OK, the Zephyr won the Review Raffle, so here's the review. Hope everyone enjoys!!!
Ertl Precision 100 Lincoln Zephyr Review
Paint: 8
The paint on this model is great…it is perfectly applied; no orange peel, over spray, or bare metal showing. The color is somewhat unique. It is a maroon color, sort of purple and brown, a very unique, regal shade. The undersides of the hood and trunk are painted in this color, however, those surfaces are flat in appearance. One nice detail about this paint job, is that the interior sides of the wheel wells are painted flat black, and that is done very well, as if it was supposed to be viewed like the exterior paint job. As said, the model is very well painted. Also, there is a silver stripe that runs down each side of the car, coming from the front, beginning on each side of the front grill, and swoops all the way to the rear, where it actually swoops again under the edge of the trunk, so that each side of this silver stripe connects at the backside of the car. Very nicely done, and absolutely no over spray. This is molded into the car body, yet it is raised, to represent a chrome trim piece.
Exterior: 7 out of 8
This will be split as customary, front and rear sections covered here, with the interior being covered in the Interior section.
The front:
The front is very "art deco" in appearance, with beautiful swoops and curves that come together to make a great finish. First, I'd like to say that this is a well built, solid model, however it is very delicate; so you have to be careful where and how you lift or hold it. This is because there is a plethora of separately applied chrome trim pieces…that stick up from the body, meaning, they are no where near flush with the body, and they aren't supposed to be. Not including the headlights, there are 6 pieces of this chrome trim that could easily be broken off if not careful! That does not mean that they are poorly made pieces; they are not; they seem to be made mostly of chrome plated metal.
The front of the model, as said, is very beautiful. There is a large grill at the center of the car. Ertl states that this piece is photo etch; I'm sure it is, but it is not see through. This grill is chrome, with black painted sections, engraved to represent the vents. It is well done, but again, it is a solid, but textured piece. The flat black painted vent areas are sectioned off by double lines of chrome, which are horizontal in position. They connect to the vertically opposed center chrome bar, which is thicker in appearance. The entire grill is trimmed in chrome along the edges. On the passenger side of the grill we see a horizontally inclined, tear drop shaped emblem. This is chrome, with a red back ground painted on it. Within this red background, we see the words "Lincoln Zephyr", written in chrome, in a cool, art deco script.
Above the grill, we see the hood mounted "flying" badge. This "flying" badge represents a horizontally inclined "T" shape, which rests upon another piece of chrome (but the same piece actually) at the edge of the hood. This piece of chrome meets the center chrome vertical bar of the grill.
On each side of the grill, we see the silver painted trim as discussed in the Paint section. Here, it follows the curve of the grill, and ends at the bottom of the body. This silver trim is on the "body" portion of the car, meaning, we're getting ready to talk about the front fenders…
The front fenders stick out from the body of the car, as was the custom of the day. On each fender flare, we see a tear drop shaped headlight, which juts out somewhat from the fenders. They sort of rise out for lack of better words from the fender into their own binnacles. But they are still part of the fender, as they should be. These tear drops are not the actual headlamps, as they reside behind the tear drop shaped headlight covers. These tear drops are very nicely engraved, and are almost clear. Behind these, in a silver painted "tunnel", are the headlight lenses. These lenses are beautifully rendered, and have no mounting posts. The tear drops are surrounded by chrome trim, that meets up with the fenders perfectly. On top of each of the headlight "binnacles" are 2 separate pieces of chrome trim, one for each binnacle. They sort of have a post that connects this chrome trim to the fender, and then on top of that post is a horizontally inclined bar, which again, seems to fly. They are perfectly molded and perfectly applied.
On the inside side of each headlight, on each side of the grill, mounted above the bumper (but mounted to the body on body colored posts), we see two beautiful amber colored turn signals or fog lights (what they should be I do not know). They are beautiful as well, and the are surrounded by chrome trim, and they reside in their own chrome housings, which again, are somewhat tear drop shaped. The tear drop shaped housing is horizontal, meaning, these amber lenses are round, but their holders are tear drop shaped, with that shape going towards the rear of the car.
On the passenger side, we see, below the headlight, and on the outside side of the amber lenses, a chrome trimmed license plate holder. In it, we see a black license plate with orange letters, "MP 80 32", with the "MP" being on top of each other. The license plate is California, and we also see "1937", with the 19 and 37 on each side of California respectively. This license plate is attached to a chrome bracket with 4 molded in chrome nuts on the back side, and the bracket attaches to the body colored bumper posts.
The full length chrome bumper has two vertically inclined "bumper bars", 1 below each turn signal, and this bumper is attached to body colored brackets that sort of split apart into a "V" shape, coming out of the body to meet the bumper, so that on each side, the bumper is connected to this bracket in two places.
On the sides of the body, on the inside sides of each front fender, we see an "angled back" chrome vent. Each of the chrome slats is separated by a body colored stripe of paint. This vent is not see through, but is very well applied and looks great. Going on back towards the passenger compartment, we see lots of neat things…
First, right behind the hood, and between the two separately applied chrome windshield wipers, we see the passenger compartment vent intake. This part is a separate part, is not simply represented by molded in lines, and it actually raises and lowers just like the real car would if the passengers wanted some fresh air. Cool little detail! Behind this, we see that the front windshield is surrounded by a perfectly painted, flat black, rounded edged gasket. And, this gasket's paint, while not textured per say, feels like real rubber when you rub your hands across it. Really cool.
On the sides of the car, we see 4 little gems, honest to God door hinges. Hinges just like what holds on everyone's doors in their houses. These tiny metal, chrome hinges, 2 for each door allow the doors to swing out incredibly wide. So wide in fact, that they can hit the front fender sides. Really cool. On this note, I do not know if the actual car did this or not. If it did not, the only way I would know how to stop the doors from swinging out so far would be leather straps or something holding the doors in. But, my feeling is that it is accurate.
There are 3 additional gems on each door. First, we see these really cool, oval shaped vent windows, which actually swing "open" or "closed". Considering this car's windows are perpetually in the down position, anyway you swing them, something will always be open. It's really cool! These oval windows are partially trimmed in chrome, the side that is flush with the "A" pillar when in the "closed" position being chromed, and the side that would meet the side windows not having any chrome. These oval windows reside within separately applied pieces of chrome, the "hinge" area. Also, we see separately applied chrome door handles. These are designed so that if you had 1/18 scale hands, you could wrap your hand around them. Another delicate item here! They are designed to turn up or down (but don't of course), so these horizontally inclined handles are only connected on one side, the rear side. Shown beneath these handles, are separately applied round chrome door locks. These are flush with the door; the door molded with an indention for these tiny chrome pieces. Within these round door locks, you CAN SEE a tiny, vertically inclined indention…that's where the key would go!! That's awesome to me. Also present on the drivers door, mounted to the top portion of the door coming down, we see a chrome rear view mirror, which is angled at a nice angle towards the driver / rear of the car.
Below each door, running from the rear of the front fenders, to the front of the rear fenders are running / step boards. These are edged with a long piece of chrome trim, separately applied. This chrome trim fits perfectly along the running boards and along the fenders, ending at the respective beginning of each wheel well. These running boards are topped with ribbed flat black rubber!
The rear:
The rear fender flares are really cool. They each have a fender skirt that can be on or off, whatever your preference. I keep mine on, and they look awesome. The fit lines are great, and perfectly evenly spaced. The fender skirts are edged at the bottom with a separate piece of chrome trim, which meets up with the chrome trim from the running boards.
On the rear side of each fender, we see the rear lights. The separately molded light housings are body color in appearance, and again, are tear drop shaped. These hold yet again, tear dropped shaped rear lights, which stick out towards the rear of the car like a pointed snow cone. They are clear red plastic in color, and are textured with raised ridges circling the lights. They look awesome! One other neat thing, is that on the drivers side of the car, the rear, chrome trimmed license plate (same as the front), is housed on top of the rear light holder. That may be nice and all, but what's really sweet, is that we see, on the top of the body colored rear light housing, a clear plastic license plate light!!! This clear light fits perfectly flush into the rear light holder and shines up to light the tag. It is too cool. In fact, if you decided to paint this clear light the same color as the body, you'd be hard pressed to see the mold lines. You see a tiny mounting post on this tiny clear light, but it can represent a bulb well. Behind this rear light is a separately applied round gas cap, which sticks up from the fender as typical of cars from this era.
As stated in the paint section, the raised silver painted trim comes from the front, and in the back, it goes along the sides of the trunk, and connects in a nice arch at the bottom of the trunk. Before we get to the trunk, lets talk about that thing on top of the trunk…
A fold down luggage rack! It's really cool. it is body colored, and is connected to the rear bumper holders. It is hinged at the bottom, and there are two chrome metal arms on each side that slide down when you pull it down, for lack of better explanation. When the rack is in the up position we see 5 chrome bars, running horizontally from edge to edge. When you open the rack, so that it is in the horizontal position (like you'd be putting luggage on it), it is simply body color in color. Now that we've got that open, we can move on to the trunk.
The trunk has a separate trunk handle, chrome in color, and it is the same shape as the emblem on the hood…tear drop (again), and is painted red, with the chrome "Lincoln Zephyr" letters. While it is mounted at the bottom center of the trunk, the handle is towards the left side…hinged in the middle. Above that, we see a round, chrome trunk lock, with the key hole indention! It also resides flush with the trunk as discussed when talking about the doors in the front section.
Opening the trunk you see a beautiful spare tire. This spare is without the center hubcap…so the wheel is surrounded by a round piece of chrome trim, with the center being body color in color. The very center of the wheel is empty and see through…it's how you would mount the wheel to the axle. A neat thing here is that the spare is held onto a black painted mechanism that swings out…so the person changing the tire doesn't have to lift it (awwww)…but it's really neat to do it…swing in, swing out. The spare does not come off of this mechanism. The trunk itself is unusual in shape. The floor of the trunk goes up at a 45 odd degree angle from the back of the car (where the spare resides) up to a flat shelf above that. This angled floor is flat black in color, and the shelf is tan in color. There is also a cute little tool bag with lots of little tools that you can take out.
The underside of the trunk door is painted flat maroon, and we can see that the underside is authentic in it's mold…not just a smooth surface. We do not see any "guts" within the trunk.
Behind the trunk, we see the two rear windows…They are separated by a center mounted vertical bar. From the center bar, we see a neat, slightly raised character line that goes all the way down to the trunk handle. This character line is also present on the hood, going down the center. It is not present on the roof, as it should not be.
The rear bumper is chrome, and has two vertical bumper bars. This again, as the front, is held onto the body by "V" shaped body colored posts.
Why 7 out of 8? The front grill, while it may be photo etch (whoopee, don't see what that did for this model here, a plastic grill can and does have the same effect) is not see through, nor are the side vents.
Interior: 8
The interior is very nicely done. We've got numerous colors here…tan, light tan, chrome, black, light gray, silver, and white.
One thing neat about the interior is the opening and movable parts. On top of the steerable steering wheel, we've got other moving parts. On the interior side of each door, we are able to "roll" (turn) the window cranks, albeit the windows do not go up or down. You are also able to move the interior door handles up and down. They are supposed to make these movements as per Ertl's documentation…meaning, I'm not forcing them to move / turn.
There are two glove box's on the dashboard, one for the driver, one for the passenger. Both open. The drivers side glove box is mounted right behind the steering wheel. The drivers glove box, on my model does not open very far, but to me, they don't have to open at all. (The gauges are mounted in the center of the dashboard).
The bench seat, split down the middle of the back, can be tilted forward on each side, and on the finished interior roof, you can raise and lower the very nicely made sun visors, which seem to be padded as the seats. These sun visors have silver colored "hinges".
Now that we've talked of movable parts, lets go over the interior in general…
The interiors of the doors are tan and light tan, with the light tan being the bottom door edge. It is textured, feels like sand, and is the same color as the interior carpet. It is not however, and I have no problem with that. On the door, we see a large square section that is outlined in painted silver. Within this section, we see 4 vertical columns…these represent stitching to break up this large area. Also seen here are molded in arm rests, and the aforementioned door handle and window crank. When you open the doors, you can see the chrome metal hinges bolted onto the door frame. Also, along the door jam's, we see a tiny hole that is designed for the spring action "lock". This makes the door "snap" shut nice and tight to the body.
Along bottom edge of the body door frame, we see a textured chrome door sill.
The floor is entirely carpeted, and you can see the "seam lines" where different pieces are carpet are. Both floor boards have tan floor mats, with a smooth, yet not smooth texture. The 1 piece clutch, brake, and gas pedals hinge from the floor and are black in color and are somewhat textured.
The bench seat is really neat. It is held up from the floor by this neat curved piece of chrome. Beneath the seat, it is not open like one may think because of this curved piece of chrome. But it is not supposed to be open as I've seen photo's of 1:1 Zephyr's with the same design. The area beneath the seat is completely carpeted also.
The chrome trim continues up along the seat backs. The chrome trim connects with the lower curved piece, and this is also where it is hinged, to allow the seats to be pushed forward to access the rear luggage area, as there are correctly, no rear seats. The bench seat is a flat colored tan, feels nice, and is soft to the touch. There are molded in seam lines along the bench and back of the seats, with molded in "buttons" as was prevalent in those days. Along the edges of the seat, especially where the seats make a curve, we see molded in creases that look very good. These chrome pieces are separate pieces…are not molded in and painted a separate color…very nicely done.
Pushing either seat back forward reveals a carpeted (floor, and the 3 sides) luggage area, which has a hard, fixed flat "cover" which would be the area that would be behind a rear seat and before the end of the rear window. What ever it is called, it is tan and smooth.
The floor mounted gear shifter starts in a black "rubber" boot, goes up as a long curved chrome stalk, and ends with a gray rounded handle. The steering wheel with it's respective column is also this gray color, with 3 chromed handles going out to meet the gray wheel. The center cap is white in color. The steering column is visible all the way down to the floor board, as it should be. Also, on the right most side of the dashboard is the emergency brake handle, which is hinged at the dash. The driver would pull it towards him to engage the emergency brake. It is gray in color also.
Also connected somewhat to the right side of the steering column or somewhat on the dash, is the ignition switch. This switch is populated with a photo etch key, which has a ring connected to it, and another dangling photo etch key which swings every time you move the car.
The dashboard, with the aforementioned, opening glove box's is painted black with several molded in switches. There are two large gauges in the center of the dash, one on top of the other, with the top most one being the larger of the two. They are white with legible black letters. Towards each side of the larger gauge are 4 additional gauges. These are represented by two rectangular shaped areas that are vertical in position. Each of these two areas have 2 gauges. None of the gauges are surrounded by chrome trim, and I do not know if they should be or not. Below the smaller, round gauge, we see a molded in vent. This is either a radio speaker or a vent, most likely a vent, as I can not make out a radio. It would surprise me if it is supposed to have a radio.
The roof is completely finished, and is painted in tan. You can see molded in seam lines, and there is a roof mounted interior light. This little round light has a black base, a chrome trim ring, and a very opaque lens…almost white, but not quite…somewhat clear, enough to realize it's a light. Up towards the front, we see the nicely shaped aforementioned sun visors, which flip down on silver painted hinges. We also have up here a ceiling mounted chrome rear view mirror, which is oval in shape.
Wheels/Brakes: 6
The wheels are really nice. They are comprised of 4 colors…an outer chrome trim ring, the body color wheel (with numerous see through holes), and the center, chrome hub cap with red script letters that say "Lincoln Zephyr V12" in that nice art deco way. The wheels are wide white wall tires, and they have a nice tread pattern. The tires are un marked, and I am not sure if that is right or not, as my other Precision 100 tires have markings. I'm thinking with the whitewalls being there, maybe there isn't any markings. I don't know.
The drum brakes are visible from the underside of the car…how detailed can drum brakes be? Well, look at my CMC Auto Union Type C review. The front drums are simply black disks (I do not think that disk brakes were around in 1937, but could be wrong). The rear drums do have detail, indentions here, depressions there, etc.
The car has a functional suspension made up of coil springs and leaf's…however, the leaf suspension is solid, but nicely detailed, plastic, and does not move. When you set the car down, the front suspension gives!
Engine & Undercarriage Detail: 6 out of 8
The engine is a V-12 and is very nicely replicated…but it's somewhat difficult to see very well, it's dark down there! The engine block and transmission are actually die-cast. The block is painted black, with the transmission being silver in color. On the top side, we see that it is completely wired and plumbed. The spark plug wires run very neatly in an organized fashion along the silver painted cylinder heads. These tiny wires come out from a larger wire or pipe in a little "C" curve and connect to the silver spark plug heads.
We see the alternator residing about an 1/8th of an inch above the front of the engine, it being black in color with a silver accessory on top of it. On each side of the alternator, we see 2 rubber tubes coming out of the black radiator and go towards the engine. The radiator has a raised silver cap.
Along the middle of the top of the engine, we see an apparatus which has a tube coming out at a right angle towards a can type air cleaner. This also has another tube coming out of it, going to a silver round thing, and on towards darkness. There are two additional black accessories mounted to the sides of the silver cylinder heads. The engine block has a silver painted starter, and the exhaust manifolds are silver.
The hood is held up by these wonderfully accurate, complex hinges with tiny springs. These hinges have 6 joints each and is really a site to see. The hinge springs are functional and do their part to keep the hinge up or down. On the body colored painted underside of the hood, we see two trumpet horns. They are black in color.
There is a couple of things that I do not like about the engine area. First, we see some guts here. The first being the plastic studs that hold on the aforementioned silver/body colored side vents. The stick out from the body wall into the engine compartment much more than they should. They actually shouldn't be visible at all. I guess Ertl thought that since it's so dark in there…
Also, where those lovely hood hinges are…you can see through the black firewall into the tan interior. You have to have the doors of the interior open to see the effect. With them closed, it's hardly visible…open them up, you are blinded by tan light!
The undercarriage is quite good and very detailed. 1st, the drive shaft rotates when you roll the rear wheels. To me, it does nothing for me, but it's a nice little feature. Here again, we have a separate ladder type chassis with the body on top placed on top of it. Here we see lots of black, but also lots of different textures. You can see that the bottom side of the floorboard has undercoating spray texture, on the drivers side, by the engine, is a very textured black thing, to what it's purpose is, I have no idea.
We have 2 copper brake lines that go towards the rear of the car. They turn a black color in the middle of their length. Also seen are 4 silver colored "cross braces" that are designed to keep the chassis more solid.
The exhausts come together under the engine, become 1 exhaust, go under the rear axle towards a rear mounted muffler. The tail pipe comes from there. The tail pipe is not hollow, nor is there even black paint to show an opening. There is a small indention, but no paint. Mold lines are present all along the sides of the exhaust and muffler and tail pipe.
Other than the aforementioned functioning suspension, the "actual" suspension is quite detailed. We see "V" shaped stabilizer bars for the front solid axle, tie rods, etc. The rear suspension has 1 transverse leaf spring, with a stabilizer bar coming out from it.
Why 6 out of 8? The studs used to hold on the side vents that show in the engine compartment, and the areas in the firewall that are see through to the passenger compartment. I was leaning towards giving it a 6 out of an 8, but there are so many other nice features that pull it back up. Should I have given it a 6 because of the "guts" issues? Maybe…in fact, I will. A model of this ranking should not have guts, certainly not seeing through to the interior. So, 6 it is.
Competition: 6
At least one other company makes the Zephyr, but it's a later year model, as well as being a convertible.
Desirability: 6
I love this model, I don't know why, but I do. That's not saying it's bad, it's a wonderful piece. I'm just saying it makes my heart skip a beat like say my Auto Union Type C or Lamborghini Jota, it's just that I don't know why it does!
Overall: 47 out of 50
Hope you all enjoyed!
Ertl Precision 100 Lincoln Zephyr Review
Paint: 8
The paint on this model is great…it is perfectly applied; no orange peel, over spray, or bare metal showing. The color is somewhat unique. It is a maroon color, sort of purple and brown, a very unique, regal shade. The undersides of the hood and trunk are painted in this color, however, those surfaces are flat in appearance. One nice detail about this paint job, is that the interior sides of the wheel wells are painted flat black, and that is done very well, as if it was supposed to be viewed like the exterior paint job. As said, the model is very well painted. Also, there is a silver stripe that runs down each side of the car, coming from the front, beginning on each side of the front grill, and swoops all the way to the rear, where it actually swoops again under the edge of the trunk, so that each side of this silver stripe connects at the backside of the car. Very nicely done, and absolutely no over spray. This is molded into the car body, yet it is raised, to represent a chrome trim piece.
Exterior: 7 out of 8
This will be split as customary, front and rear sections covered here, with the interior being covered in the Interior section.
The front:
The front is very "art deco" in appearance, with beautiful swoops and curves that come together to make a great finish. First, I'd like to say that this is a well built, solid model, however it is very delicate; so you have to be careful where and how you lift or hold it. This is because there is a plethora of separately applied chrome trim pieces…that stick up from the body, meaning, they are no where near flush with the body, and they aren't supposed to be. Not including the headlights, there are 6 pieces of this chrome trim that could easily be broken off if not careful! That does not mean that they are poorly made pieces; they are not; they seem to be made mostly of chrome plated metal.
The front of the model, as said, is very beautiful. There is a large grill at the center of the car. Ertl states that this piece is photo etch; I'm sure it is, but it is not see through. This grill is chrome, with black painted sections, engraved to represent the vents. It is well done, but again, it is a solid, but textured piece. The flat black painted vent areas are sectioned off by double lines of chrome, which are horizontal in position. They connect to the vertically opposed center chrome bar, which is thicker in appearance. The entire grill is trimmed in chrome along the edges. On the passenger side of the grill we see a horizontally inclined, tear drop shaped emblem. This is chrome, with a red back ground painted on it. Within this red background, we see the words "Lincoln Zephyr", written in chrome, in a cool, art deco script.
Above the grill, we see the hood mounted "flying" badge. This "flying" badge represents a horizontally inclined "T" shape, which rests upon another piece of chrome (but the same piece actually) at the edge of the hood. This piece of chrome meets the center chrome vertical bar of the grill.
On each side of the grill, we see the silver painted trim as discussed in the Paint section. Here, it follows the curve of the grill, and ends at the bottom of the body. This silver trim is on the "body" portion of the car, meaning, we're getting ready to talk about the front fenders…
The front fenders stick out from the body of the car, as was the custom of the day. On each fender flare, we see a tear drop shaped headlight, which juts out somewhat from the fenders. They sort of rise out for lack of better words from the fender into their own binnacles. But they are still part of the fender, as they should be. These tear drops are not the actual headlamps, as they reside behind the tear drop shaped headlight covers. These tear drops are very nicely engraved, and are almost clear. Behind these, in a silver painted "tunnel", are the headlight lenses. These lenses are beautifully rendered, and have no mounting posts. The tear drops are surrounded by chrome trim, that meets up with the fenders perfectly. On top of each of the headlight "binnacles" are 2 separate pieces of chrome trim, one for each binnacle. They sort of have a post that connects this chrome trim to the fender, and then on top of that post is a horizontally inclined bar, which again, seems to fly. They are perfectly molded and perfectly applied.
On the inside side of each headlight, on each side of the grill, mounted above the bumper (but mounted to the body on body colored posts), we see two beautiful amber colored turn signals or fog lights (what they should be I do not know). They are beautiful as well, and the are surrounded by chrome trim, and they reside in their own chrome housings, which again, are somewhat tear drop shaped. The tear drop shaped housing is horizontal, meaning, these amber lenses are round, but their holders are tear drop shaped, with that shape going towards the rear of the car.
On the passenger side, we see, below the headlight, and on the outside side of the amber lenses, a chrome trimmed license plate holder. In it, we see a black license plate with orange letters, "MP 80 32", with the "MP" being on top of each other. The license plate is California, and we also see "1937", with the 19 and 37 on each side of California respectively. This license plate is attached to a chrome bracket with 4 molded in chrome nuts on the back side, and the bracket attaches to the body colored bumper posts.
The full length chrome bumper has two vertically inclined "bumper bars", 1 below each turn signal, and this bumper is attached to body colored brackets that sort of split apart into a "V" shape, coming out of the body to meet the bumper, so that on each side, the bumper is connected to this bracket in two places.
On the sides of the body, on the inside sides of each front fender, we see an "angled back" chrome vent. Each of the chrome slats is separated by a body colored stripe of paint. This vent is not see through, but is very well applied and looks great. Going on back towards the passenger compartment, we see lots of neat things…
First, right behind the hood, and between the two separately applied chrome windshield wipers, we see the passenger compartment vent intake. This part is a separate part, is not simply represented by molded in lines, and it actually raises and lowers just like the real car would if the passengers wanted some fresh air. Cool little detail! Behind this, we see that the front windshield is surrounded by a perfectly painted, flat black, rounded edged gasket. And, this gasket's paint, while not textured per say, feels like real rubber when you rub your hands across it. Really cool.
On the sides of the car, we see 4 little gems, honest to God door hinges. Hinges just like what holds on everyone's doors in their houses. These tiny metal, chrome hinges, 2 for each door allow the doors to swing out incredibly wide. So wide in fact, that they can hit the front fender sides. Really cool. On this note, I do not know if the actual car did this or not. If it did not, the only way I would know how to stop the doors from swinging out so far would be leather straps or something holding the doors in. But, my feeling is that it is accurate.
There are 3 additional gems on each door. First, we see these really cool, oval shaped vent windows, which actually swing "open" or "closed". Considering this car's windows are perpetually in the down position, anyway you swing them, something will always be open. It's really cool! These oval windows are partially trimmed in chrome, the side that is flush with the "A" pillar when in the "closed" position being chromed, and the side that would meet the side windows not having any chrome. These oval windows reside within separately applied pieces of chrome, the "hinge" area. Also, we see separately applied chrome door handles. These are designed so that if you had 1/18 scale hands, you could wrap your hand around them. Another delicate item here! They are designed to turn up or down (but don't of course), so these horizontally inclined handles are only connected on one side, the rear side. Shown beneath these handles, are separately applied round chrome door locks. These are flush with the door; the door molded with an indention for these tiny chrome pieces. Within these round door locks, you CAN SEE a tiny, vertically inclined indention…that's where the key would go!! That's awesome to me. Also present on the drivers door, mounted to the top portion of the door coming down, we see a chrome rear view mirror, which is angled at a nice angle towards the driver / rear of the car.
Below each door, running from the rear of the front fenders, to the front of the rear fenders are running / step boards. These are edged with a long piece of chrome trim, separately applied. This chrome trim fits perfectly along the running boards and along the fenders, ending at the respective beginning of each wheel well. These running boards are topped with ribbed flat black rubber!
The rear:
The rear fender flares are really cool. They each have a fender skirt that can be on or off, whatever your preference. I keep mine on, and they look awesome. The fit lines are great, and perfectly evenly spaced. The fender skirts are edged at the bottom with a separate piece of chrome trim, which meets up with the chrome trim from the running boards.
On the rear side of each fender, we see the rear lights. The separately molded light housings are body color in appearance, and again, are tear drop shaped. These hold yet again, tear dropped shaped rear lights, which stick out towards the rear of the car like a pointed snow cone. They are clear red plastic in color, and are textured with raised ridges circling the lights. They look awesome! One other neat thing, is that on the drivers side of the car, the rear, chrome trimmed license plate (same as the front), is housed on top of the rear light holder. That may be nice and all, but what's really sweet, is that we see, on the top of the body colored rear light housing, a clear plastic license plate light!!! This clear light fits perfectly flush into the rear light holder and shines up to light the tag. It is too cool. In fact, if you decided to paint this clear light the same color as the body, you'd be hard pressed to see the mold lines. You see a tiny mounting post on this tiny clear light, but it can represent a bulb well. Behind this rear light is a separately applied round gas cap, which sticks up from the fender as typical of cars from this era.
As stated in the paint section, the raised silver painted trim comes from the front, and in the back, it goes along the sides of the trunk, and connects in a nice arch at the bottom of the trunk. Before we get to the trunk, lets talk about that thing on top of the trunk…
A fold down luggage rack! It's really cool. it is body colored, and is connected to the rear bumper holders. It is hinged at the bottom, and there are two chrome metal arms on each side that slide down when you pull it down, for lack of better explanation. When the rack is in the up position we see 5 chrome bars, running horizontally from edge to edge. When you open the rack, so that it is in the horizontal position (like you'd be putting luggage on it), it is simply body color in color. Now that we've got that open, we can move on to the trunk.
The trunk has a separate trunk handle, chrome in color, and it is the same shape as the emblem on the hood…tear drop (again), and is painted red, with the chrome "Lincoln Zephyr" letters. While it is mounted at the bottom center of the trunk, the handle is towards the left side…hinged in the middle. Above that, we see a round, chrome trunk lock, with the key hole indention! It also resides flush with the trunk as discussed when talking about the doors in the front section.
Opening the trunk you see a beautiful spare tire. This spare is without the center hubcap…so the wheel is surrounded by a round piece of chrome trim, with the center being body color in color. The very center of the wheel is empty and see through…it's how you would mount the wheel to the axle. A neat thing here is that the spare is held onto a black painted mechanism that swings out…so the person changing the tire doesn't have to lift it (awwww)…but it's really neat to do it…swing in, swing out. The spare does not come off of this mechanism. The trunk itself is unusual in shape. The floor of the trunk goes up at a 45 odd degree angle from the back of the car (where the spare resides) up to a flat shelf above that. This angled floor is flat black in color, and the shelf is tan in color. There is also a cute little tool bag with lots of little tools that you can take out.
The underside of the trunk door is painted flat maroon, and we can see that the underside is authentic in it's mold…not just a smooth surface. We do not see any "guts" within the trunk.
Behind the trunk, we see the two rear windows…They are separated by a center mounted vertical bar. From the center bar, we see a neat, slightly raised character line that goes all the way down to the trunk handle. This character line is also present on the hood, going down the center. It is not present on the roof, as it should not be.
The rear bumper is chrome, and has two vertical bumper bars. This again, as the front, is held onto the body by "V" shaped body colored posts.
Why 7 out of 8? The front grill, while it may be photo etch (whoopee, don't see what that did for this model here, a plastic grill can and does have the same effect) is not see through, nor are the side vents.
Interior: 8
The interior is very nicely done. We've got numerous colors here…tan, light tan, chrome, black, light gray, silver, and white.
One thing neat about the interior is the opening and movable parts. On top of the steerable steering wheel, we've got other moving parts. On the interior side of each door, we are able to "roll" (turn) the window cranks, albeit the windows do not go up or down. You are also able to move the interior door handles up and down. They are supposed to make these movements as per Ertl's documentation…meaning, I'm not forcing them to move / turn.
There are two glove box's on the dashboard, one for the driver, one for the passenger. Both open. The drivers side glove box is mounted right behind the steering wheel. The drivers glove box, on my model does not open very far, but to me, they don't have to open at all. (The gauges are mounted in the center of the dashboard).
The bench seat, split down the middle of the back, can be tilted forward on each side, and on the finished interior roof, you can raise and lower the very nicely made sun visors, which seem to be padded as the seats. These sun visors have silver colored "hinges".
Now that we've talked of movable parts, lets go over the interior in general…
The interiors of the doors are tan and light tan, with the light tan being the bottom door edge. It is textured, feels like sand, and is the same color as the interior carpet. It is not however, and I have no problem with that. On the door, we see a large square section that is outlined in painted silver. Within this section, we see 4 vertical columns…these represent stitching to break up this large area. Also seen here are molded in arm rests, and the aforementioned door handle and window crank. When you open the doors, you can see the chrome metal hinges bolted onto the door frame. Also, along the door jam's, we see a tiny hole that is designed for the spring action "lock". This makes the door "snap" shut nice and tight to the body.
Along bottom edge of the body door frame, we see a textured chrome door sill.
The floor is entirely carpeted, and you can see the "seam lines" where different pieces are carpet are. Both floor boards have tan floor mats, with a smooth, yet not smooth texture. The 1 piece clutch, brake, and gas pedals hinge from the floor and are black in color and are somewhat textured.
The bench seat is really neat. It is held up from the floor by this neat curved piece of chrome. Beneath the seat, it is not open like one may think because of this curved piece of chrome. But it is not supposed to be open as I've seen photo's of 1:1 Zephyr's with the same design. The area beneath the seat is completely carpeted also.
The chrome trim continues up along the seat backs. The chrome trim connects with the lower curved piece, and this is also where it is hinged, to allow the seats to be pushed forward to access the rear luggage area, as there are correctly, no rear seats. The bench seat is a flat colored tan, feels nice, and is soft to the touch. There are molded in seam lines along the bench and back of the seats, with molded in "buttons" as was prevalent in those days. Along the edges of the seat, especially where the seats make a curve, we see molded in creases that look very good. These chrome pieces are separate pieces…are not molded in and painted a separate color…very nicely done.
Pushing either seat back forward reveals a carpeted (floor, and the 3 sides) luggage area, which has a hard, fixed flat "cover" which would be the area that would be behind a rear seat and before the end of the rear window. What ever it is called, it is tan and smooth.
The floor mounted gear shifter starts in a black "rubber" boot, goes up as a long curved chrome stalk, and ends with a gray rounded handle. The steering wheel with it's respective column is also this gray color, with 3 chromed handles going out to meet the gray wheel. The center cap is white in color. The steering column is visible all the way down to the floor board, as it should be. Also, on the right most side of the dashboard is the emergency brake handle, which is hinged at the dash. The driver would pull it towards him to engage the emergency brake. It is gray in color also.
Also connected somewhat to the right side of the steering column or somewhat on the dash, is the ignition switch. This switch is populated with a photo etch key, which has a ring connected to it, and another dangling photo etch key which swings every time you move the car.
The dashboard, with the aforementioned, opening glove box's is painted black with several molded in switches. There are two large gauges in the center of the dash, one on top of the other, with the top most one being the larger of the two. They are white with legible black letters. Towards each side of the larger gauge are 4 additional gauges. These are represented by two rectangular shaped areas that are vertical in position. Each of these two areas have 2 gauges. None of the gauges are surrounded by chrome trim, and I do not know if they should be or not. Below the smaller, round gauge, we see a molded in vent. This is either a radio speaker or a vent, most likely a vent, as I can not make out a radio. It would surprise me if it is supposed to have a radio.
The roof is completely finished, and is painted in tan. You can see molded in seam lines, and there is a roof mounted interior light. This little round light has a black base, a chrome trim ring, and a very opaque lens…almost white, but not quite…somewhat clear, enough to realize it's a light. Up towards the front, we see the nicely shaped aforementioned sun visors, which flip down on silver painted hinges. We also have up here a ceiling mounted chrome rear view mirror, which is oval in shape.
Wheels/Brakes: 6
The wheels are really nice. They are comprised of 4 colors…an outer chrome trim ring, the body color wheel (with numerous see through holes), and the center, chrome hub cap with red script letters that say "Lincoln Zephyr V12" in that nice art deco way. The wheels are wide white wall tires, and they have a nice tread pattern. The tires are un marked, and I am not sure if that is right or not, as my other Precision 100 tires have markings. I'm thinking with the whitewalls being there, maybe there isn't any markings. I don't know.
The drum brakes are visible from the underside of the car…how detailed can drum brakes be? Well, look at my CMC Auto Union Type C review. The front drums are simply black disks (I do not think that disk brakes were around in 1937, but could be wrong). The rear drums do have detail, indentions here, depressions there, etc.
The car has a functional suspension made up of coil springs and leaf's…however, the leaf suspension is solid, but nicely detailed, plastic, and does not move. When you set the car down, the front suspension gives!
Engine & Undercarriage Detail: 6 out of 8
The engine is a V-12 and is very nicely replicated…but it's somewhat difficult to see very well, it's dark down there! The engine block and transmission are actually die-cast. The block is painted black, with the transmission being silver in color. On the top side, we see that it is completely wired and plumbed. The spark plug wires run very neatly in an organized fashion along the silver painted cylinder heads. These tiny wires come out from a larger wire or pipe in a little "C" curve and connect to the silver spark plug heads.
We see the alternator residing about an 1/8th of an inch above the front of the engine, it being black in color with a silver accessory on top of it. On each side of the alternator, we see 2 rubber tubes coming out of the black radiator and go towards the engine. The radiator has a raised silver cap.
Along the middle of the top of the engine, we see an apparatus which has a tube coming out at a right angle towards a can type air cleaner. This also has another tube coming out of it, going to a silver round thing, and on towards darkness. There are two additional black accessories mounted to the sides of the silver cylinder heads. The engine block has a silver painted starter, and the exhaust manifolds are silver.
The hood is held up by these wonderfully accurate, complex hinges with tiny springs. These hinges have 6 joints each and is really a site to see. The hinge springs are functional and do their part to keep the hinge up or down. On the body colored painted underside of the hood, we see two trumpet horns. They are black in color.
There is a couple of things that I do not like about the engine area. First, we see some guts here. The first being the plastic studs that hold on the aforementioned silver/body colored side vents. The stick out from the body wall into the engine compartment much more than they should. They actually shouldn't be visible at all. I guess Ertl thought that since it's so dark in there…
Also, where those lovely hood hinges are…you can see through the black firewall into the tan interior. You have to have the doors of the interior open to see the effect. With them closed, it's hardly visible…open them up, you are blinded by tan light!
The undercarriage is quite good and very detailed. 1st, the drive shaft rotates when you roll the rear wheels. To me, it does nothing for me, but it's a nice little feature. Here again, we have a separate ladder type chassis with the body on top placed on top of it. Here we see lots of black, but also lots of different textures. You can see that the bottom side of the floorboard has undercoating spray texture, on the drivers side, by the engine, is a very textured black thing, to what it's purpose is, I have no idea.
We have 2 copper brake lines that go towards the rear of the car. They turn a black color in the middle of their length. Also seen are 4 silver colored "cross braces" that are designed to keep the chassis more solid.
The exhausts come together under the engine, become 1 exhaust, go under the rear axle towards a rear mounted muffler. The tail pipe comes from there. The tail pipe is not hollow, nor is there even black paint to show an opening. There is a small indention, but no paint. Mold lines are present all along the sides of the exhaust and muffler and tail pipe.
Other than the aforementioned functioning suspension, the "actual" suspension is quite detailed. We see "V" shaped stabilizer bars for the front solid axle, tie rods, etc. The rear suspension has 1 transverse leaf spring, with a stabilizer bar coming out from it.
Why 6 out of 8? The studs used to hold on the side vents that show in the engine compartment, and the areas in the firewall that are see through to the passenger compartment. I was leaning towards giving it a 6 out of an 8, but there are so many other nice features that pull it back up. Should I have given it a 6 because of the "guts" issues? Maybe…in fact, I will. A model of this ranking should not have guts, certainly not seeing through to the interior. So, 6 it is.
Competition: 6
At least one other company makes the Zephyr, but it's a later year model, as well as being a convertible.
Desirability: 6
I love this model, I don't know why, but I do. That's not saying it's bad, it's a wonderful piece. I'm just saying it makes my heart skip a beat like say my Auto Union Type C or Lamborghini Jota, it's just that I don't know why it does!
Overall: 47 out of 50
Hope you all enjoyed!
**Review added to the DX Model Review Database**
