Grunhertz

Aoshima/Beemax Audi Sport Quattro S1(E2) 1:24 Scale Kit No B24017 Price £39.00 Approx. History, Surely a rally car that needs no introduction whatsoever, this is the car that changed the face of rallying forever. The Quattro history goes back to 1977 with the Volkswagen Iltis, when the Audi Chassis designer Jorg Bensinger discovered that the four wheel drive Iltis outperformed all other cars that he drove in the snow, regardless of the power that the other cars could put down. Bensinger then worked with Walter Treaser to start developing a high performance car based on the Audi 80 B2 floorpan. In late 1980 the Quattro road car went on sale and the rally car debuted at the same time. The first Quattro appeared under group 4 rules at the Janner rally in Austria with pretty much a road car with a tuned engine to Approx 300HP and Michelle Mouton became the first woman to win a world championship round at the 1981 San Remo Rally in italy, this was after Hannu Mikola had won the Swedish Rally earlier that year. If maximum traction was to be a factor in rallies then four wheel drive was very much the way to go. In 1981 however Talbot won the manufacturers title with the lotus sunbeam and Ari Vatanen the drivers title with the Escort RS1800 followed in 1982 with Walter Rohrl taking the drivers title for Opel with the Ascona 400 but the dream team of Mikola and Mouton accumulated enough points for Audi to win the constructors title with the Quattro. In 1983 Group B came in with a bang with manufacturers allowed to build 200 examples of cars Audi came through with the Quattro A1 and 2 with a 350HP engine however 1983 proved to be the swansong for the two wheel drive cars with Lancia’s 037 Rallye winning the constructors title, the last time a rear wheel drive car won the title but Mikola won the drivers title with the Quattro. In 1984 Audi with the Quattro A2 took a clean sweep of both the constructors title and Stig Blomqvist won the drivers title Lancia won only one rally that year however the understeering characteristics of the Quattro due to the engine being in front of the front axle brought to bear and shown into sharp focus by the appeance of the next evolution of Group B cars with the introduction of the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 which appeared at the end of the season and the performance showed the other teams up In 1985 a new Quattro appeared in the shape of the short wheelbase sport Quattro, this was done in an attempt to reduce the understeer inherent with a front engined four wheel drive car as opposed to the mid engined Peugeot. Audi shortened the wheelbase as well as starting to move the weight further back in the car such as radiators and other ancillaries including an increase in horsepower up to 400HP. All of this was to no avail as Peugeot dominated the season with Timo Salonen taking the drivers title and Peugeot taking the constructors title. 1985 however started to put Group B into focus as Attilio Bettega was killed in his Lancia 037 in the 1985 tour de Course and Vatanen seriously injured in the Peugeot in Argentina. Audi did start to see the negative effects of this publicity and interest was waning. The FIA however under pressure from Ford, Austin Rover and Lancia who all had new cars in development for the 1986 season did not ban the cars which was to have dire consequences later. At the end of 1985 two new competitors to the Quattro arrived in the shape of Austin Rovers Metro 6R4 and Lancia Delta S4 arriving for the RAC rally in 1985 in the UK 1986 was a huge year for Group B in more ways than one with Audi, Peugeot, Lancia, and Austin Rover having new cars ready for the start of the season with the Audi now having a car in the S1 Evo 2 that looked like the most outlandish car of all with huge wheel arches, a massively powerful turbocharged 5 cylinder engine putting out a reputed 590HP and a body package capable of generating 500Kg of downforce, with water cooled brakes (the only way to bring such a beast to a halt) finally a Porsche developed gearbox as gear changes were getting beyond the drivers. But there was only one way to drive such a car and that was flat out to try to diminish the understeer. The problem was that the Quattro even in its evolution form was a switchblade bought to a gunfight against cars designed to make the best possible advantage of the regulations. To make matters worse Audi unbeknown to the chiefs were working on a silhouette car to do just that, this would have meant that you wouldn’t be able to buy a road going version of the can and when the VAG bosses found out they killed the project dead and sacked the Audi sport boss. Added to Audi’s woes was the appearance of Ford’s RS200 in the tour of Portugal. It was here that the first Nail was hammered into the coffin of Group B cars as one of the RS200’s went off the road at this Rally, killing 20 spectators. Then at the next rally, Corsica Henri Toivenen’s Delta S4 left the road and exploded killing both him and his Co driver Sergio Cresto. Audi had by now pulled out of Rallying after the RS200 accident and so ended the era of Group B with the FIA banning the class in international rallying at the end of the season. . The Car went on however to carry on in competition with a couple of runs at the Pikes peak hill climb event in the united states and Ollie Areneson raced an S1(E2) in the European Rallycross Championship into the early 1990s. It was the British Rallycross Grand Prix in 1990 at Brands Hatch that peaked my interest in this car seeing it on full throttle coming up the front straight and the waste gate belching flame on the overrun. I was hooked! The kit So A bit of personal history in my twenties I was heavily into Group B cars and I got to as much Rallycross as I could as they had now been banned from rallying. My road car was an Opel Manta, and I searched as far as I could for models of Group B cars, and all you could get was Tamiya’s Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 and the early Group 4 Quattro, both of which were great kits and now 32 years after they were banned we are now getting 1/24 scale models of the most exiting cars of the era. Suffice to say I have a Belkits Manta 400 in the Stash (thanks Mum) and now this, and for fans of the class Hasegawa have produced a Lancia 037 Rallye. Aoshima/Beemax have a Lancia Delta S4 on the way and Belkits are working on a Metro 6R4, all we need is an RS200 and I’ll be in heaven, we really are living in a golden age at the moment. The Quattro has been kitted before in the form of a Tamiya kit depicting Mouton’s San Remo Car. But to my knowledge this is the first short wheelbase car available in 1:24 scale. I haven’t bought a Beemax or Aoshima kit before, but one look at the fantastic box art on Friday afternoon before Telford opened on Saturday, flashbacks to Waynes World and “it will be mine, oh yes it will be mine” filled my head without knowing how much this was going to be. Anyway before the show opened on Saturday my long suffering wife had offered to go halves with me for the £39.00 that the kit cost. so onto the kit. The box is approximately Tamiya size with a lovely painting of the Monte Carlo car on the lid, the Box type is a quite sturdy lid and tray type and inside are two black, 4 white, one chrome and one clear sprue. There are vinyl tires and mesh provided with separate extras set available with photo etch and ribbon set at extra cost. There are also two decal sheets and a colour sheet for decal placement and an A4 instruction sheet. Sprue A Car models frustrate the hell out of me; they all seem to go back to the days of Matchbox and the companies assume no one wants to paint the model. As such we have multi coloured sprues and Sprue A is one of the 2 black sprues in the kit. On here we have the floorpan of the car and the interior tub. This is annoying as I will have to paint the Floorpan white and painting white on black means the whole thing is going to need to be primered anyway! Still enough moaning the moulding is sharp and there appears to be very little flash evident and no sinkmarks on My sample the dash board is well moulded with decals taking the place of the dials on this kit and of course this is only available in left hand drive unlike the Belkits Manta which has sprues for both. The suspension subframes on here as well as the shocks and brake discs. I will say at this point that the car has a separately available PE sheet with discs on as well as other parts but in this case I would say so long as you get the mini drill out you wouldn’t need metal discs. Finally on here are windscreen wipers, steering wheel, fire extinguisher and exhaust system. I will say that the shocks are nicely moulded without any visible mould seam down the springs meaning clean-up will be easy on these. Sprue B On here there is the transmission as well as the bottom of the engine, the radiator grill, other vents and grills, radiators, a skid plate, the seats and the gearstick. Again nicely moulded but there is a bit more flash on this than other sprues, but not enough to worry about some of the parts on here will be replaced by the PE set and to be honest it would have been good to get these in the box as they look good but not as good as PE would look and If I Pay Nearly £40.00 for this I would expect a bit more than the plastic to be honest but I’m tight. The transmission moulding is very nicely done with the sump bolts moulded nicely onto the bottom of the engine and a nice touch in the temperature sensor on the bottom of the Gearbox (I hate to think how hot the transmission on these cars got) Sprue C Here are the white sprues and C contains the part for the Massive rear spoiler on the back of the car as you would expect this is a multipart affair designed so that all ejector pin marks are covered, there are more vents on here and these would definitely look better in PE as would the end plates, (look out for a later review of the aftermarket set!). There is a little flash evident on here but not so much that would put anyone off. I will say that the white plastic is beautifully polished and smooth but you would still have to paint it . Sprue D On here we have the pedal box, spare wheel Antenna (more on that in a bit) and the multi part roll cage. The roll cage looks easy enough to assemble with nice locating pins, the pedal box looks nicely done as does the spare wheel with a “15” moulded into it denoting a 15” wheel, these wheels look like five spoke revolution wheels to me and are crisply moulded. Now that antenna, do yourself a favour, cut the top off keep the base and use a piece of brass rod as this has to be the most over scale antenna I have ever seen. And must be scale 20mm diameter, not the best I’m afraid. Sprue E and F Chrome plated bits, thankfully not too many of these in here; just the rear light cluster, headlight cluster and Spotlights. These look like some of the nicest chrome parts I’ve seen however you are going to have an issue if you want the Spotlights uncovered as the sprue gate attaches right on the top of the top light and you are going to lose a bit of chrome, so strip the chrome back and spray with Alclad, put the covers on or there are plenty of references without the lights fitted, particularly as the weight of them made an already understeering car understeer more. Sprue G and H On here are the clear parts and I can say with certainty they are clear! These are really nicely done and for a change we have separate windscreen and side windows due to the way the windscreens were fitted this is probably the only way to tool this so careful assembly will be required here. Also on G there are the spotlight lenses and light lenses. The side windows are moulded open and I can only assume that the Monte Carlo Rally in January 1986 was the warmest on record as the crews must have been freezing! To be fair to the Beemax if they had moulded them shut someone would have complained and having them separate would have made fitting them a pain in the proverbial. On Sprue H are the vertical fairings for the front wheel arches and the tail light lenses. The Body Beemax have captured the shape of the Quattro perfectly here and the car looks like the absolute beast it was with vents moulded nicely and doors moulded shut along with the fuel flap etc. but it’s not all great unfortunately this is obviously a slide moulded piece of work but it doesn’t appear to fit properly as there is some flash on the roofline above the rear roof pillar. These are going to be easy to remove but will take a bit of work and is going to need some polishing back before priming. This is a shame as the rest of the body looks awesome with fastener detail delicately picked out. There are some quite substantial sprue gates in the front and rear screen aperture that are going to to need some careful removing to ensure that things don’t foul the interior. Sprue W Wheels, typical fare here with the wheels held on with poly caps and these again are nicely moulded without any flash and will take the vinyl tires quite nicely. Tires These will need some clean up as they have a nice vinyl flash line round the middle and a sprue release mark on the centre of the tread. The saving grace here is that these are slicks and will look nice sanded and scrubbed in a bit so nothing much to worry about. In the same bag as the Tiresare the Poly caps and a small sheet of mesh to go in the bonnet vents. Looking at it you may be able to get the vents on the rear wheel arches out of this sheet too. The mesh is quite course but certainly in keeping with the brutish nature of the car. Decals There are two sheets of decals in the box the first sheet contains the stripes and colours for the model so all you should need to do is paint the shell white. The decals look quite thick but are glossy I haven’t used Beemax decals before so I can’t comment on how good they are. The colours look just about spot on to me I have to be honest and say they look very good. The second decla sheet contains sponsor decals, seatbelts, number plates Dials and the other miscellaneous markings we still get on modern rally cars. There are also decals for the window strips (I’ll probably paint it to be honest). Audi like a lot of companies in the 80’s were sponsored by a tobacco company (HB) and because of this the markings are appropriately doctored, I’m not going to comment on this as it’s all been said already but if it bothers you can probably get them aftermarket if not now very soon. I probably will because I have a hankering to build a 1000 lakes car. Markings are provided for the 1985 San Remo Rally and the 1986 Monte Carlo rally. I have to say that I will probably by some Studio 27 Seatbelts for this not that there is anything wrong with the decals but I prefer the look of fabric belts. Also in the decal sheet bag we have the Audi rings as a self-adhesive decal and this looks to be made of metal as do the two door mirror stickers. Instructions The instructions are a stapled A4 sheet designed for those who have bought the PE as well so those who haven’t so beware if you are not using them but they are nice and clear with plenty of steps to be used and colours are called out throughout assembly Colours are called out using Gunze and Tamiya paint. The decals are called out on a separate sheet with only the Monte Carlo version but to be honest there isn’t a great deal of difference between the two versions. Conclusion It’s a bit of a curate’s egg this kit. In that it promises a lot and for the most part delivers but there are a couple of bits that cloud have been done better; the body for one as this is going to need quite a bit of work. That said if you want a Quattro S1 this is your only option so you have to make the best of it. To be honest with cars I feel it’s about time that model manufacturers dropped the multi coloured plastic on this as I can see loads of paint going into trying to cover a black floorpan with white paint, Beemax aren’t alone in this but I feel it needs to stop because the whole thing needs priming anyway. Secondly and Beemax aren’t unique in this at all, I have just paid quite a bit for a model only to find that the things that other manufacturers include for the same ish price are an optional extra. And by looking at the antenna I would say that has been done intentionally to make you spend more. But antenna aside there is nothing wrong with the plastic as it stands. But I wanted a Quattro and this at the moment is the only game in town so if you want one, this is your choice. Recommended but you are going to need to put some work into this, but that’s why we do this isn’t it? Review kit courtesy of mine and my wife’s long suffering bank accounts

Yep looks good Warren

This'll be good

Nice one Brad

That's right Paul I actually said to the wife, They were on BxM. And felt smug

Thanks for sharing si

I had heard they were good but that confirms it

That pinstripe looks great Duncan

Was nice to meet you Paul. Those racks look superb

Erm who's nige 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Ooh I so very nearly bought one at the weekend

That looks nice!

Oops

Ooh oops what happened?

That's looking pretty damn good from here Ken