Building Austin Healeys in 1/25 scale,

Growing up around Healeys, my first model car when I was a kid was of course the old Revell 1/25 scale Austin Healey 100/6. The kit first came out in the mid 60's and has been re-released several times over the decades. Surprisingly it's been the only kit of a big Healey to be produced in 1/25 scale. It depicts an early "Longbridge" built 100/6 BN4 - the first of the 6 cylinder/4 seater cars (1956-58).

Built straight from the box, the old castings need some careful sanding and detail improvements to make the grade. I always replace the chunky plastic wheels with some nice etched wire wheels from Detail Master. I also add lots of piping and wiring detail to the engine bay.
Here's the Revell kit built almost straight from the box with just some added details:

The colour scheme I chose for this model features a rare interior colour that only appeared in 1956/7 on BN2's and these early BN4's: Here's a pic of a faded original car with the Teal blue interior from 1956 -

The next model I want to feature is the same Revell kit but modified to turn it into one of the 2 seater, 6 cyl cars - the BN6/7. These were basically the same drive train, same grill and front end - just a sportier cockpit with only 2 seats and the spare wheel stowed behind them. 
Here you can see the modifications I made to fill in and modify the rear seat area:

The colour scheme I chose for the 1958 BN6 is called Florida Green over Ivory. It featured a "grey" interior with dark green carpets and piping.

After successfully making my first 2 seater out of the old Revell kit, I decided to take it a step further and try making one of the earlier 4 cyl 100/S cars. I decided to model my favorite/most famous of the 100/S cars: NOJ 393.
This was one of the first 3 aluminum bodied special test cars built at Warwick and raced at LeMans in 1953 and again in 1955. It was the first car to receive the S style engine modifications and it's pedigree runs deeper than any Big Healey out there. Here's how the modifications went:

Just like the real car, the original colour it was painted in '53 was a light green metallic. Then in '55 the main body and interior were changed and repainted to be the darker Spruce Green. The lighter green still remained visible on all the under areas including the engine bay:

With lots of home made modifications, details and some etched wire wheels, you'd never know that NOJ393 began with the old Revell kit -

Finally I decided I would model the Healey in it's earliest form: the 1953 Austin Healey 100 (BN1) - the original design as it was intended to be.
Again, I used the old Revell kit and modified it in the same ways:

So there you have it, where there's a will there's a way! To close, here's a few pics of the out of the box 4 seat 100/6, compared with the heavily modified 2 seat 100/4 model. All built using the old Revell kit model kit from the 1960's...

Until next time,