1/24 Airfix Citroen Xsara WRC 2001 This is the Airfix 1/24 scale kit of the Citroen WRC that competed in some rallies during the 2001 World Rally Championship, it is a plastic kit with the added extra of the Studio 27 photo-etched upgrade kit which is a very worthwhile purchase to add to the realism of the model. The interior and chassis of the kit is relatively simple all fitting together well if at times a little flimsy, the main improvement here is the Studio 27 brake discs which were washed with black paint and sanded to fill the grooves and calipers which were 100% better than the original items, also the upgrade kit had seat belt buckles for proper seat belts. Onto the body, this needed quite alot of work, most of the vents were filled in originally so these were all opened and covered with mesh, also the original windscreen wipers which were moulded to the body and far too small were removed and replaced with the ones from the upgrade kit. The paint scheme on the car has a red body and white roof and the kit is supplied with decals to fade from red, through yellow to white, these didn't look too great so I decided to use an airbrush to spray the yellow fading to get a finer fade which does look much better I think. The decals went on easily although they were very thin and tried to fold over on themselves if you were not careful, once these were in place a clearcoat was added to protect them and after polishing the badges, bonnet pins, mesh etc. from the Studio 27 kit were added as well as Sakastu metal aerials. One of the last things to do was to glue in the windows which were all moulded as one moulding and proved to be quite troublesome, the front and rear screen lined up correctly but the side windows had quite large gaps around some of the edges, in the end I separated all the different windows, glued in place the original front and rear screens and then used separate pieces of clear sheet for the side windows. Finally the Studio 27 kit gives a pattern for the interior door panels as the original kit has nothing, the parts were made from thin plastic sheet, painted and then parts from the upgrade kit such as handles, map pockets etc. were added and then the panels glued inside the body. Overall, when finished a good looking kit but it does need a some work to get it looking that way. Back