American car designer Carroll Shelby has become synonymous with speed. Best known for his iconic AC Cobras and Ford Mustangs modified from the 1960s through the early 2000s, his name has been forever etched in automotive history.
AC Cars was a British manufacturer known for its lightweight, two-seat, sports cars called the Ace. Shelby convinced AC to wedge a V8 into an Ace instead of the usual straight six under the hood, and thus the AC Cobra was born. Of the 56 race-prepped Cobras produced, 31 went unsold, so windscreens were added and the engines detuned (slightly) to make the 427 S/C (or semi-competition).
The Revell 1/24 scale Shelby Cobra 427 S/C plastic model kit starts with the chassis and suspension assembly. All components fit well, with only minor cleanup needed on mold lines, the worst of which was on the coil springs. Be sure to remove the embossed manufacturer printing on the trunk pan.
The kit’s 427 ci FE big-block engine looks fairly accurate when compared to references. You’ll find decals for the valve covers, starter, alternator, belts, and air cleaner. References show that decals on the air cleaners are not always present, so if you’re planning on building an exact replica of a specific chassis number, make sure to research the particular car.
The 11-part, minimalist interior consists of a tub and various other parts to round it out, including a separate dash, bucket seats, and shifter. Lap and full-harness seat-belt decals detail the seats, and decals also detail the gauges, horn cover, and even the H pattern for the manual transmission. The door latches are a bit fiddly, but everything fits nicely.
Be mindful of the hood’s fit when installing it: The leading edge will contact the body and chip the paint. Thinning the front bottom of the hood edge will prevent this from happening.
The Shelby wheels needed extensive cleanup because parting lines and flash marred the chrome. You do get blue-stripe decals for the tires, but they have no branding. Although the stripes were thin, they laid down beautifully onto the vinyl. Spray Tamiya Flat Clear (No. TS-80) over the whole wheel-and-tire package to create the sheen of an aluminum rim.
The fit of the body to the chassis was so snug I didn’t need to use glue.
You’ll round out the build with windshields (stock or racing, you decide), head and taillights, and chrome parts. Again, the latter are full of flash, mold lines, and sprue gates that really let down the kit. The roll bar was misaligned, and I touched up the windshield frame, no longer chrome after cleanup, with a Molotow Liquid Chrome pen. Some of the one-to-one Cobras came with black side pipes, so finishing them in matte black to stand out against the white body helped hide some of that misalignment and unfortunate chrome.
Overall, I found building the Revell 1/24 scale Shelby Cobra 427 S/C plastic model kit satisfying, and it turned out to be a decent replica of the real thing. The kit is let down by the chrome parts that require a mess of cleanup, which means it’s not beginner-friendly. You’ll want to have at least a few kits to your name and be comfortable refinishing chrome parts before tackling this one.