INCOMING ATTACKER! ITALIAN FIAT BR 20 CICOGNA IN THE NEW-OLD ITALERI ‘VINTAGE COLLECTION’

SMN report

You have to hand it to Italy - the food tastes great, the sights are wonderful, the women gorgeous, and now we have Italeri showing us the Latin way with words to describe its new re-release Vintage Collection: “The glorious Italeri models are back in our catalogue!”

Fiat's flying stork

Well, the first ‘glorious’ model, due in May, is a 1930s Italian bomber, the twin-engined Fiat BR 20. This aircraft first flew in 1936, and for its time had advanced, mostly-metal construction. It became a widely-used medium bomber, though rather overshadowed by the much more numerous triple-engine SM 79 Sparviero. The BR 20’s first combat action was on the Nationalist side in the Spanish Civil War with the 35th bomber Group, named ‘Le Cicogne’, or Storks, hence the aircraft’s name. In its various versions, nearly 600 BR 20s were made, and some were exported, with small numbers flown by the air arms of China, Croatia, Hungary, Japan, Spain and Venezuela. The pic below shows an early BR 20 inspection by 'il Duce' the dictator Mussolini.

Historical value

The Italeri BR 20 was first released in 1972, so that’s nearly four decades of kit history we’ll be looking at when it’s released, not forgetting that the year also marked the tenth anniversary of Italeri’s founding. To 1:72 scale, the assembled aircraft will measure some 210 mm (8.25 in) long. As fans of inter-war aircraft of all sorts, the SMN crew will be eager to open the box come May Day. We’ll have to be quick though, as this will be a Limited Edition, marked by the hologram on the box (below).

Here's a pic of an assembled and painted BR 20, courtesy Photobucket user ‘vml hobbycraft’ and very nice too. You can see more pix of this build here.

View Fiat BR 20s here, one is the Special Hobby 1:48 kit, the other a 1:144 diecast from ixo models.

Visit Italeri here.

CITROEN ROARING TO VICTORY IN THE 2009 WORLD RALLY CHAMPS?

If you’re into rallying and the World Rally Championships (WRC), then Frenchman Sebastian Loeb is likely to be one of your star drivers. He’s currently World Champion, having been at the top no less than FIVE years running. But not even the reigning champ gets it right every time, as the video shows. At the Greece rally stage this year, Loeb and his co-driver Daniel Elana barrel-rolled a spectacular five times before coming to a halt - unsurprisingly the car was a right-off, but both men were unharmed, which says a lot for the construction of their Citroen C4. The road version is a tidy little machine (Loeb and Elana drive a three-door coupe) that comes from the showroom fitted with a modish central digital instrument display and mini-spoiler built into the two-part glassback tail.

For model fans, the rally scene is well catered for, and there are rally cars in most standard scales and at hugely varying prices. By and large, vehicles with the latest markings are most expensive, with prices falling as they become ’last-year’ models. Diecast collectors are spoilt for choice really, but here are ones that look good to SMN.

The Ixo 1:43 scale team pair (top picture) are good little models in 2009 markings. Loeb’s machine is the one he drove to victory in the Cyprus rally - his 50th win. Extremely fine rooftop aerials, Red Bull markings, and the wide rally-style tail spoiler are all included.

The Citroen team waves the flag for France, so it’s good to see Solido from the home country making a decent C4 (bottom). This one’s to 1:18 scale and shows Loeb’s car in 2008. Like many large-scale models, it’s actually cheaper than smaller ones: to grab a bargain you could try the offering on eBay here.

The Ixo 1:43 scale C4 is available from retail and online stores, including Amazon, here.