Background:

I had planned to build a rally Subaru Legacy at some point - I love the feel that it has the appearance of an ordinary saloon car with a rollcage in it and the backseats removed. There are many liveries to choose from, I thought this one would make a stand-out version on the shelf being a yellow base instead of a white one.

Kit review:

Pros:

Good overall shape, more or less fits together well. Decent underbody and interior detail. Comes with photo-etch for details and material for seatbelts and mudflaps.

Cons:

The supplied tyres (which I have changed) seem much too large and make the car look and ride like a tractor. The glass doesn't fit perfectly. The headlights are buckets and lack detail and the headlight glass doesn't have a very positive fit. The interior is a tub with many details moulded-in and the door cards are flat and too simple. There are quite a few ejector pin marks to clean up, and seperation lines too. As the car shares it moulds with the road version, some work is needed to open up the holed for the roof vents.

Verdict:

It's OK. Not great, not terrible. Not up the standards of Hasegawa's more recent kits.

Build notes:

Built over the course of 8 weeks in October/November 2023. The only change to the boxed kit is changed tyres and changed seatbelt harness material - paper instead of whatever that stuff is that Hasegawa provide. The mud/dust is applied using weathering pigments. The instructions would have you fit only one door mirror, the photo on the box shows none. Neither of these look right to me, so I fitted both.

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