Moebeius 1/25 International Prostar
KIT #: 1301
PRICE: $79.99 SRP
DECALS: Two options
REVIEWER: Robert Myers
NOTES:  

HISTORY

The International Harvester Company, was a United States agricultural machinery, construction equipment, vehicle, commercial truck, and household and commercial products manufacturer, with roots in the 1830s . International Harvester sold off its agricultural division in 1985 and renamed itself Navistar International Corporation in 1986, retaining its truck and engine divisions. Today Navistar International's subsidiary, International Truck and Engine Corporation, manufactures and markets trucks and engines under the International brand name. 

The Prostar was  a class 8 heavy truck. It was introduced in 2006 and was advertised as the most fuel efficient truck in the Class 8 market. It was still being produced in 2015.  It is available in both sleeper and non-sleeper versions.

THE KIT

This 1/25th scale kit is huge! There are about 300 parts, including spares of the small easily lost parts.  With the addition or deletion of the sleeper roof extension (1 part), you can build two versions. The sprues are all wrapped in plastic, very detailed and are very well molded without visible injector pin marks or flash. The engineering of parts and parts placement on the sprues really shows a modeler was involved with the design on this one. Most of the sprue attachment points are hidden or very small. Even the chrome is well thought out so that you don't have major seams or attachment point cuts showing. The exceptions are the fuel tanks. They have a long seam where the halves join. The upside is that the seam on the fuel tanks is hidden when you add the aero skirts. The tires are soft vinyl and appear very realistic. The parts also include a thin metal, flexible metal mesh grill insert. This is a very nice touch.

The decals are bright and in register. They will be used to add woodgrain to the interior, a nice dashboard, various exterior markings and a trucking company name.  Your choice for company names are BrandsMart U.S.A., Navistar, along with custom stripes.

The instruction booklet is 15 pages with some color images. It is a huge improvement over the Lonestar instructions. The only thing I don't like about it is the colors for the different parts are on a separate sheet. This is strictly a personal gripe because I like the color call-outs next to the part name and number on the instruction sheet.


CONCLUSIONS

This looks like a very nice kit with improved instructions. I highly endorse this as a well done kit of a modern truck that is still in production. I bought 6 of these kits because the kit itself will build into two different sleeper versions. I plan to do a daycab, (without a sleeper) and  a wrecker version.

Robert Myers

July 2015

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