Maquette 1/35 GAZ M1 Russian Staff Car
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The Kit
This is a multi-media kit consisting of resin and injection molded parts.
Resin parts consist of car body and floor pan, seats, grill, inner floor
and dash, gas tank, spare tire, and rear bumper. There is a resin wafer
containing assorted detail parts. There are 43 injection-molded parts
consisting of the frame, suspension, and engine parts. There is also a
clear styrene sheet with eight window parts scribed onto it. These need
to be cut out to fit the various window openings. My example was some
what scratched, but appeared to be usable after some buffing and polishing.
A coat of Future floor polish would also help. The instructions are of
the exploded view type, consisting of 10 assembly steps. One small sheet
of registration number decals is provided.
The resin parts are for the most part cleanly molded, light or no flash,
no air bubbles or voids present. Surface finish is somewhat coarse; fine
sanding would be necessary for a smooth paint job. There is some light
flash on some of the smaller parts, but is easy to remove. The wafer parts
(door handles, etc) need to be flat sanded to remove them from their casting
wafer. I would recommend a thorough washing in detergent before assembly,
as my example had a lot of mold release on the parts. The resin appears
to cut and sand easily and is not overly brittle.
The plastic parts are molded on one tree of white styrene. Heavy flash
obscured the wheel openings and outer wheel/hubcap details on my example,
otherwise the parts looked good. There is a complete engine and driveline
included. The one piece frame on my example appears to be slightly twisted,
but should not be difficult to straighten.
Conclusion
This is a nice little kit of an interesting, overlooked subject. It
looks to be a fairly quick, painless project for any moderately experienced
modeler. Fans of WW II Russian vehicles will be especially pleased. I
recommend this kit and look forward to seeing one finished.
My thanks to MMD-Squadron for
graciously donating this kit for our review.
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