1:24 Nissan Silvia (S110) Late Version HT Turbo ZSE (1981)

The second face of one car

The Silvia designated by the S110 code was built at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s and belonged to the time when Japanese makers were only just taking to angular lines. A curiosity worth knowing about it: exactly the same car was sold in parallel under a second name, Gazelle, only through a different network of dealerships. The differences were limited to the badges, the grille and the choice of equipment.

Hardtop, turbo and the ZSE level

The abbreviation in the name describes a particular version. Hardtop means a body without a fixed pillar in the side glazing, so when both windows are wound down a continuous opening arises. A turbocharged four-cylinder engine was a novelty in this class at the time and reached it right around 1981, while ZSE designates the richer equipment level. The late batch differs from the earlier ones in a modification of the front grille and the headlights.

Assembly

This is a classic plastic kit in a scale suited to collectors' display cases. With this type the body manages without complicated shape transitions, but it is sensitive to the quality of the paint: large flat areas give away every imperfection of the base, so it pays not to hurry the sanding of the intermediate coats.

The chrome frames around the windows and the plastic bumpers are typical of Japanese production of the day and make up most of the final impression. If you are building the model as a civilian car for a collection, a restrained fitting of the interior and a light knocking back of the tires suit it, so that they do not merge with the glossy body. The period atmosphere is also completed by a small thing that is often forgotten: the glass of cars from the start of the 1980s tended to be slightly tinted toward smoke.