ICM 35471 - Admiral Cabriolet WWII German Staff Car With Figures
Our hobby is one that is clearly dominated by the tank, and it would seem the bigger the tank the better. So small wheeled vehicles without a gun have until recently drawn little or no interest from manufacturers, until this past year or so when we have seen a sudden outpouring of trucks, light field cars and assorted staff cars. This one is ICM’s first entry into the realm of the true staff car, having done the Kfz.1 and Kfz.2 field cars previously.
This kit comes in a medium sized tray and lid style box on two large and three medium sized dark yellow sprues. There is also one clear sprue, a small sheet of decals and the instructions which are printed on two sheets of paper folded in half to produce an A4 sized eight page loose leaf booklet along with a seperate, smaller black and white printed sheet for the figures.
The mould quality is excellent with almost completely clean parts and almost non existant mould seams, very sharp detail and some particularly fine and delicate detailing. I did say almost, as you will still need to remove the mould seams even though they are very faint as well as clean up the sprue attachment points. Although there are some prominent injector pin knock out marks on some parts they are mostly all in locations where they won’t be seen once the kit is completed, the exception being the raised roof, if you use it, which has four that will need removing.
The chassis is a multipart frame assembly with all the parts being cleanly cast and, most importantly, straight. Care though is needed to make sure everything stays aligned when assembling all the parts. The exhaust that is included is well done as are the axles, differential and steering rods. Although this isn’t designed to have the front wheels positionable it is easy enough to change them if you want to. No gas tank is supplied, nor the internal section of the pipe from the filler cap to the tank so if this bothers you they will need to be added from scratch.
The engine is very nicely done and includes the radiator and piping as well as a very nice looking transmission. It isn’t an overly complex piece but still looks good when complete and would only really benefit from the addition of wiring and a little texturing in places.
Of course all that is only needed if the engine will be visible and for this to be modelled with the hood open it would require a little work as the inner surfaces of the engine bay and underside of the hood lack any real detail, as does the firewall which has no horn, nor battery etc. So if you want to portray the hood up there will be a bit of work required to thin down the panels and add the necessary internal detail as well as hinge detail.
The body builds up easily upon the floor pan with the trickiest part being the three piece front fenders which are a little fiddly to get in place and lined up correctly, but once it’s all together you can start to appreciate the appeal of the look of this car. The lines are nicely captured with the subtle running boards adding to the overall sleek look.
The hood panels can be modelled open or closed ( see above ) as can the boot lid, though again there is no internal detail if you choose to do so. The hood’s side strips and the hood ornament are seperate parts that will require some kind of chrome finish ( as will many other small parts ) so start shopping for Alclad II or Mr. Colour Metallic Chrome Silver. The hood side access doors aren’t modelled to be opened and I can’t really see a reason to want to have them open.
The radiator grille is not open through which is a pity as it’s quite a bit of delicate work to do so. The end result would be worth it though and I expect one or more of the resin manufacturers will soon have an AM part ready to do the job. Again the grille and the headlights beside it will need some form of chorme treatment.
The bumpers are once again intended to be chrome and although it is very nicely done to be truely accurate the front bumper needs the rear of both the main bumper bar and the two uprights hollowed out as these were formed from around 3mm thick steel then coated on the outside with chrome. The rear bumper is easier to deal with though again the uprights should be hollowed out.
The interior is overall well presented and includes a very delicate and thinly moulded three part steering wheel and a full dashboard which includes decals for the dials. Oddly though there are no pedals, just a delicate gear lever. The floor also needs a transmission tunnel added and carpet texturing. You do however get a nicely done sunvisor and rear view mirror, but the omission of the pedals in an open topped car has to be counted as a negative.
The seats have a nice stitched look that does well at capturing the look of the real thing. They do however lack the underside frames which aren’t really noticeable ( these do sit very close to the floor ) and are a bit too close together, which is. The upper rear of the front seat is also a little too thin, coming to too much of a point but this will be difficult to fix and isn’t really that noticeable.
The doors are moulded together on each side and aren’t intended to be modelled open. If you really wanted to though they aren’t hard to seperate, though you would then need to add your own hinge, catch and lock details. The internal detail is very nice with a finish that matches the seats and seperate parts for the door handles, window-winders and armrests. The map pockets are moulded on but look quite good and are a snug fit on the real thing too so would only benefit from some light scribing along the top where they open.
The clear “glass” pieces simply sit in the top of the doors which means they can be left off for painting. Personally unless you want to portray armoured glass I think they are too thick and would be better replaced with 0.25mm clear plasticard. The windscreen “glass” is less noticeable as you don’t see the exposed edges so the kit part is perfectly adequate.
The roof comes with two options, the roof up, or the roof down. As mentioned earlier the roof up option requires a little cleanup and you would also need to add some of the visible internal framework, though to be perfectly honest who buys a cabriolet to then put the roof up ? The folded down version is made from three pieces with four more parts for the exposed parts of the frame. The canvas parts look very good and the frame parts are suitable delicate so the finished effect is well worth going with this option.
The figures are from ICM’s “German Patrol 1939-1942″ ( kit number 35561 ) which originally came with these three figures plus that of a boy shining the officer’s shoe. Here however the figure of the boy has simply been cut from the sprue leaving the two feldgendarmerie and the officer, complete with his little wooden step stool that comes with a moulded on shoe shaped pad which will look a little out of place now.
The quality of the figures is actually very good, the detail is sharp, there’s minimal clean up, well done faces, and the officer can be positioned with his foot on the running board so they do work with the car, though I would have liked a driver and a seated officer as well. The two Gendarmerie have moulded on gorgets “dog-chain” which identified the wearer as Feldgendarmerie so that limits the use of these figures unless these are carved off. To be completely accurate these really also need decals for the shoulder patch and cufftitle.
Equipmentwise each gets a bayonet, a breadbag, a canteen, a Kar 98K rifle and two mag pouches for same. Both get the standard stahlhelm ( steel helmet ) which, as with most plastic kits, lack the small rivet and vent hole details. One holds a finely moulded cigarette in one hand and a winkerkelle ( traffic wand ) in the other with part of it moulded to his hand ( mounting it properly to his hand really requires the drilling of a small hole otherwise the attachemnt are is far to small for it to safely stay there ). He also comes with the small feldtaschen lampe ( a pocket mounted torch ).
The decals include those for the dashboard, as mentioned above, as well as decals for the wheel hubs and a selection of licence plates with three Heer (WH) and one Luftwaffe (WL) option. Paint schemes are provided for generic vehicles in Germany in 1941 and 1942 which are both indicated as being gloss black, a Dark Ghost Grey one in Bessarabia in 1943, and a dunkelgelb ( dark yellow ) one in Russia, also in 1943.
Conclusion. Though it may sound like this kit needs a lot of work I really should stress that overall it’s a bloody nice kit and I like it a lot. It’s currently one of the best staff cars out there in 1/35 injection moulded plastic ( there is no “perfect” staff car to date ). Certainly there are areas that can be improved upon but those are mainly when you step outside the intended finish with the only significant omission being the foot pedals. This is a very nice kit of a very handsome car and is very much recommended.
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