Review by: Geoff Coughlin
Price: £4.50 (April 2012)
Our thanks to Revell Germany for supplying our review sample. Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information email ukbranch@revell.de. 
Something to get you in the mood…!
The Kit
The box art is great and inviting, but you have to be careful because the price of the kit and the contents would suggest otherwise.
This isn’t a new kit, but a simple tooling of a much older offering, although I can’t be sure that it was an original Revell kit.
Nonetheless, we have another Macchi C.200 Saetta available and that has to be a good thing, even though you are likely to need to put in some work to get a good finished project.
Box and Contents
The box artwork is good, showing a Macchi C.200 Saetta overflying an Allied MTB and in a scrap with Gloster Gladiators and, reasonably, coming out on top! Let’s go inside…
The light brown sprues are packaged well in the usual poly bag and no damage is apparent. Taking the main components first, they are clearly an old tooling with plenty of excess flash to clean away from almost all parts and the plastic feels quite hard and brittle-like.
No distortion was apparent but a dry fit of the fuselage to wing join suggests some filling will be needed. Overall shape looks OK for a C.200.
Moving to the wings, they are reasonable in outline shape and there are wheel wells.
Detail Sprues
The components feature raised panel lines, which may not impress all of you, but was a sign of the times when first produced.
The cockpit is spartan when compared to references, although it does include an integrally moulded seat and internal cockpit detail, these only bear a passing resemblance to the original and no instrument panel is included.
This kit sits in the pocket-money bracket, so it’s fair to say that the kit is surely aimed at the junior and novice market. There’s nothing wrong with that in principle, although a newer modeller fighting to get parts to fit can put someone off for life!
Clear Parts
The clear parts are few and far between for the type and what there is seems cloudy and has plenty of excess flash. Not good.
Instructions
The Revell instructions follow their usual exploded stages format. Location of parts is clear but colour paint coding is for Revell paints only. However, the colour names are provided and this will help you to match your own choice of paints.
This is a basic model and so should present little difficulty in working out where all the parts are located, even for inexperienced modellers.
Decals
The decals seem good, being newly created and manufactured. Certainly colour saturation and register is good and all markings are accurate and sharp in their detail.
This is probably the best part of the package; good quality decals will make a world of difference to your completed model. Marking options are very good and a couple of interesting aircraft could be made up – see the Gallery Grid above.
Conclusion
If you are into small-scale modelling, this kit might be worth a look, especially as given the low price you could build a number in different markings by cross-kitting and mixing decals.
If you’re prepared to spend a lot of time you might be able to get a half-decent result.
| FEATURE | STAR RATING (out of five) |
|---|---|
| Quality of moulding | * |
| Accuracy | ** |
| Instructions | *** |
| Decals | **** |
| Subject choice | **** |
| Overall | ** |
Geoff C.
