Johnny Lighting 60’s Batmobile review

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THE 60’S BATMOBILE
1/24 scale diecast kit from Johhny Lightning
reviewed by Steve Iverson

Though its not the TV Batmobile, this 60’s car based on the comic book car looks great! Don’t be fooled by this one folks. It may say “die-cast” on the box, but it is a model kit all the way. About the only thing to set this apart from a regular styrene kit is that the car body is made of metal. The kit comes with over 50 parts and you will need to do some gluing and painting. The dash and windshield, as well as much of the detail on the body is already assembled. You will be putting together the engine, undercarriage and interior.

First thing you may want to do is disassemble the dashboard so you can paint it. Otherwise, it will be difficult to get access with a brush and get the details just right. Additionally, you’ll want to paint the interior including the seats, door panels, fire extinguisher, and batphone. You’ll even note one of the door panels has some sort of “Bat Raygun” sitting in it. Like any normal auto kit, you’ll need to do a bit of work on the engine to make it look like a real car engine. Add spark plug wires and battery cables. Jazz up the alternator and power stearing units so they don’t look like they are hanging in mid-air. For many of us sci-fi builders, car kits are new territory. Play around a bit and make that engine look good! And you’ll want to paint the underside to bring out the details of the chassis, exhaust and other bits.

The two areas of difficulty I had with this kit were the steering linkage and the tires. The instruction diagram is a bit unclear about the proper placement of the front steering linkage. You may need to play around a little to get the parts in proper position. And you may find the tires to be a little troublesome when it comes to fitting the rubber over the rims.

Overall this kit goes together well. I’ve heard a lot of mixed things about car kits from Playing Mantis, but I had no problems with parts fitting. This was the first kit from Playing Mantis that I have built that featured an engine, and I found it to be similar to other cars I built long ago.

As you know, Polar Lights is going to have a 1/25 scale styrene kit of this very same car. It will be interesting to compare the two. Its going to be pretty hard to top the Johnny Lightning diecast kit!

Steve Iverson