Italeri | 2505: 1/32 Mirage IIIC

Reviewed by Nicolas Renoult

The long-awaited 1/32 Mirage IIIC from Italeri has just been released. It seems that this kit keeps its promises. While not being as good as the most recent Tamiya kits, it has all of a good kit, for quite an average price for a new tooling modern jet kit (I paid it 79.90€).

Inside the Box

There are:

1 instruction booklet with color profiles
1 sheet dedicated to generic stencils
5 grey styrene sprues including 2 identical sprues for wheels, pylons and ordnance
1 clear sprue with canopy and other clear parts
1 photo-etched fret with belts, mirrors and other small details

The Decal Sheets

They look very nicely printed, but is it a surprise from Cartograf?

There are a lot of stencils and markings, in various languages: French, German for the Swiss version, or Hebrew for the Israeli version.

There are six included possible schemes:

1 French AF desert scheme
1 French AF bluish grey scheme
1 French AF natural metal finish
1 Swiss AF natural metal finish
1 South-Africa AF camo scheme
1 Israeli AF natural metal finish

The Photo-Etched Fret

The belts look pretty good for an out-of-box PE belt, which are often not as good as after market belts.

The Plastic Sprues

1 – The Main Fuselage Sprue

The surface details looks very good on the fuselage; the soft panel lines phenomena on some areas which were so criticized on the F-104 seems to be way less noticeable. However the surface is a bit grainy. That may not be a problem for the camouflage finishes, but for natural metal finishes, it may certainly ask for a whole sanding / polishing.

I also found what I think is nasty moulding flaw on the upper side of the fuselage around the spine on both halves (see the seventh photo in the sequence above). I first though it was a kind of panel line, but it doesn’t seem so. This one would be pretty bothering to correct as the step is quite noticeable and there are a lot of details around.

Regarding the other smaller parts, it looks very good. The cockpit tub is nicely detailed and the coaming and the turtle deck as well with a lot of moulded wires. The instrument panel is very good.

2 – The Belly and Engine Sprue

The Atar 9 engine parts look absolutely great! This is certainly one of the best injected plastic engine on the market. Even the inner parts, fan or AB ring are very crispy and thin. That’s a very good point, even if most model builders build their models fully enclosed so the engine is not seen. But it’s there anyway!

3 – The Wings and Tail Sprue

These parts looks pretty nice, too. Surface details are good, with also the grainy texture like the fuselage and the belly. The gear doors are nicely detailed with rivets on the inside.

4 – The Clear Sprue

The windscreen and canopy are perfectly clear and well-moulded, with almost no distortion (a bit for the windscreen). They won't even need any polishing as they are very shiny out-of-the-box.

5 – The Ordnance Sprue

This sprue supply various missiles (Sidewinders, Matra Magic, Matra R530), rocket pods, fuel tanks, pylons and the wheels, which looks very nice, and are realistically flattened.

There is also the engine trolley. The missiles look very nice, and as far as I know, it is the first time in 1/32 scale that some French missiles are available. That’s a very good point as they could also be used for a few other jets (Trumpeter Crusader, Revell Mirage IIIE).

Conclusion

To sum up, I think this kit will be a very good seller for Italeri. It will sell very well in France of course, as French modellers crave for the very missing french jets in 1/32, but the schemes supplied will also please a lot of people around the world, with nice IAF possibilities among others.

And from what I can see in the box, the builder can get a very good looking model out-of-the-box, with a nice amount of details.