21st Century Toys 1/32
P-51K Mustang

Many of you are familiar with the fantastic aircraft and armor releases from 21st Century Toys. In this release, 21st Century Toys has developed a new tooling for the P-51K Mustang. The aircraft comes in the usual 'armor-plated' packaging.

This release replicates the colorful paint scheme worn by "Mrs Bonnie", the aircraft of LtCol Bill Dunham of the 348th Fighter Group out of le Shima in 1945. The color scheme was worn by P-51K-10-NA 44-12017. It's pilot, Lt Col William D Dunham was deputy commander of the 348th and was credited with 16 kills.

On removing the kit from the box, I was rather impressed with the paint job. The exterior is nicely finished and the stenciling is clear. Only the black wing and fuselage stripes were a bit fuzzy, but knowing how thorough Roy Sutherland is, this is likely how the real aircraft appeared. Note the faded fuselage markings. I've seen this debated in the past as the color looks out of place, but now that good color photos are available of this bird, once again 21st Century Toys got it right.

The fuselage fits snugly into the wings and there are no seam problems. Very nice engineering here. There are no screws required for assembly. The fuselage snaps smartly into place. The tail plane is pre-installed, so the only thing that needs to be done to assemble this release is snap those wings into place, add the underwing pylons, and select the drop tanks or bombs to hang under the wings.

The working (movable) features of the aircraft are:

• Sliding canopy
• Retractable main gear
• Retractable tail wheel
• Movable propeller
• Choice of removable bombs or external fuel tanks

You can definitely tell that there is a world-class modeler working at 21st Century Toys to achieve this level of detail and fidelity while keeping the final product affordable.

This release is definitely recommended. You can find these at any one of the retailers listed on the 21st Century Toys website.

My sincere thanks to 21st Century Toys for this review sample!