Hi Guys - this is a kit that always seems to pop up on ebay and goes cheap! This has always semed a shame to me because I’ve aways felt it should deserve more.
The Continental was a short chassis lightweight version of the Phantom II designed as a four seater fast touring car. It used a 7.6 litre 6 cylinder engine with dual ignition and the four speed gearbox had synchromesh on 3rd and 4th gears (in 1935 2nd gear was also given synchromesh). The new chassis design used semi elliptic springs front and rear and the four wheel brakes were servo assisted.
The 1/16 Revell kit rerpresents a Continental bodied by Gurney Nutting of London.
The dual ignition mentioned is shown on the kit engine but needs detailing, the plug leads were fed thru a tube on the 1:1 - the distributor was on the RH side of the engine. Added oil lines, scratchbuilt coil and a few other bits and pieces:
Six more plugs were installed via magneto ignition on the LH side of the engine. These could be switched in at will for fast touring - at the same time a knob on the transmission tunnel would retract the exhaust baffles which changed the car from a Pussy Cat into an entirelydiffferent animal. Fabulous!! Here’s the other side:
The kit builds a car which is too high on the suspension and tis just makes it look wrong.
After putting this right I added the truss braces to the chassis. These were from brass wire and show only from some angles - nevertheless I was glad I put them in.
It is scarey building a RR because you are always aware of the quality of the real cars,
For this one I used mahogonay for the dash and door caps and added drinks tables to the seat rears. Here in mock-up where you can see the doors are also hinged. For this one I also built sliding door catches which operate from both sides.
Enough of the waffle!! Here she is - hope you like!!
Martin of Martsmodels who started this thread died a couple of years ago from a heart attack. I used to correspond with him from time to time.
I asked him and he repositioned the rear springs on the chassis so they fit more on the SIDE of the chassis rails than under it. This lowered the stance quite a bit on the front & rear. I built the same model but just did it up following the directions back around 1979 or 1980.
He looked at photos of the real car & determined that Revell had made a mistake on how the spring ends were
attached to the frame. Sorry I can’t remember too much more. I think they were mounted on the OUTSIDE of the chassis frame rails.
Martin of Martsmodels who started this thread died a couple of years ago from a heart attack. I used to correspond with him from time to time.
I asked him and he repositioned the rear springs on the chassis so they fit more on the SIDE of the chassis rails than under it. This lowered the stance quite a bit on the front & rear. I built the same model but just did it up following the directions back around 1979 or 1980.
He looked at photos of the real car & determined that Revell had made a mistake on how the spring ends were
attached to the frame. Sorry I can’t remember too much more. I think they were mounted on the OUTSIDE of the chassis frame rails.
