This Is The End
With that, the Clearly Scale Hellcat Challenger is complete. I have some complaints and some compliments but personally probably one of my favorite builds so far and one of my best shoots to date. We will have a discussion about he bad parts first, and then I’ll touch on what was good.
Let me just say that from the get go had it not been for the Geronimo Works Detail-Up Set, the interior and engine bay would have been severely lacking. The CS kit offers no dress up parts or decals for the interior and only supplies the engine to make this look like a Hellcat on the inside. Now what it does give is quite good. I feel the engine was in much better detail than alot of the 3D printed units available online, it also fit better into the chassis.
If Geronimo Works made Hellcat rims for their detail up set there would be no contest as to who brought the best game to the chassis department. GW outshone the brake offerings from CS by a very large margin. Infact, the kit brakes were better than the CS parts, while smaller they looked far more convincing. GW with separate brake calipers and P.E. rotors allowed for better paint and weathering of a hard-slung street car. So in case you wanted a reminder…
As stated before, with regards to the wheels. CS does provide them but the tires offered could do with a more realistic tread pattern and ratio. Seeing as this is supposed to show an early model Hellcat, I would have liked CS to have added the optional “Hell-Crate” small profile fronts and meaty rears from the real version.
Alas, the body. This is what the Hellcat kit is all about. Now I’d say it was fantastic and CS blew it out of the park, but they didn’t really impress me all that much. Yes all of the features are accurate and yes there was no major surgery required to get the body to fit. Issues that came up were minor things I felt could have easily been resolved as this was the 3rd serial of casting but yet they still remained.
The hood is good, from the outside. While the vents and the front intake are convincing and fit flush on the exterior, on the inside all of that is ruined when the big blocky backings are visible with the hood up, even with the underside painted matte back, it still cates the eye.
The main points of the Hellcat kit are the updated front/ rear bumpers. While both will fit in place with some minor sanding they both suffer from the same issues. Slightly uneven surfaces in the flat areas will require some careful massaging with sanding sticks. The other main problem area is the turn indicators which are moulded in. It would have been better to have left them recessed or as a separate clear part. Worry not though as GW comes in clutch with P.E. indicators which can preplaced the moulded in detail.
All of the exterior parts did come with sanding marks either moulded in during casting or as a virtue of pour tree removal by CS. with this being the 3rd serial casting then the moulds should have been fixed or CS needs to just leave the trees on and allow the customer to remove them via their own methods.
When you don’t have access to injection moulding technology as a small batch producer, clear parts will suffer from fogging and hazing. While the rear taillights are now moulded in red, its still a big draw back for the final fit and finish on the kit. A bit of polishing does help to aid in the final photos.
For all of the kits drawbacks, they are equally balanced by the benefits it offers, however I’m glad that when I bought two of these kits, I also bought two Geronimo Works P.E Detail-Up sets. Its sorely needed, that or a manufacturer needs to make injection molded versions of the hellcat challenger and charger. This is the next best thing we have.