I’ve always found the German 8-Rad armoured cars with their pushme-pullyou driving style to be an interesting subject so the first ever 1/35 scale kit I built was actually this one by Italeri.
This kit comes in a tray and lid style box and is an older one of Italeri’s kits. This particular kit is a newer produced one that has been cleaned up and remoulded in light grey but is still the same kit as the one I built, only back then it was moulded in dark grey. You get three large sprues which in true Italeri fashion come loose in the box with no bags which probably keeps the price down but I do find frequently it results in loose and/or broken parts. That was the case with this particular kit which arrived with the fenders and several loose wheels floating around.
The lower hull is moulded as a single hull tub to which the suspension arms attach. These are moulded as one main piece with four smaller parts attached and are somewhat simplified, lacking the correct detailing on things like the u-bolts and nuts. They also require a little clean-up and filling but otherwsie are fine. They are made fixed in the straight ahead position but are not too difficult to modify to show the wheels turned if so desired. Just keep in mind that the back pairs of wheels turn in the opposite direction as the front wheels turn, so if the front pair turn to the right the back pair turn to the left. The spings also need quite a bit of cleanup to remove the mould seams.
The wheels are moulded as two halves plus a separate hub. The outer tread pattern is fine but the tyres should have a shallow groove running around the centre of the outer surface which is missing. It isn’t hard to add but it’s a bit of a tedious endeavour. No brake drums are included with the inner surface of the wheel being flat and plain. The spare wheel is also made of two halves with the mount moulded as part of it.
The upper hull is a little fiddly to match up to the lower hull as it requires the addition of two side plates and all four parts really need to be assembled together at the same time to ensure everything lines up properly. The engine deck is all moulded as part of the upper body with no opening in the louvers. The only other additions to the upper deck being the rear hooks and the vision port covers which, although there is an interior, can’t really be positioned open as there are no internal arms for them. The tools are okay though heavy in detail on parts like the jack and the clamps. The jerry cans look okay but are undersized and lack the proper base shape.
The fenders look good overall though they are overly thick compared to true scale as the real ones were sheet metal so rather thin and were dented and bent easily. The stowage lockers on the sides are moulded closed as part of the fenders, though they have thought to include the underside detail for these so that you don’t have fenders that are completely open underneath.
The interior is very simple consisting of a floor with treadplate detail, two very simple seats, two steering wheels and columns and two gear levers. One set of each for the driver and radio operator at either end. No detail is included for the side doors, no radios or any other detail so if you plan for this to be easily seen into you’ll need to add all that yourself. But for a passing look through an open vision port it is adequate.
The turret, like the rest, is a simple affair. Most of the interior is taken up with the gun breech which again is rather simplified. There is also an MG34 for the co-axial machine gun though only the flash hider will be seen outside the vehicle. The only other internal detail is two seats. The hatches are a single piece with an added cover for the vision block, they lack the head pad, latches and periscopes that should be there. The barrel is moulded as two halves with an additional two piece muzzle brake. Being quite thin use glue sparingly on these bits as the way the muzzle brake fits into the barrel leaves very little plastic at the barrel end for the glue to attach to. Two very simple tripple smoke launcher frames complete the turret. These are best binned as they are just far too simplified.
Decals and a paint guide are provided for two vehicles although only one gets any unit markings and they don’t tell you who they are for. That unit marking is actually for the 9th SS Panzer Division although the marking guide would have you use them together with Heer licence plates. Not well researched there Italeri.
The Dragon Models version of this vehicle is a far superior kit, though it is also three times the price as you should be able to find this kit for under $40 NZD, sometimes as little as $30 NZD. It makes up easily and it does still present well, but it is sorely lacking in any real detailing. If your scratchbuilding skills are good and your spare parts box is well supplied this still offers a good alternative if you want to put in the TLC required to really bring this up to a higher standard, but out of the box it would mainly suit a beginning builder who doesn’t want to dive in at the deep end pricewise but still wants a good, simple kit. And this one is still a good, simple, and cheap kit.
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