Steelwork 1/72 Constructora Field 1 armored truck
| KIT: | Steelwork 1/72 1937 Chevrolet armord car |
| KIT #: | SK7209 |
| PRICE: | €27.00 from www.steelwork-models.de |
| DECALS: | Two options |
| REVIEWER: | Scott Van Aken |
| NOTES: | Resin kit with photoetched fret |
| HISTORY |
Paraphrased from the instructions:
"After the revolt of the generals on 18 July 1936 in Spain, the workers started to fight the putschists. At this time, there were only a few armored cars. For this reason, many improvised vehicles were constructed. In August 1936, a construction made of steel was mounted on a truck chassis (for example, the Chevrolet SB model 1936), at the factory of Constructora Field in Barcelona. The vehicle (Field 1) had nine openings for hand guns. The Field I was employed in the 'Column Ford" of the unions FAI, CNT, and UGT. Ten trucks of different construction were built with the last one being done in February of 1937 (Field 1 to 4). The Field 1 weighed 5,000 kg, carried a driver and eight soldiers, and used a 216 cubic inch Chevrolet six cylinder engine.
| THE KIT |
Superbly molded in tan resin, the kit has very good detailing and I was quite pleased not to find any molding glitches during inspection. The kit comes with a complete body that is actually rather heavy since it is a single casting.
A single casting is also provided for the chassis. There are six resin wheels along with the roof vents, lower front axle section and the rear wheel side covers in another bag. Photo etch is provided for all the small details. This includes the name tag, front grille, vent grilles, hinges and some other small bits for fitting over the gun ports and below the rear wheel cover.
Instructions are a single sheet of paper and very nicely printed. The build portion is basically an exploded view with smaller detail images. The full color painting profile shows placement of the decals
and the colors used for the vehicle. Basically, it is sand with a heavy dark green mottling. A photo of the completed kit is shown on the box art and front side of the instruction sheet. This should also be helpful for positioning some of the photo etch parts. The decal sheet appears to be ALPS printed as it has a single carrier. I'm assuming that the markings are for two different vehicles, though I could also be mistaken in this regard.
| CONCLUSIONS |
This is really a sweet little kit. The molding is excellent and the break-down of the parts is such that you should be able to get this one together in a relatively short time. Having built their earlier armored car kit, I found it to be a nice addition to the 1/72 armored vehicle collection. It is not complex, but one does need to take one's time with all kits of this genre.
October 2010
Thank you to Steelwork for the review sample. You can buy yours on-line at www.steelwork-models.de
If you would like your product reviewed fairly and fairly quickly, please contact the editor or see other details in the Note to Contributors.