Italeri 1/6 Yamaha YZR M1 Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Valentine Rossi was the MotoGP racing champion for the 2003 season, winning his third championship on a Honda. He shocked the racing community by switching sides and appeared in the 2004 season with his metallic blue Yamaha YZR M1. He won the first race of the 2004 season with the Yamaha and went on to win the 2004 championship as well.

The Yamaha YZR M1 is powered by a 990cc four cylinder engine producing 220+ horsepower. The Yamaha, considered inferior to the Honda at the time of Rossi's switch, yet it dazzled the international crowds with its impressive performance and reliability. It did give Rossi his fourth consecutive championship!

Italeri has released this historic racer in an impressive 1/6 scale. Molded in black, metallic 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. You'll have to brush up on your Italian as there is no color table to provide color translations nor the colors needed in Humbrol, Revell, Testors, or whatever color equivalents.

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 complete array of Yamaha markings, racing sponsor markings, Rossi's personal markings, and a nice set of carbon fiber decals to replicate the look of the composite parts used around the exhaust system.

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!