The Revell Germany 289 Shelby Cobra is an inaccurate and difficult model to build.

 Another day, another model car that took seven months to build!

That's mostly my fault.

If you've seen the movie Ford Vs Ferrari then you'll remember in the beginning we're introduced to one Ken Miles played by Batman. Having retired from crime fighting, Batman has traveled to the 60s, started a family and is now happily racing in the SCCA championship for Team Shelby. (Which in 1964, out of nine races Miles won two and placed second in one other, while in the top ten in most of the others. In 1965 the 289 Cobras last race was in Laguna Seca and Ken won that one too.)

This kit is a model of the first Cobra, the 1962 289, which has Mile's number (and it was
Shelby's favorite number), 98.

Which brings us to a bit of a conundrum about this kit.  

The kit is displayed in blue and has the 98 numbering. And yet, there are quite a bit of inaccuracies. I like Revell of Germany kits, they're a bit higher quality than the typical Revell kits we find in Hobby Lobby or Walmart (in the past anyway), and include full color instruction booklets. I have a few Revell Germany model kits and I'm looking forward to building more. However this kit isn't a true Revell Germany kit. It started life in 1985 as a 427 Cobra from a brand called "Sunny Tri-S". 

The 427 origins are clearly still present, as the iconic bumpers and side windows are from the 427. The 289 did not have those items. The model also lacks the truck deck "flares" that were present in the racing version of the 289 which were put there to meet the FIA requirement that a suitcase had to fit in the trunk of the car. (In Ford vs Ferrari Batman hammers the trunk until it can fit a suitcase.) The racing strip is also different and I don't really know why.

In 1990 the kit because an "Academy" branded kit and got some new parts, and was purchased and released as a Revell of Germany kit in 2020.

So this is an old kit and a lot of the old parts were still in the box which let some some confusing instructions. The Instruction sheet itself while large and in color, wasn't very forthcoming with the placement of some parts either, which is due to this kit's history and changes. Sometimes it feels like they said "it goes somewhere in this area, figure it out." Which is fine.

This was the 98 289 Cobra:

 There are some obvious inaccuracies. While I think Ken Miles is on the greatest race car drivers ever and I wanted to do his car justice, I also felt like since the kit was going to be inaccurate anyway, I might as well do something different and interesting.

I started with the color, a blue Cobra is classic, but I had found a color called "Seafoam Steel" that I really wanted to do a model in, so I figured why not. 

So way back in April, I primed and pained the body in Seafoam Steel.

This is what "Seafoam Steel" is supposed to look like:

 And this is how it turned out:

To be fair (to be fair...) you're supposed to go off the label for color, but come on!

 Which is quite a bit different. I felt this "june-bug" green was a bit harsh for a car body, and so in my disappointment I shelved the whole project for quite a while.

Until I had the bright idea to paint transparent blue over the green!

I was curious how a transparent color over the bright green would end up looking, and hoped that it would turn out much closer to the original intention for the color. 

The results were fantastic!

Yay! Not bright green!

The blue subdued the green and toned it down quite a bit to more of a sea-foam color that I was originally hoping for!

So I started building the model, and only stopped to do the Lancer group build. 

I also clear coated and polished the model, before putting on the decals. The decals went on very good and I'm quite proud of them. I then clear coated the model again, but I didn't quite get the results I originally got on the Lancer. 

I put a lot of detailing into this model, I pained the transmission steel and the engine block blue as a Ford reference. I detailed the interior and all of the suspension pieces as well. 

 Because of the age of the molding, there was lots of flash, pieces didn't really fit well together, and there was a bit of improvisation along the way. Also, the tires bug me. I think they're the wrong scale, and the stick out too far. 

Nerve Racking: cutting a decal so that it conforms to a panel line.

 

 

There was quite of fitment issues and some frustration, but in the end, everything came out quite nicely!

 I pained the inner rims gold and left the spinners chrome, and I attempted to do the "gills" and side pipes in a black chrome, with varied success. Still learning how to use Alclad metal color paints.

Overall I'm please with this one, and it was quite enjoyable. I have a newer Revell 427 Cobra that will do sometime down the line and while that kit has it's own issues, none of them are insurmountable and the kit is considered quite a bit better than this one. 

If you haven't seen Batman as Ken Miles and Will Hunting as Carol Shelby in Ford vs Ferrari, you should give it a watch. It's a great movie and a bit of racing history. If you want to learn more about Ken Miles and "his" 289 Cobra, I got you covered there too. 

I would really like to build the Number 1 Ford GT40 (1966 mk II) that Ken Raced at Le Mans, but I having trouble finding one.  

And finally, the gallery!

😁

 

The 289 engine, complete with tiny decals that had some issues.

 

The Real 289 in the 98 car.