1/48 XP-51 41-038, anybody?

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

As a Wisconsinite, I’m proud to live fairly close to the EAA Airventure Museum in Oshkosh. It’s really a great museum and there’s something to appeal to everyone, from several pre-War racers to a nice collection of warbirds. I encourage anyone with an interest in planes to visit if its at all convenient. In fact, they have a pretty cool collection of 1/48 and 1/32 scale aircraft dioramas, and a room devoted to the history of model airplanes! If you make your way there in the summer to visit the amazing week-long fly-in, you should stop inside the museum, you’ll be surprised at the museum’s quality and the helpfulness of the volunteers who know more about the planes on display than the people who flew them!

Anyways, I was there with my dad last Christmas and I was intrigued, so I thought that I needed to share this often-overlooked museum with you all. On to my question.

One of the many unique things on display in the warbirds area is the oldest p-51 in existence, the only surviving XP-51. It’s quite a sharp bird, and I really want to build one in 1/48. Seeing as only two XP-51’s were made, it’s obvious that there are no injection molded kits of this rare plane. I haven’t thoroughly checked out the vacu-formed market, nor the all-resin kits, but I haven’t heard of any such XP-51s in these mediums either. I know that ICM and Accurate Miniatures both have kits of the P-51A, and I was wondering if I could back-date one of these to an XP-51. I’m also wondering if any of you know how much effort something like this would take. The two look fairly similar, but I don’t know the specifics of their differences. Is there an after-market kit available to do this backdating? An after-market kit would be my first choice, but I’d also be open to resin and vacu-form kits. Any ideas, insight, motivation, demotivation, or any other things relevant to this quest are greatly appreciated. If anyone knows of other articles about this specific topic, that would also be really great. Thanks!

Also, does anyone know if the ICM kit or the Acuurate Miniatures kit is better?

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I did something similar. Your best bet is to get a P-51A (italeri do a nice little 72nd kit) and replace the prop with a dc-3 or B-17 prop (hamilton standard round tip) The rest of the little details (chin guns etc) are scratch build items. The major difference is that allison engine. Which the A comes with anyway.

http://mustangsmustangs.net/p-51/p51variants/XP-51s.php

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I would start with one of the AM Mustang I (#3410) or P-51 (3400). You can then get the Ultracast Mustang I conversion (48031), which will give you the correct gun set up (or you can scratch build the parts). Also the new canopy will need to be made. Main thing is to be sure you start with the version of the P-51 that had the movable belly air scoop. You will still need to change several details, including the canopy. There is no direct conversion for this that I know of. Avoid the Italeri 1/72 P-51A kit, as it has P-51D wings.

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Very true, i did forget this detail. Sorry for the bad info.

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When I read your question, I immediately suspected that the ICM kit is probably a copy of the Accurate Miniatures kit. I have their P-51B, and it’s a copy of the Tamiya kit.

I did a quick search, and apparently their -A is indeed a copy of the Accurate Miniatures kit. Here is an article at Modeling Madness that mentions this:

http://modelingmadness.com/reviews/allies/us/cleavermust4.htm

and the author also notes that there are some errors in the copy that make it problematic to buy the kit.

Also, this is a discussion thread at ARC’s forum that goes into more detail about the ICM kit:

http://s362974870.onlinehome.us/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=199921

Hope that helps!

Brad