Italeri 1/6 Honda RC211V Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Team Movistar entered the 2004 season with the 'A' team of Spanish rider Sete Gibernau and American Colin Edwards. Under manager Fausto Gresini, team Movistar thrilled the MotoGP crowds with their aggressive racing that featured the Honda RC211V as their principal mount. The team would end the 2004 season ahead of the official Honda team, and second only to Valentine Rossi on his Yamaha.

The Honda RC211V is powered by a five-cylinder 990cc engine producing 220+ horsepower. The Honda chassis is well-designed for the racing circuit and like the competing Yamaha, rolls on Michelin tires.

Italeri has released this historic racer in an impressive 1/6 scale. Molded in black, medium blue, silver, and anodized silver styrene, the kit also completed with a variety of metal parts to provide the structural strength that a kit this size will require.

As with your typical automotive projects, this kit is assembled and painted as subassemblies. For instance, in step one, you simply apply the decals to the wind deflector halves that screens the airflow from the rider's lower torso. I don't know how well these decals will stay on bare plastic, but the more experienced modeler will want to put a coat of paint on the parts prior to applying the decals. Ditto on the rest of the subassemblies.

While the younger or rushed modeler can achieve a nice looking result by assembling the kit without painting, and the instructions give the impression that this is the proper way to assemble most of the bike, there are a few areas where paint colors are called out.

The colors used in this kit are linked to Testors ModelMaster standard paints and are also identified by Federal Standard 595 colors (as applicable) making the job of color matching easy.

Assembly appears to be quite straightforward and since Italeri did not chrome the silver parts (thank you!), you have the opportunity to clean up any mold marks or seam lines without worrying about harming the near-impossible-to-match chrome color on US car kits.

You can use your favorite metalizer on the appropriate silver parts to achieve the look you're wanting (I use Alclad II) and have the opportunity to use varying shades of metalizer to reflect the affects of heat and the visual appearance of different metal types together.

Another nice touch are the decals. This kit provides a HUGE decal sheet containing all of the various accents, sponsor markings, team markings, etc.

A nice set of rubber tires completes the kit to replicate the Michelins used on this famous racer.

This is a nicely engineered kit that will build into an impressive model with a little care and attention to detail.

My sincere thanks to Testors for this review sample!