Pretty in Pink Buccaneer, Vintage Style Revell's 1/72nd scale “Buccaneer S Mk. 2B” review

When an older kit is rereleased it is a good chance to look back nostalgically on your childhood and the fact that you might have already bought this kit when you were a kid? We have the new Buccaneer S Mk.2B kit in 72^nd scale from Revell and it gives us a chance to look back on our past in today’s review.

Review: Revell’s 1/72nd scale “Buccaneer S Mk. 2B”.

Kit No: 04902a

Kit type: injection moulded multimedia

Scale: 1/72

Sprues: 3 styrene + 1 clear

Part Count: 44 parts, 1 clear part

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I only saw an operational Buccaneer twice in the days I used to go to air shows; one in grey-green camo and the other in desert pink, after its tour in the Gulf. Both times, I was impressed with how cool the aircraft looked. From that moment on, it was on my list of aircraft I wanted to build a kit of.

Revell made this up to show us what is achievable with this kit

Here is the nose art of XW533, Miss Jolly Roger, the Buccaneer that’s in the box, on the real machine. 

A couple of years ago, photos of a Buccaneer master were going around on the web and mightily nice it looked! Said to be in 1/32 or 1/48, hopes were high, but so far nothing new has been heard of it. Today, Revell re-boxes the vintage Matchbox Buccaneer and I wanted to know what it looks like.

The taped up fuselage of the 1974 re-boxed Buccaneer

We live in times in which model companies release state-of-the-art kits, so we’re used to getting those. When you compare these modern kits to one like this Buccaneer, first released in 1974, you see how much has changed in the hobby. The kit contains nothing more than the absolute minimum: fuselage, wings, gear a one piece canopy…

The kit’s seats are a little basic and the exhausts are closed on the ends …

No cockpit, no engine exhaust, no detail. Yet get two one-piece seats, but they’ll be ejecting right into the bin of most modellers buying the kit.

The cockpit is built up by two seats and two pilots, but that’s it. No cockpit tub or instrument panels are provided. It can use some scratch building !

The fuselage and wings have a couple of panel lines, but they are pretty wide. The tricycle landing gear are just 6 pieces (nose gear and wheel is one piece) so it’s pretty rough. The air intakes are nicely moulded, but don’t look inside them because it leads to … emptiness.

Construction of the kit is very easy and the end result will have the profile of a Buccaneer, but that’s about it. Modellers with the spirit for it, can use this kit as a base for a very detailed model, but it’ll involve quite some work.

The canopy of fits well, but is single piece and should be slightly more rounded.

Revell provides only one marking, a desert pink aircraft with very few decals on a tiny 4 x 5 cm sheet. I do like the boxart on this Revell release – very dynamic!

Here is the nose art featured on the decals

XW533 A, Miss Jolly Roger/Fiona, 208th Squadron, RAF in“desert pink” overall OP Granby-Desert Storm, Muharraq AB BH (March 1991)

Now, here is my honest opinion: this is a 40 year old kit and even in those days, it wasn’t considered a top of the line one. This one, together with the Airfix one – which is of the same “back in those days”-standards – is what is available in 1/72 injection moulded kits. Building it into a winner will take a lot of work and scratch building, if you up for it.

I see this kit as a reminder that it really is about time that someone takes up the challenge to present us with a decent and well detailed model of this fantastic looking aircraft. In any scale! It doesn’t mean I won’t be building this kit though, pure out of sentimental reasons!

Thanks to Revell to bring this nostalgic kit back and for sending us a copy of it.

Nicolas Deboeck

Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For details visit www.revell.de/en , @RevellGermany or facebook.com/revell