were blobby and did not fit well, and you needed to forgoe the "detailed" nose radar to fill the nose with lead to get it to sit square, or use the clear "kickstand".
Well, i love especialy the old motorcycles serie of Italeri (Esci) and i find it very good. Same problems with them like wrong injecting points etc but, with a little bit work about it, they finaly becomes great models. And, like you say, don't try to move any moving part, it's not a toy, it's a model to store under a strong showcase. (excuse my english, i'm french) :o)
Your English is fine Daniel… those reboxed Esci motorcycles can come up well, but they were kits designed many years ago. The Italeri Fiat is a newly tooled kit from only a few years ago, so they have no excuse for the poor design.
@@HarryHoudiniModels They still use the same design procedures... at least in Italy... My best results from Italeri kits are rebadged ICM models from Ukraine. I've had good results with the older Italeri military models - using Tenax or more often Plastruct's original Plastic Weld solvent cements, which contain methylene chloride... not sure which brands are available in Australia, but you may need to buy a suitable solvent cement from an acrylic plastic shop.
Thanks for the information Harry. I’m into WW2 planes after a long rest from modelling. For Christmas, my beautiful little daughter got me a Henschel Hs 123 bi-plane from Italeri. Well…where do I start? Many parts didn’t fit properly. There were huge gaps that needed filling and sanding. Plus so many little circles on the parts…(I forget the correct term). They all needed filling. In the end I got it finished, and now I’m up to the weathering stage, but the build itself was not pleasant. I only continued with it because my 13 year old wanted to see the finished product and was happy when it was painted. Goodness it was tough! I won’t be buying Italeri again in a hurry. Thanks again for your channel. 😀
If you want a good version of the Hs 123 then I would suggest the GasPatch kit. www.scalemates.com/kits/gaspatch-models-48096-henschel-hs-123-b-1--1080700
Thanks so much for your feedback and I’m grateful for your link to to the other Henschel. I will check that out. I’m enjoying you videos. Yep, the Italeri was a challenge. My daughter said that the guys at the shop told her it would be a challenge. I figured the build itself would be the challenge. Nope%! It was the bloody kit itself. Poor workmanship etc. Anyway, I eventually got it built, and my little girl is happy.
I steer clear of kits with functioning parts. The tolerances just aren't there at such a scale to work properly. Plus it's a car model.......not my cup of tea. Sorry for your bad experience. I like Italeri kits. I've built a lot of them and have never ran into the type of trouble you had. I'm glad the bad experience didn't put you off of models all together. Keep having fun Brother. Carpe Modellum!!! Bill
It was not a subject or kit of my choice, just a commission job I was talked into for someone else. If it had been my kit I would have left the wheels falling off, rusted it out, and added a mechanic scratching his head.
I haven't built that kit but I'll definitely stay away from that one. My nightmare is Revell's 25th anniversary Apollo 11 Saturn V in 1/95 scale. I started it three years ago. I have spent twice the cost of the kit on after market stuff. The kit is so bad that the decals were wrong, the painting guide lines were incorrect. It came wwith a block I command module where Apollo 11 had a block II. The 1st stage engine cowling was completely different than the actual ones. There are so many errors and poorly designed pieces that a person could do several videos on just what is wrong with the kit.
Absolutely love your description of losing your mojo and the kit having the gazonka !! I've been lucky enough not to have had a kit give me problems like this but I did have a real car give me the gazonka 😂🤣😂 Cheers from Florida mate !! Thoroughly enjoy your channel !!
I agree with your assessment. They are good looking kits,but putting them together can lead to excessive expletives. Also Miniart kits, they're very detailed and look fantastic, but putting them together can also lead to expletives.
Italeri Tiger 1 World of tanks edition is when I gave up on Italeri, I didn't like the softness of the plastic, nor the many mistakes in the manual, nor the downright stupid design choices in the kit's assembly. Don't get me wrong, I have seen similar in Eastern Express and Revell, but those companies charge me half as much for their kits (especially when you get them on discount) and they don't do it to that extent. I feel price does come with a form of expectation, and really it's a matter of paying for those features/aspects of the kit that we are interested in. For me and you that means not paying for time saved during building.
The kit does suck, and when you get to the final fittings, the wheels naturally sag in real time from the weight of the windows. I helped a friend make it (he got so frustrated with it that he had a hammer next to him and he would occasionally say "get in you bastard or I'll smash you into little pieces"). We looked on the net to see if we could get better aftermarket suspension parts, but nothing. In the end, it "fell" off a shelf, and broke, and he was happy about it. Terrible kit.
The worse I had were AFV Club kits. Poor directions, molding issues, and wrong parts. I have a US Army M60 and it came with German panzer tracks. I will never buy another AFV kit.
Oh noo, I have in my stash not one but two Italeri Fiats. The 500L and the 695SS. Now I see why some people call them "SHITALERI". After your frustration I don't want to battle with the. I bought them because I am a fan of the Fiat 500. Will try to sell them. 😢
Sorry to hear that Ricardo.. you could always ask someone to build it for you, preferably someone you don’t like so won’t miss losing them as a friend.
I watched another one of your videos where you talked about how much you disliked Tamiya kits because you thought they were too easy and everything fit together too well. You went so far as to say there was no challenge. Evidently this Italeri kit was more of a "challenge" than you were looking for. lol
I did not mind the fettling, but to have to repair this piece of rubbish every time I tried to work on it, when the sheer weight of paint on the body resulted in the fragile, not up to task, plastic suspension crumbling into broken fragments was just too much. It might be scale accurate, but styrene ain’t up to the task here. So yes, far too much of a frustrating challenge, with no moving forward after a repair, just another repair the next day.
@@HarryHoudiniModels When I was in the US Navy, my carrier's "second home-port" was Naples. As an 18 year-old freshly minted Sailor, seeing some of the world for the first time, I got so tickled seeing those tiny "wind-up cars", cruising the streets of Naples, with four or five robust Italians somehow crammed inside, and the damn-near REQUIRED sunroof wide-open, so the driver could stand-up and give generous gesticulations in accompaniment to the running traffic reports yelled to all and sundry in the immediate vicinity. It was fun to watch.
I've only built one Italeri kit, the 1/72 scale Zweilling" glider tow aircraft, which was made from two Heinkle He-111 bombers joined using a common wing center section. The real aircraft was certainly unusual looking, & made for an interesting model. I built the kit in the early 1980's, & was a bit challenging, as I recall. One of the issues was that the kits interior parts often had inadequate attachment surfaces for proper locating, & for a strong glue joint, resulting in questionable part orientation & unsecure attachment. Example; the engine nacelles were single pieces that were glued to the front of the flat, featureless engine bulkheads, with no locating pins, as I recall. The kit had had about 8 machine guns, which were very fragile (& were broken many times). That was a kit I just wanted to finish & be done with. The detail was mediocre to average, I suppose, even by standards of the early 1980's. I have never built another Italeri model, although I have considered buying some of their kits, but only for the subject matter, not for "superior quality".
Italeri can be quite hit and miss. My Fiat should have been a good kit with all the engineering that went into it. But sadly the sum of the parts left a lot to be desired.
Thanks for sharing the video. It is difficult to believe that there is a worse car kit than the AMT 1967 Pontiac GTO 1:25 scale. But the real bad thing with this Italeri is the price you pay for the kit. AMT is also bad with its 1:16 scale Pontiac Firebird, it is almost impossible not to get saggy doors and the wheels attachment is of very poor quality.
Yes Seri you can forgive a cheap kit for a few fit issues but pay $200 for what looks like a well engineered kit, only to find it’s a pile of rubbish is very upsetting. Glad it wasn’t my money, only my time that was wasted.
I had or still have a ICM 1:48 BF 109F-2 kit no 48803 it looks good panel lines clean etc but once you try to get it together nothing fits , you line up the 4 engine mounting points you stick them in , you have guides on the struts you cant get it wrong but f me the engine is crooked the cowling wont fit over the engine tried taking the blower off the side of engine still wont fit. Going to turn this piece of crap into a crashed 109 not that i like wrecking a kit , what i am worried is i have 3 other ICM kits of He111 and do 217 and do 17 have i got 3 more lame ducks, Shouldve bought Tamiya kits maybe
I think ICM have a few black sheep, and they are not shake and bake like Tamiya, but overall there are a lot of very well engineered kits. Check scalemates.com for reviews of any kit.
@@HarryHoudiniModels Thanks Harry i will do mate it will make breath easier , the panel work was good and detail just the engineering LOL, I will look into scalemates and look forward to your next TH-cam post cheers John
Just started their Leopard 2A6, was curious to see how a newer tool would compare to what I built as a kid. The plastic itself is honestly not bad, but it feels like someone deliberately went through and put every sprue join in the worst possible place.
I have just subscribed & watched a few videos. All good stuff. I haven't done this kit as my main interest is 1/72 aircraft & a bit of armour. I quite like Italeri kits for the same reason that you like Airfix - a great basis but a bit rough around the edges & needing some (but not too much) refinement.
there is a trend by some companies to mold parts so close to scale that they are impractical when building the model. For example axles so thin they bend with the weight of the model. Thin panels that are melted by normal cement or large strips of photo etched brass which expand and contract with the temperature of the room.
Thanks for the video. Bought a couple Italeri rally car kits years ago and will have to break them out and build them. I pretty much do American or Japanese kits so this will be interesting. Thanks!
OMG, you crack me up. You got a lot farther than I would have. I would’ve tossed it just that quick. F*** it, f*** you, you’re headed to the trash bin. LMAO! 🤣😂
I mainly build armor.. I'm currently working on an amt 57 Chevy, tons of flash, warped parts... Ide rather be assembling 500 piece tank tracks for days on end then cleaning up the mess I got into trying to build this Christmas present that is now 2 month late.
What the HELL did you expect from a model kit of a Fiat?! Of course it's going to fall apart, so do the real Fiats! Sounds to me like it was prophetic!
Worst case scenario you mount it to a base with wood or metal posts underneath the car in unobtrusive places to take ALL of the weight of the model. And like you said, no playing around with it.
@@HarryHoudiniModels With Fiat you had to deserve your ride, I had a 127 in the 80's, some-days it just wouldn't start but you would feel so blessed on the next day when it did... 😊
Never built cars, but I have had kits were the designers had no clue about actually building the model. I try to predict the issues and drill out axles and pin with brass rod before assembly. I routinely do it with MiniArt, Bronco and Gecko armoured cars and trucks.
My Fiat ended up with so much brass holding it together you might as well call it a die cast metal model.. but each time I had strengthen one area, the next one failed.
I am new to your channel and I like your presentation, no nonsense, and straight to the point. I thought 💭 I had a big “stash” of kits, but compared to what you have in the background makes my meagre offering look smaller than a gnat hiding in a swamp. I have only got back into model making recently after a 40 year break to work in the real world. Everything is so different from when I was a kid with so much choice of kits and the necessary tools, paints, etc etc etc, I am like a kid in a toy shop. Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts 💭, subscribed. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴
I don't build vehicles very often but I do enjoy WW2 aircraft. When it comes to Italeri it seems to be a totally different story when it comes to their aircraft. I recently completed an original 1976 tooled Messerschmitt Me321 Gigant in 1/72 scale. With the gigant being the largest aircraft of ww2, naturally this kit is MASSIVE! I had no issues what so ever with this kit and this was the first release of it. I enjoyed it so much I have now got the 1980 engined version, Me323 Gigant. I really love building Italeri aircraft kits but obviously cant speak for vehicles. I am thinking about getting the 1/35 Tiger 1, hopefully that'll be a good kit. 😅🤞
Italeri is a bit hit and miss.. they have some very nice kits and some awful ones. This Fiat is nice in the box on the sprue, but just doesn’t go together, or even stay together, once built. Shame really as the kit held so much promise.
Great video, I've had kits that caused me grief like this, I pretty much try to avoid them now. I just found your channel and subbed. Looking forward to checking out more of your content. Have a great day. -David
Ai. A few weeks ago, I bought the Fiat Abarth 695 from Italeri. Same model, same size. I just started with the build. On my box, it says "New Moulds". I hope that in this kit they have improved on everything. Somewhere I had read that the chassis is the biggest problem, but I hope that is also improved. The reason I bought this kit was, that last year I had built the Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Roadster. It was a nice kit and everything went fine. So I thought that it would be the same for this kit. We will see. The "advantage" maybe will be, that when it is built, it will stay on the shelf. No playing around with it. We hope for the best. 🙂
I hope for your sake they have finally fixed that moulding issue Pierre. The kit looks great on the sprue and has a lot of nice detail. Mine just self destructed on the shelf under its own weight.
Hi Harry! I got this kit last Christmas and started working on it in my free time. Didn’t take me long to realize materials are brittle and instructions are bad. So since then I’ve been looking through the internet and TH-cam for build videos hoping to come across someone who had mastered it lol Now, steering didn’t work for me and I have the same issues with the suspension as you had, BUT all that I can sort out. The bit I can’t get right and I hope you have and can help me with, are the doors. Any chance you can give me some tips on how I can make the bloody things open and shut tight?
I mounted the doors to the body first, before doing any other work on the model. This made it easier to paint. They worked fine at first, but as the build progressed and the interior was added, the weight of the interior and eventual warp of the body, broke the hinges. Even after I used metal pins and CA glue to join them all back together the kit kit would just suicide and spit the doors off while sitting on the shelf. It was so frustrating.
I'm not a car modeler, but I understand the frustration. In a way, this kit is way worse than the old AMT kits, because at least with those the kit kinda looks like crap out of the box so you know you'll need to give it some TLC to get it to look good and be built. But with a kit as beautiful as this one looks out of the box, you wouldn't really think "I'd better watch out or else this one will bite me" and by the time you get to the point where you realize it's crap it's 90% done and dusted and you have already fought the battle, so it feels like the kit is kicking you when you're down. It's a crap wolf in sheep's clothing, man.
My nightmare was the Revell Flower Class corvette in 1/72. But this was basically my fault as I was absolutely not ready for this kind of level. Everything went wrong; the paint I used somehow reacted with one another (I probably combined the wrong types; I don‘t remember), several hull and deck joints broke and forgot to place several parts. Catastrophic; I literally had nightmares. But: I learned. Now, 20 years later, I can laugh about it…
I nearly didn't get started in modelling because when I was( a lot) younger maybe about 10/11 I attempted Airfix's Churchill tank.All those fiddlly wheels had to line up with the two housings where the tracks go.Glue everywhere.wheels lost Arrgh.Mowed the lawn again for some pocket money and bought it again.Same scenario.No,no,no!.But I went ahead and built Spanish galleons,bi-planes all with fancy rigging,painted hundreds of ho armies,candy apple hot rods all without too much problems except that Churchill tank.It haunted me for years.Now some 45 + years later I purchased not only one but two brand new Churchill tanks to build during lockdown.There still there,in the cupboard,their gleaming red boxes staring at me at eye level,never opened.I am sure I am capable of doing a good job now all these years later but each time I reach for the boxes I get sweaty,legs,hands tremble and just a terrible feeling of unwellness and fear .Oh well back to my little Golden Hind ,everyone's first kit.
As nice as the Aifix P-51 looks in the box, I have yet to get one together. Tamiya and Hasagawa, no problem. It just DOESN'T FIT!!!. Hobby Boss and Fujimi kits fit better than Airfix.
You must have only built the bad Airfix kits from the 80-90’s when an American consortium took over and reboxed crap mouldings. Back in the 60’s when it was owned and run by the Brits things were much better. The kits did fit together. Since the mid naughties Airfix got back into British control and used CAD. The new kits fit like Tamiya. Not my words. From a friend who is a Tamiya fan boy.
wow i love semi-trucks KW most part, the aitsleri to the store was there for a long time yea it was reduced in the price that day i was in the store the dist bunnies did come home with that model to open it up i was amazed by it i very build it my uncle had more fun with the lincoln log idea for me wow gi-joe sets from the 60 and the late 70 12 size dolls I had tons of them to play with them to my uncles made me a lincoln log cabin for the gi joes dollhouse size it was 16 feet long and 6 foot high to each long was one piece and some of them i had to join together like a real build too the house burns down all of the was gone
What a crying shame! Looked great in your pictures. I built an Italeri Audi Ur Quattro. It was a basic kit but had its share of issues..... ..mainly suspension and wheels! Also did the Ford RS 1800 Escourt and a Police Ford Transit. These were better but again care was needed with the Escourt. These were nicely detailed though. So I have a love hate relationship with this brand!!
I feel the same way about the Italeri Australian truck western star. Steering linkage like your Fiat. The whole thing has me questioning myself & my ability - I've done some nice work in the past with Revell, Airfix etc: I've had it put away for a couple of years & just recently brought it back out, probably going back for another couple weeks.
Hi Harry, I was lucky enough to never have big problems with Italeri kits (I guess that I picked the good ones)and every time I hear people hating it, I feel injustice or people just repeating what they heard without trying (also Italeri did a lot of ESCI re-boxing...🤮), but in that case, it's justified, wrong design and wrong material, I totally understand your frustration about that kit because it's a new kit and it shouldn't be that way. It reminds me of the Citroen Traction 15/6 by Heller at 1/8, where the body doesn't join and linkage and suspension breaking under the weight of this beast. So, this kit is really bad, but the worst kit in the world? There is a lot of competition in that category, to me, the winner, all categories was ESCI, poor detail, skinny parts with thick flash, broken parts on the tree, wrong to the original, and in some cases not exactly the one pictured on the box... I'm building the Ferrari 250gt swb from Italeri, and it's a great kit, very detailed, it's old and everything doesn't fall in place easily (like a lot of kits of that era), it takes a long time to build just because I'm detailing it and that's the mojo killer to me, but it's my fault.
I’ll admit not all Ital-scary kits can be this bad… I have their big motorboats and they have a good reputation, along with some aircraft kits that are well liked. But the Fiat is a drongo!
I bought an Italascari Lamborghini countach back in the 80’s - while the box art is what sold me on the model , I wish I had known what I had actually bought. The absolute worst kit I have ever tried to build - I got so pissed, I threw the kit away- I didn’t want to salvage any of it. I definitely feel your pain. (And yes, by the time I had gotten to this build , I easily had 12 years of experience and at least 35-40 kits (1/25 to 1/8 scale built). I literally stepped away from building kits for the next 10 - 15 years. Looking for that happy place again, though- I’m getting to old to deal with the full-size fun. Best of luck to you and your endeavors.
I did make once an older set of the SR71. It wasn't really a nightmare, but not quite easy too. Biggest problem was the top and the bottom which not really fitted nice to say the least. Unfortunately it fell at a point. I still have 2 trucks (Western Star Constellation and American Superliner 1/24), an AC-130U Spectre gunship 1/48, 2 steam engines 1/87 (BR 41 and BR 50) and 3 cars (Rolls Royce Phantom II, Bugatti Royal coupé Napoléon and Mercedes Benz 540K 1/24).
I've always found their truck models to be of good quality moulded parts that go together quite well. The early model trucks are actually better moulded than the newer versions. I recently bought the new IVECO Hi-way (low roof) and discovered the cab instructions are really for the high roof line so a little bit of careful dissection is required here and there to enable the exterior parts to fit around the interior parts. Prior to the IVECO I bought the MAN TGX XXL and to my absolute disappointment found the kit did not include an engine build. 🥴 I don't actually see the point of constructing one of these trucks if it isn't complete with engine. It's the engine I find to be the most satisfying stage of the entire build. 🙂
and yet I have built many old classic and newly tooled Airfix kits which are a joy to put together. There are some bad reboxings and worn out moulds from the 90’s which let Airfix down, but they have never been as bad as Italscary!
@@HarryHoudiniModels Hoi! Nice to hear from you. I've some Hawks from Bäfix wich are not buildable caus of their missalignment. An even in 2020 they produce kits with grand canyons in soft plastic an forget things like on the F-4 though an lasered-in original. But ok, they got some nice features but if you ask for replacement, their customer support is a respectless shame. Revell is in this case perfect. I've lived 4 years in italy and spent bevore & after a lot time there. All the stories ...are... the caotic reality 😉...😇
I’ve never had any problems with Airfix support, and I’m on the other side of the world… they have replaced sprues at no charge when there were issues of short shot or mould misalignment. They even found me a replacement canopy for an old 70’s 1/24 Stuka kit. Panel lines are deliberately wider than others because they market their kits to a young English audience who paint by hand with the supplied thick acrylics.
@@HarryHoudiniModels I had the worst experiences with Bäfix and Hasegawa (never got a answer on enquiries, the worst decal). It took nearly 2 years to get frustrating results in case of replacement parts, for me they have high price kits with issues, no respect for their customer 》experienced《 no custome service. Though sent in photos of 2 kits with the same issue they took no responsibility for that sh... in nearly 50 years of modelling i've had such problems only with bäfix. Hence the "new" name
@@HarryHoudiniModels : I can attest to that too.... a year or so ago, I found a part missing on the new Airfix 1/48 Meteor I'd just bought; sent them an email with kit number/part number, etc, and about 4 days later a jiffy-bag arrives in the post with the replacement piece and a courtesy note.. 👍🏻. Lovely kit too! Modern Airfix are generally excellent in my opinion - and I have memories of 60s/70s Airfix too; the kits are very good, instructions are great, and some of the best transfer/decal sheets in the business with Cartograph.. 😏. Great customer service too! 😁
I too like their selection of subjects, especially for their 1/72 helicopter models. However, they have made simple mistakes on some kits like the CH-53E model having the main rotors turning in the wrong direction! Same thing with their MH-53J kit which just -looked-wierd!
Hi Harry, those pesky big marks are actually called ejection pin marks. They are the pins that push the part out of the tool.
I have the new Italeri Lancia Delta Integrale. That thing is £240 GBP and is no different to what you have found in the 500!! Weak plastic suspension components with moulded on pins of 1mm diameter, AND heavy rubber tyres. Ejector pin marks everywhere, there are 22 on the hood alone!! Oh, and all the body parts are covered in sink marks. When you compare it to Tamiyas old 1/12 Porsche 934/935 for around half the price, or some of their 1/12 F1 cars for £100 GBP, it's a bloody joke.
Yep slip of the tongue, I shudder and cannot speak clearly when I think of that Fiat!
If you'd ever owned a Fiat, you would have realised that Italeri were providing you with the true Fiat Owner experience.
Ha ha, so I have been told.. many friends said fill it full of rust and leave it broken down with the wheels off! Which if it was my kit I could have done, but it was a commission build to look like Jasons car from his youth
@@HarryHoudiniModels FIAT stands for "fix it again Tony"
or fix it again tomorrow in this kit!
@@roberthenderson2580 In German it’s „Fehlerhaft In Allen Teilen“. Roughly „Flaws In All Parts“.
@@HarryHoudiniModels thought Fiat WAS the Italian word for rust
Have found that Italeria kits are a cat of a different color! Some good some just bad! I understand the let it stand and things just break! I have a Italeria Sherman and it’s the only 1/35 tank model that sheds parts just sitting in the shelf! Well, all the best to you Sir!!
Good to hear it’s not just happening to me!
Now you tell us I've just bought the damn thing lol.
@James Lochridge oh no the horror! Either replace anything thin which needs to support weight with a metal rod. Or expoy glue things so they never come loose or break!
I think I would have cut some clear posts for the bottom of it for support. Maybe 2 down the center. I've built a couple aircraft that needed it because all the weight was in the back to it would tip. Works great for display. You had a good go at it and most times even the best builder like yourself can't fix manufacturing mistakes. Keep up the good builds!
That has been a frequent suggestion… if it had been my kit, not a commission job with no budget, I would have epoxy glued up all moving parts and added supports on a base..
There are kits manufactured that are never meant to be made. If you went to italeri, you'd not see that kit in their showcase. I'd bet money. That suspension looks horrendous. Awesome video, Harry.👍👍
Thanks Clayton… they got one thing right about Fiats… always breaking down!
I've built many italerie kits, let me say it was a love/ hate relationship. just finishing up their f-14 tomcat on commission it is just horrible. I would rather build the Tamiya tomcat, even though the Tamiya kit cost as much as 3 times the cost the Tamiya kit is so much better in engineering and accuracy. And is a joy to build.
There you go… if Tamiya works for you great… I am yet to find an Italscary kit I’ve enjoyed building, and I don’t mind some fettling or scratch… but really poorly designed kits with just sloppy fit don’t float my boat.
Just got done building it myself, was looking to see if anyone had managed to get it to work as advertized. While I couldn't make the front suspension move, or the wheels roll, I feel like calling it the worst kit ever is a bit harsh. I found the build very pleasent, if a little tricky at times, I was able to make the doors open/close and I managed to botch a solution to make the steering moveable . I do think it overpromised, but it's deffinately not the worst kit I've built (even if we don't include the Airfix Lancaster that came with completely incompatable fuselage halfs from different varients)
I feel your pain! Thanks for checking in Joey
To be fair, Harry, the real car isn't built any better. FIAT --Fix It Again Tony.
Cheers!
So I keep hearing.
So, this the kit to avoid at all costs! Sad to hear, I normally don't have issues with Italeri models.
FIAT jokingly means Fix It Again Tony!
Yes Max, my kit was Fix it Again Tomorrow!
Pfft. Let me introduce you to AMT.... the 68 Shelby GT-350 damn near made me loose my will to live. All the ejector marks and sinks of your Italeri, and nothing fits, absolutely nothing. The front and rear clips are about 2mm wider than the body ON EACH SIDE and look like they came from a completely different car. There's more putty than plastic trying to get these parts to line up. If you manage to build it rather than chuck it at a wall or set it on fire, the front end sits so high it looks like it must have come out of a 4X4 pickup. I have refused to buy an AMT kit since.
Now I have more nightmares
At least it didn't rust , questionable build quality and questionable finished model as the photograph (diecast kit perhaps) on the box.
You wonder if they have quality control and actually build the kit to make sure it fits, and more importantly, stays in shape!
Just lifted my finished italeri fiat 131 to put it in a display case and guess what. Half front suspension and a wheel snapped off.
Yep… they do that!
I'm not Australian so I don't know the lingo but what is a "Nigmare"? I did watch the video, you did say "nightmare" but I was wondering if that's the Aussie way of spelling it.
Sorry for the Fiat model build. Like the real world, some are drivers and some are for show.
Australians tend to drop the T on most words, but good typo pick up.. 30 thousand others, including myself, missed it. I will have a chat with my art department then have them all flogged.
@@HarryHoudiniModels
Ah, a typo. I thought I learned something new.
And this flogging you mention. Will there be a video? 😀
They have all been chastised and their Tinder accounts suspended. Their flogging video will be only available to TH-cam members with a R rating
@@HarryHoudiniModels
I have an R rating. I'm restricted from everything. Dang.
Well , I guessed right . I remember all your trials and tribulations . Can't say you didn't give it the ol' college try before you gave it the ol' heave ho . I binned my Shelf Queen Group Build . Just couldn't deal with it . I did really enjoy the Italeri DUKW and AB41 Autoblinda I built last year . Back in the 1980's , I built the Italeri M47 Patton tank . Great kit for that time . Then , I built their M109 self propelled howitzer . What a disappointment. Some fit problems and lots more molded on detail , whereas the M47 had lots more separate detail parts . Carry on , mate , you've had a really bad one . But think how much better everything
else will seem .
Yep… makes Airfix look brilliant now!
It's a Fiat. Italeri was just giving the modeler an accurate model.
So Italscary should be commended on their accuracy
I built their old Panzer IVH years ago, and it wasn't too bad, but it could have been better.
That about sums up the brand… “could have been better”
Not to bad of a kit for a beginner though
Hey, what did you expect. It's a replica of a Fiat, it's supposed to fall apart -- 😆
exactly!
I've built many Italieri Kits since the 1970's. I have a love/hate relationship. Love the choices of builds, hate assembly. Plastic thin, brittle, snaps etc but they had the only models of particular vehicles. Many were tossed because of bad fit issues, brittle parts, etc.....glad to know they haven't changed in 40 some odd years
No they are still the same Italian philosophy… looks pretty… falls apart.
The sad part of all this ,
There are different grades of plastic some are fairly strong. Clearly they use the cheapest weakest plastic they can find. Sounds very Euro to me.
Well FIAT does stand for Fix It Again Tony lol.
So everyone keeps saying
In Ireland, we say Fix It Again,tomorrow.
Sounds like the model is accurately capturing the essence of the real thing. A true piece of crap!
Well they got that right.
@@HarryHoudiniModels I bet a washing machine with four wheels can beat it in race.
Hey, it's a Fiat! What did you expect?? :^)
I know, right?
No no, the worst kit is the Revel 1/48 P-61 Black Widow . I've tried 3 separate times to build that damn thing and it always beats me 😂 . I have one in the stash and one day I will take it on LOL 😂
I have heard how bad that kit is… but I’ve never tried it myself
If that is the kit I'm thinking of, it's an antique. A real dinosaur.
IIRC it was first a Hawk or Aurora, then Monogram had their hand at it. HUGE raised rivets and panel lines, transparencies that were blobby and did not fit well, and you needed to forgoe the "detailed" nose radar to fill the nose with lead to get it to sit square, or use the clear "kickstand".
The farther you proceed in the build the harder it gets to handle & manipulate. I know, but, thought mine was under the Monogram logo.
Well, i love especialy the old motorcycles serie of Italeri (Esci) and i find it very good. Same problems with them like wrong injecting points etc but, with a little bit work about it, they finaly becomes great models. And, like you say, don't try to move any moving part, it's not a toy, it's a model to store under a strong showcase. (excuse my english, i'm french) :o)
Your English is fine Daniel… those reboxed Esci motorcycles can come up well, but they were kits designed many years ago. The Italeri Fiat is a newly tooled kit from only a few years ago, so they have no excuse for the poor design.
@@HarryHoudiniModels They still use the same design procedures... at least in Italy...
My best results from Italeri kits are rebadged ICM models from Ukraine.
I've had good results with the older Italeri military models - using Tenax or more often Plastruct's original Plastic Weld solvent cements, which contain methylene chloride... not sure which brands are available in Australia, but you may need to buy a suitable solvent cement from an acrylic plastic shop.
Thanks for the information Harry. I’m into WW2 planes after a long rest from modelling. For Christmas, my beautiful little daughter got me a Henschel Hs 123 bi-plane from Italeri. Well…where do I start? Many parts didn’t fit properly. There were huge gaps that needed filling and sanding. Plus so many little circles on the parts…(I forget the correct term). They all needed filling. In the end I got it finished, and now I’m up to the weathering stage, but the build itself was not pleasant. I only continued with it because my 13 year old wanted to see the finished product and was happy when it was painted. Goodness it was tough! I won’t be buying Italeri again in a hurry. Thanks again for your channel. 😀
Well you picked a doozy to come back to the hobby with…
If you want a good version of the Hs 123 then I would suggest the GasPatch kit.
www.scalemates.com/kits/gaspatch-models-48096-henschel-hs-123-b-1--1080700
Thanks so much for your feedback and I’m grateful for your link to to the other Henschel. I will check that out. I’m enjoying you videos. Yep, the Italeri was a challenge. My daughter said that the guys at the shop told her it would be a challenge. I figured the build itself would be the challenge. Nope%! It was the bloody kit itself. Poor workmanship etc. Anyway, I eventually got it built, and my little girl is happy.
Sooo...the kit is about the same quality as the real thing.
That seems to be the general consensus
Haha! It's actually super accurate!
F I A T = Fix It Again Tony
Fiat stands for Fix It Again Tony for a reason
Certainly does Josh
There’s plenty of reasons why I usually refer to the company as Shitaleri...
Yep they do have some horror kits
I steer clear of kits with functioning parts. The tolerances just aren't there at such a scale to work properly. Plus it's a car model.......not my cup of tea. Sorry for your bad experience. I like Italeri kits. I've built a lot of them and have never ran into the type of trouble you had. I'm glad the bad experience didn't put you off of models all together. Keep having fun Brother.
Carpe Modellum!!!
Bill
It was not a subject or kit of my choice, just a commission job I was talked into for someone else. If it had been my kit I would have left the wheels falling off, rusted it out, and added a mechanic scratching his head.
I haven't built that kit but I'll definitely stay away from that one. My nightmare is Revell's 25th anniversary Apollo 11 Saturn V in 1/95 scale. I started it three years ago. I have spent twice the cost of the kit on after market stuff. The kit is so bad that the decals were wrong, the painting guide lines were incorrect. It came wwith a block I command module where Apollo 11 had a block II. The 1st stage engine cowling was completely different than the actual ones. There are so many errors and poorly designed pieces that a person could do several videos on just what is wrong with the kit.
Goodness me… was it a Revell of America kit?
@@HarryHoudiniModels Yeah. It's the worst I've ever worked on. I even had to do a major re-work of the engines.
@@HarryHoudiniModels It's hardly surprising Harry . When Revell first released it in 1969 ( why 1969 ? 🧐) it was state-of-art !
Absolutely love your description of losing your mojo and the kit having the gazonka !! I've been lucky enough not to have had a kit give me problems like this but I did have a real car give me the gazonka 😂🤣😂 Cheers from Florida mate !! Thoroughly enjoy your channel !!
Thanks Patrick… the Gazonka is incurable . .
I agree with your assessment. They are good looking kits,but putting them together can lead to excessive expletives. Also Miniart kits, they're very detailed and look fantastic, but putting them together can also lead to expletives.
I have a jar for expletives… it tends to stay pretty full
I'm not a modeller, but enjoyed the video no end!
Thanks Chris… now you know what we are all like LOL
I bought lamborghini miura starter kit. Its horrible expensive and fitment is nowhere it should be for that much money
How Italscary stays in business with shoddy but expensive kits is a mystery?
So, in other words it was a true Fiat, Fix It Again Tony! I hope some after market crew sees this and makes an upgrade set for it.
I think someone made a crusher for it!
Italeri Tiger 1 World of tanks edition is when I gave up on Italeri, I didn't like the softness of the plastic, nor the many mistakes in the manual, nor the downright stupid design choices in the kit's assembly. Don't get me wrong, I have seen similar in Eastern Express and Revell, but those companies charge me half as much for their kits (especially when you get them on discount) and they don't do it to that extent.
I feel price does come with a form of expectation, and really it's a matter of paying for those features/aspects of the kit that we are interested in. For me and you that means not paying for time saved during building.
Spot on matey… I hear the song you are singing
The kit does suck, and when you get to the final fittings, the wheels naturally sag in real time from the weight of the windows. I helped a friend make it (he got so frustrated with it that he had a hammer next to him and he would occasionally say "get in you bastard or I'll smash you into little pieces"). We looked on the net to see if we could get better aftermarket suspension parts, but nothing. In the end, it "fell" off a shelf, and broke, and he was happy about it. Terrible kit.
An absolute nightmare… put me off doing anymore commission builds Mark
@@HarryHoudiniModels Put me off doing any modern big scale italeri kits, I can tell you.
So it's a true FIAT then?
FIAT = Fehler In Allen Teilen = Flaws In All parTs.
😁
Apparently so
I heard the German version when I worked for a German firm... An American version: Fix It Again, Tony...
Sounds like a standard Italian car.🙄😁
Really? LOL
The worse I had were AFV Club kits. Poor directions, molding issues, and wrong parts. I have a US Army M60 and it came with German panzer tracks. I will never buy another AFV kit.
That is surprising as I know friends who build AFV but have not complained.
Oh noo, I have in my stash not one but two Italeri Fiats. The 500L and the 695SS. Now I see why some people call them "SHITALERI". After your frustration I don't want to battle with the. I bought them because I am a fan of the Fiat 500. Will try to sell them. 😢
Sorry to hear that Ricardo.. you could always ask someone to build it for you, preferably someone you don’t like so won’t miss losing them as a friend.
You mean like a 1-1 Fiat
Apparently
Not completely, it can't rust
with the amount of metal rods I had to add to stop it falling apart there is a good chance of oxidisation!
I watched another one of your videos where you talked about how much you disliked Tamiya kits because you thought they were too easy and everything fit together too well. You went so far as to say there was no challenge. Evidently this Italeri kit was more of a "challenge" than you were looking for. lol
I did not mind the fettling, but to have to repair this piece of rubbish every time I tried to work on it, when the sheer weight of paint on the body resulted in the fragile, not up to task, plastic suspension crumbling into broken fragments was just too much. It might be scale accurate, but styrene ain’t up to the task here. So yes, far too much of a frustrating challenge, with no moving forward after a repair, just another repair the next day.
Well, no special surprise to me. What does "FIAT" stand for? --- "Fix It Again, Tony"!!!
So everyone keeps telling me… mine was Fix It Again Tomorrow
In German it means "Fehler in allen Teilen" (defects in all parts)
@@HarryHoudiniModels When I was in the US Navy, my carrier's "second home-port" was Naples. As an 18 year-old freshly minted Sailor, seeing some of the world for the first time, I got so tickled seeing those tiny "wind-up cars", cruising the streets of Naples, with four or five robust Italians somehow crammed inside, and the damn-near REQUIRED sunroof wide-open, so the driver could stand-up and give generous gesticulations in accompaniment to the running traffic reports yelled to all and sundry in the immediate vicinity.
It was fun to watch.
Hard to believe they ruled the known world only 2 millennium ago
I've only built one Italeri kit, the 1/72 scale Zweilling" glider tow aircraft, which was made from two Heinkle He-111 bombers joined using a common wing center section. The real aircraft was certainly unusual looking, & made for an interesting model. I built the kit in the early 1980's, & was a bit challenging, as I recall. One of the issues was that the kits interior parts often had inadequate attachment surfaces for proper locating, & for a strong glue joint, resulting in questionable part orientation & unsecure attachment. Example; the engine nacelles were single pieces that were glued to the front of the flat, featureless engine bulkheads, with no locating pins, as I recall. The kit had had about 8 machine guns, which were very fragile (& were broken many times). That was a kit I just wanted to finish & be done with. The detail was mediocre to average, I suppose, even by standards of the early 1980's. I have never built another Italeri model, although I have considered buying some of their kits, but only for the subject matter, not for "superior quality".
Italeri can be quite hit and miss. My Fiat should have been a good kit with all the engineering that went into it. But sadly the sum of the parts left a lot to be desired.
Am in the same situation now unfortunately. Was asked by a friend (we are still friends) to build the Heller Bugatti in 1/24 scale.
I feel your pain….
FIAT stands for "Fix It Again Tony" 😂😂😂
So everyone tells me
Thanks for sharing the video. It is difficult to believe that there is a worse car kit than the AMT 1967 Pontiac GTO 1:25 scale. But the real bad thing with this Italeri is the price you pay for the kit. AMT is also bad with its 1:16 scale Pontiac Firebird, it is almost impossible not to get saggy doors and the wheels attachment is of very poor quality.
Yes Seri you can forgive a cheap kit for a few fit issues but pay $200 for what looks like a well engineered kit, only to find it’s a pile of rubbish is very upsetting. Glad it wasn’t my money, only my time that was wasted.
Bloody Hell, i just stumbled upon your FIAT video and could not stop laughing. Well done for almost finising the satanik kit, have just suscribed.
Glad you enjoyed it welcome aboard
I had or still have a ICM 1:48 BF 109F-2 kit no 48803 it looks good panel lines clean etc but once you try to get it together nothing fits , you line up the 4 engine mounting points you stick them in , you have guides on the struts you cant get it wrong but f me the engine is crooked the cowling wont fit over the engine tried taking the blower off the side of engine still wont fit. Going to turn this piece of crap into a crashed 109 not that i like wrecking a kit , what i am worried is i have 3 other ICM kits of He111 and do 217 and do 17 have i got 3 more lame ducks, Shouldve bought Tamiya kits maybe
I think ICM have a few black sheep, and they are not shake and bake like Tamiya, but overall there are a lot of very well engineered kits. Check scalemates.com for reviews of any kit.
@@HarryHoudiniModels Thanks Harry i will do mate it will make breath easier , the panel work was good and detail just the engineering LOL, I will look into scalemates and look forward to your next TH-cam post cheers John
Just started their Leopard 2A6, was curious to see how a newer tool would compare to what I built as a kid.
The plastic itself is honestly not bad, but it feels like someone deliberately went through and put every sprue join in the worst possible place.
Goodness. Italscary strikes again
Thats Italeri - some kits are spot on, others . . . well . . . blimey.
Yep and mine was a Blimey
Let's be fair. Italeri does have some good kits.
Their B-52G isn't one of them, though.
So I am told… never built a good one
Some of their best are relabeled ICM kits...
I can tell real car also snapped in suspesion and drop the wheels....This frpnt central feather spring snapped and wheels went out left and right.....
So it is a realistic model.. ha ha… who knew?
Glad you did this video Harry and didn't have to go into therapy , the cat even seems to have survived ok .
Bask is happy I got rid of the kit… the cussing jar is now pretty much empty
I have just subscribed & watched a few videos. All good stuff. I haven't done this kit as my main interest is 1/72 aircraft & a bit of armour. I quite like Italeri kits for the same reason that you like Airfix - a great basis but a bit rough around the edges & needing some (but not too much) refinement.
Yes some Italscary kits are buildable and refine-able… but this POS just broke apart under the weight of the paint while sitting on the shelf.
there is a trend by some companies to mold parts so close to scale that they are impractical when building the model. For example axles so thin they bend with the weight of the model. Thin panels that are melted by normal cement or large strips of photo etched brass which expand and contract with the temperature of the room.
Yep
Thanks for the video. Bought a couple Italeri rally car kits years ago and will have to break them out and build them. I pretty much do American or Japanese kits so this will be interesting. Thanks!
Good luck.. some of their kit are ok… just not my Fiat
I had real FIAT. Was even worst.
So people keep telling me
OMG, you crack me up. You got a lot farther than I would have. I would’ve tossed it just that quick. F*** it, f*** you, you’re headed to the trash bin. LMAO! 🤣😂
If it had been my kit, not a commission job, I would have rusted it out, let the suspension sag and wheels fall off!
I have the same problem with 1:24 scale DAF 95 the steering is horrible.
I feel your pain
Try building a "Pyro" US made kit, of a 58' Ford Thunderbird. See you in the looney bin soon if you do.
Sounds awful… I’ve never seen a Pyro kit down under
@@HarryHoudiniModels You aren't missing much. Fiddly is one thing, this kit gave new meaning to the word. Great channel by the way.
Naah, Russian kits from the Cold War era are unusable junk.
@@trappenweisseguy27 Novo model kits. Novo must be Russian for "No Fit".
I mainly build armor.. I'm currently working on an amt 57 Chevy, tons of flash, warped parts... Ide rather be assembling 500 piece tank tracks for days on end then cleaning up the mess I got into trying to build this Christmas present that is now 2 month late.
How frustrating.. I feel your pain
Engineered just like a real FIAT! Max at Max's Models recently built a Tamiya Caterham kit. Beuatiful car, but what a bear to build.
I’ve never owned a Fiat but everyone seems to say that
@@HarryHoudiniModels FIAT = Fix It Again Tony. Had a Fiat 128 Coupe back in the early 1980s in the USA. Lived up to its acronym.
What the HELL did you expect from a model kit of a Fiat?! Of course it's going to fall apart, so do the real Fiats! Sounds to me like it was prophetic!
hehe so true Rick
Ahha! the infamous Fiat raises it's ugly head again. 😆🤪
The sheer horror!
@@HarryHoudiniModels straight from the Heart of Darkness via Apocalypse Now.
Worst case scenario you mount it to a base with wood or metal posts underneath the car in unobtrusive places to take ALL of the weight of the model. And like you said, no playing around with it.
That’s about the 6th time your solution has been mentioned. It’s very popular and probably a good remedy.
Wow, what a horror story, good to see you still have some sanity left. Great video lol. Rick 😎✌️
Tell me about it. Thanks Rick
It's not much smaller than the life sized car 😉
And just as reliable
@@HarryHoudiniModels With Fiat you had to deserve your ride, I had a 127 in the 80's, some-days it just wouldn't start but you would feel so blessed on the next day when it did... 😊
Now you know what Fiat means fix it again tomorrow
Oh the Fiat, their autos are questionable at best... So one might say it's an accurately Horrible kit of the Horrible car🤗
So it appears LOL
It does look like a great model kit, it's just a shame on how they made it
Yes a case of first looks can be deceiving
I appreciate the honesty mixed with the comedy.
Thanks CJ
Try the 1:32 Revell of Germany Hornet. Actually, save your money. That kit is beyond horrendous.
Noted. Thanks David
Never built cars, but I have had kits were the designers had no clue about actually building the model. I try to predict the issues and drill out axles and pin with brass rod before assembly. I routinely do it with MiniArt, Bronco and Gecko armoured cars and trucks.
My Fiat ended up with so much brass holding it together you might as well call it a die cast metal model.. but each time I had strengthen one area, the next one failed.
@@HarryHoudiniModels I hear ya Bro!
Fix It Again Tony
Or in my case - Fix It Again Tomorrow
Just finished there Schnellboot, nice kit but many mistakes in the instructions, part numbers missing or not relating to the instructions.
They must do the instructions after a long lunch and way too many vinos!
Thanks for owning up,
I'm Still fighting the good fight on a gremlin since 1993.
My therapist suggest I should tell someone….
@@HarryHoudiniModels ha bonza hopefully I can get over to Riverside soon and we can share a mutual dislike for "little Scary" sorry I mean Italeri.
My worst Italeri was the 1/72 Hetzer. Too many track pieces... gave me the f'in yips.
Can’t stand those yips mate…
I am new to your channel and I like your presentation, no nonsense, and straight to the point. I thought 💭 I had a big “stash” of kits, but compared to what you have in the background makes my meagre offering look smaller than a gnat hiding in a swamp. I have only got back into model making recently after a 40 year break to work in the real world. Everything is so different from when I was a kid with so much choice of kits and the necessary tools, paints, etc etc etc, I am like a kid in a toy shop. Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts 💭, subscribed. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴
Welcome aboard Allan… there is lots to enjoy.
I absolutely don't like Italieri kits at all, and won't buy them.
I’m not a fan myself… never enjoyed building any, and I’ve given them a go a handful of times.. doesn’t get any better
I've had nothing but bad experiences every time I have tried building an Italeri kit, like you I just now straight out avoid them!
I hate italeri kits. I will only buy them if I can’t get the subject any other way.
I do that, then quickly sell them when there is a new and better release of that subject from a decent kit maker
which is the "only" reason i bought the XB-70...really amazed there aren't a lot more kits of this plane considering how iconic it is...
I don't build vehicles very often but I do enjoy WW2 aircraft. When it comes to Italeri it seems to be a totally different story when it comes to their aircraft. I recently completed an original 1976 tooled Messerschmitt Me321 Gigant in 1/72 scale. With the gigant being the largest aircraft of ww2, naturally this kit is MASSIVE! I had no issues what so ever with this kit and this was the first release of it. I enjoyed it so much I have now got the 1980 engined version, Me323 Gigant. I really love building Italeri aircraft kits but obviously cant speak for vehicles. I am thinking about getting the 1/35 Tiger 1, hopefully that'll be a good kit. 😅🤞
Italeri is a bit hit and miss.. they have some very nice kits and some awful ones. This Fiat is nice in the box on the sprue, but just doesn’t go together, or even stay together, once built. Shame really as the kit held so much promise.
Great video, I've had kits that caused me grief like this, I pretty much try to avoid them now. I just found your channel and subbed. Looking forward to checking out more of your content. Have a great day. -David
Welcome aboard David
Ai. A few weeks ago, I bought the Fiat Abarth 695 from Italeri. Same model, same size. I just started with the build. On my box, it says "New Moulds". I hope that in this kit they have improved on everything. Somewhere I had read that the chassis is the biggest problem, but I hope that is also improved. The reason I bought this kit was, that last year I had built the Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Roadster. It was a nice kit and everything went fine. So I thought that it would be the same for this kit. We will see. The "advantage" maybe will be, that when it is built, it will stay on the shelf. No playing around with it. We hope for the best. 🙂
I hope for your sake they have finally fixed that moulding issue Pierre. The kit looks great on the sprue and has a lot of nice detail. Mine just self destructed on the shelf under its own weight.
Hi Harry! I got this kit last Christmas and started working on it in my free time.
Didn’t take me long to realize materials are brittle and instructions are bad. So since then I’ve been looking through the internet and TH-cam for build videos hoping to come across someone who had mastered it lol
Now, steering didn’t work for me and I have the same issues with the suspension as you had, BUT all that I can sort out. The bit I can’t get right and I hope you have and can help me with, are the doors. Any chance you can give me some tips on how I can make the bloody things open and shut tight?
I mounted the doors to the body first, before doing any other work on the model. This made it easier to paint. They worked fine at first, but as the build progressed and the interior was added, the weight of the interior and eventual warp of the body, broke the hinges. Even after I used metal pins and CA glue to join them all back together the kit kit would just suicide and spit the doors off while sitting on the shelf. It was so frustrating.
I have never built a car from Italieri only boats and they have all turned out all right.
Good to know.. I have some large motor torpedo boats from them in my stash
I'm not a car modeler, but I understand the frustration. In a way, this kit is way worse than the old AMT kits, because at least with those the kit kinda looks like crap out of the box so you know you'll need to give it some TLC to get it to look good and be built. But with a kit as beautiful as this one looks out of the box, you wouldn't really think "I'd better watch out or else this one will bite me" and by the time you get to the point where you realize it's crap it's 90% done and dusted and you have already fought the battle, so it feels like the kit is kicking you when you're down. It's a crap wolf in sheep's clothing, man.
Yep that’s about it in a nutshell
It's like you are talking about "Robert" the haunted doll. Or some black magic Satan's Toy Box. Yump'in Yimini.
Get me an old priest and a young priest!
My nightmare was the Revell Flower Class corvette in 1/72. But this was basically my fault as I was absolutely not ready for this kind of level. Everything went wrong; the paint I used somehow reacted with one another (I probably combined the wrong types; I don‘t remember), several hull and deck joints broke and forgot to place several parts. Catastrophic; I literally had nightmares. But: I learned. Now, 20 years later, I can laugh about it…
If you can laugh, then you got something positive out of the experience. I am still in the shuddering with loathing and terror stage!
I nearly didn't get started in modelling because when I was( a lot) younger maybe about 10/11 I attempted Airfix's Churchill tank.All those fiddlly wheels had to line up with the two housings where the tracks go.Glue everywhere.wheels lost Arrgh.Mowed the lawn again for some pocket money and bought it again.Same scenario.No,no,no!.But I went ahead and built Spanish galleons,bi-planes all with fancy rigging,painted hundreds of ho armies,candy apple hot rods all without too much problems except that Churchill tank.It haunted me for years.Now some 45 + years later I purchased not only one but two brand new Churchill tanks to build during lockdown.There still there,in the cupboard,their gleaming red boxes staring at me at eye level,never opened.I am sure I am capable of doing a good job now all these years later but each time I reach for the boxes I get sweaty,legs,hands tremble and just a terrible feeling of unwellness and fear .Oh well back to my little Golden Hind ,everyone's first kit.
It’s good to face your fears, but some demons just need to be locked in the cupboard forever!
As nice as the Aifix P-51 looks in the box, I have yet to get one together. Tamiya and Hasagawa, no problem. It just DOESN'T FIT!!!. Hobby Boss and Fujimi kits fit better than Airfix.
You must have only built the bad Airfix kits from the 80-90’s when an American consortium took over and reboxed crap mouldings. Back in the 60’s when it was owned and run by the Brits things were much better. The kits did fit together. Since the mid naughties Airfix got back into British control and used CAD. The new kits fit like Tamiya. Not my words. From a friend who is a Tamiya fan boy.
wow i love semi-trucks KW most part, the aitsleri to the store was there for a long time yea it was reduced in the price that day i was in the store the dist bunnies did come home with that model to open it up i was amazed by it i very build it
my uncle had more fun with the lincoln log idea for me wow gi-joe sets from the 60 and the late 70 12 size dolls I had tons of them to play with them to my uncles made me a lincoln log cabin for the gi joes dollhouse size it was 16 feet long and 6 foot high to each long was one piece and some of them i had to join together like a real build too the house burns down all of the was gone
Oh dear.. well that would have been awful Jennifer
What a crying shame! Looked great in your pictures.
I built an Italeri Audi Ur Quattro. It was a basic kit but had its share of issues..... ..mainly suspension and wheels!
Also did the Ford RS 1800 Escourt and a Police Ford Transit. These were better but again care was needed with the Escourt. These were nicely detailed though. So I have a love hate relationship with this brand!!
As do I :)
I feel the same way about the Italeri Australian truck western star. Steering linkage like your Fiat.
The whole thing has me questioning myself & my ability - I've done some nice work in the past with Revell, Airfix etc: I've had it put away for a couple of years & just recently brought it back out, probably going back for another couple weeks.
Those kits can be soul destroying Paul.
Hi Harry, I was lucky enough to never have big problems with Italeri kits (I guess that I picked the good ones)and every time I hear people hating it, I feel injustice or people just repeating what they heard without trying (also Italeri did a lot of ESCI re-boxing...🤮), but in that case, it's justified, wrong design and wrong material, I totally understand your frustration about that kit because it's a new kit and it shouldn't be that way.
It reminds me of the Citroen Traction 15/6 by Heller at 1/8, where the body doesn't join and linkage and suspension breaking under the weight of this beast.
So, this kit is really bad, but the worst kit in the world? There is a lot of competition in that category, to me, the winner, all categories was ESCI, poor detail, skinny parts with thick flash, broken parts on the tree, wrong to the original, and in some cases not exactly the one pictured on the box...
I'm building the Ferrari 250gt swb from Italeri, and it's a great kit, very detailed, it's old and everything doesn't fall in place easily (like a lot of kits of that era), it takes a long time to build just because I'm detailing it and that's the mojo killer to me, but it's my fault.
I’ll admit not all Ital-scary kits can be this bad… I have their big motorboats and they have a good reputation, along with some aircraft kits that are well liked. But the Fiat is a drongo!
I bought an Italascari Lamborghini countach back in the 80’s - while the box art is what sold me on the model , I wish I had known what I had actually bought. The absolute worst kit I have ever tried to build - I got so pissed, I threw the kit away- I didn’t want to salvage any of it. I definitely feel your pain. (And yes, by the time I had gotten to this build , I easily had 12 years of experience and at least 35-40 kits (1/25 to 1/8 scale built). I literally stepped away from building kits for the next 10 - 15 years. Looking for that happy place again, though- I’m getting to old to deal with the full-size fun. Best of luck to you and your endeavors.
The box art often sucks us in… to poor kits
I did make once an older set of the SR71. It wasn't really a nightmare, but not quite easy too. Biggest problem was the top and the bottom which not really fitted nice to say the least. Unfortunately it fell at a point. I still have 2 trucks (Western Star Constellation and American Superliner 1/24), an AC-130U Spectre gunship 1/48, 2 steam engines 1/87 (BR 41 and BR 50) and 3 cars (Rolls Royce Phantom II, Bugatti Royal coupé Napoléon and Mercedes Benz 540K 1/24).
I’m sure not all Italscary kits are nightmares like this one. I hope not because I have a big 1:35 scale M.A.S. Torpedo Boat kit from them.
The Lego version is much better….
I am sure it would be and stay stuck together as well LOL
I've always found their truck models to be of good quality moulded parts that go together quite well.
The early model trucks are actually better moulded than the newer versions.
I recently bought the new IVECO Hi-way (low roof) and discovered the cab instructions are really for the high roof line so a little bit of careful dissection is required here and there to enable the exterior parts to fit around the interior parts.
Prior to the IVECO I bought the MAN TGX XXL and to my absolute disappointment found the kit did not include an engine build. 🥴
I don't actually see the point of constructing one of these trucks if it isn't complete with engine. It's the engine I find to be the most satisfying stage of the entire build. 🙂
I agree. Without the donk there is little point!
Made in Italy is often a warning notice BUT Airfix (e.g. 1:48 Hawk) is the premier class of modellers nightmare
and yet I have built many old classic and newly tooled Airfix kits which are a joy to put together. There are some bad reboxings and worn out moulds from the 90’s which let Airfix down, but they have never been as bad as Italscary!
@@HarryHoudiniModels Hoi! Nice to hear from you. I've some Hawks from Bäfix wich are not buildable caus of their missalignment. An even in 2020 they produce kits with grand canyons in soft plastic an forget things like on the F-4 though an lasered-in original. But ok, they got some nice features but if you ask for replacement, their customer support is a respectless shame. Revell is in this case perfect. I've lived 4 years in italy and spent bevore & after a lot time there. All the stories ...are... the caotic reality 😉...😇
I’ve never had any problems with Airfix support, and I’m on the other side of the world… they have replaced sprues at no charge when there were issues of short shot or mould misalignment. They even found me a replacement canopy for an old 70’s 1/24 Stuka kit. Panel lines are deliberately wider than others because they market their kits to a young English audience who paint by hand with the supplied thick acrylics.
@@HarryHoudiniModels I had the worst experiences with Bäfix and Hasegawa (never got a answer on enquiries, the worst decal). It took nearly 2 years to get frustrating results in case of replacement parts, for me they have high price kits with issues, no respect for their customer 》experienced《 no custome service. Though sent in photos of 2 kits with the same issue they took no responsibility for that sh... in nearly 50 years of modelling i've had such problems only with bäfix. Hence the "new" name
@@HarryHoudiniModels : I can attest to that too.... a year or so ago, I found a part missing on the new Airfix 1/48 Meteor I'd just bought; sent them an email with kit number/part number, etc, and about 4 days later a jiffy-bag arrives in the post with the replacement piece and a courtesy note.. 👍🏻. Lovely kit too!
Modern Airfix are generally excellent in my opinion - and I have memories of 60s/70s Airfix too; the kits are very good, instructions are great, and some of the best transfer/decal sheets in the business with Cartograph.. 😏. Great customer service too! 😁
I too like their selection of subjects, especially for their 1/72 helicopter models. However, they have made simple mistakes on some kits like the CH-53E model having the main rotors turning in the wrong direction! Same thing with their MH-53J kit which just -looked-wierd!
But were they buildable?