Tamiya

1/48 Steyr Type 1500A/01

Kit Number: 49

Reviewed by  Andrew Birkbeck, IPMS# 27087

MSRP: $29.00 www.tamiyausa.com The Steyr 1500A was an extremely important WW2 Wehrmacht light truck, produced for the so-called "Schell Program" in Austria from 1941 to 1944, production stopping just short of 12,500 units. Having initially produced this kit in 1/35th scale, Tamiya has returned to the table with this lovely little kit, No. 49 in their 1/48th military vehicle and soldier series. The kit comes molded in a tan plastic, consisting of two main Sprues, A & B, together with a small clear sprue covering the one-piece windshield, plus a cast metal main chassis part, along with a decal sheet providing markings for three vehicles. As with every Tamiya kit I have ever had the pleasure to view, the parts come crisply molded, flash free and with good detail. Sadly, I can't say they are free of annoying ejection pin marks in noticeable places, as there are some that will need careful filling, especially on interior sides of parts B21 and B20, the main body side panels. I dealt with these by taking a modeling punch set and punching out circular disks of a suitable thickness of Evergreen sheet styrene to fill the holes, touching up the area with Mr. Surfacer 500, and sanding smooth.

Construction starts with the metal main chassis part. This is solid, and does not realistically represent the cross bracing etc. of the real chassis. However, it does provide a solid base for attaching all the plastic parts of the kit, and unless you turn the model over to look underneath, you won't really notice this compromise in detail. Attaching to this metal part in Section 1 is a one-piece drive train together with the front and rear wheel mounting shafts and lower engine detail. The wheels themselves are in two parts each, and have very good detail for this scale and mount snuggly to the shafts. Section 4 has the modeler assembling the main upper body parts, seven in total, less the floor part, B24. To B24 in Section 5 are glued the rear forward facing seat, the front seat mounting "boxes", along with the various floor mounted gear leavers. As with ALL of Tamiya's 1/48th "soft skin" vehicles, there are no clutch/brake/accelerator pedals. Fabrication of these missing parts should be easily achieved from Evergreen card and rod stock. In Section 6 the floor unit is screwed to the metal chassis using two Philips tapping screws, and the front wheel wells are glued to this. In Section 7 the main body unit from Section 4 is glued to the floor panel, together with part A31, the one piece front end/engine cover. This has molded in mesh detail, which would benefit from either replacing with suitable photo etched mesh, or simply highlighted in the painting process with a nice dark panel line wash. Section 8 covers the mounting of the exterior on-board tools, which are molded separately: pick axe, shovel and jack, together with a jerry can and holder. Representation of the jerry can restraining strap is missing from the kit parts, so probably should be fabricated from some masking tape or scrap PE stock of suitable thickness. Section 9 is the last main construction sequence, covering the front seats together with the front doors, which may be mounted in the open or closed position. Here also you will find the canvas top parts, in the folded position, which have nice detail for injection molded parts of this sort. Lastly, Section 10 covers the installation of the clear front window that needs very careful masking as it includes the frame and wipers. I wish Tamiya had molded the window surround and wipers separately from the clear windows. Masking them as a one-piece unit proved extremely difficult. Tamiya has incorporated the multipart way of doing front windshields in their latest Jeep kit, by the way. Markings are rather sparse for the three vehicles covered: a Dark Yellow vehicle, 90th Light Division, N.Africa 1942, consisting of front and rear license plates, plus a scorpion emblem for the front hood. A Panzer Gray "Gross Deutschland" vehicle, Russia, February 1943 again with the license plates plus a couple of tactical markings for the rear body and front fenders. Finally, an overall Dark Yellow vehicle with Green and Red/Brown "squiggle" pattern. This kit had absolutely NO fit problems whatsoever; it really is a pleasure to build. Only minor "issues" exist, with the unfortunately placed ejector pin marks on Parts B20 and B21, , being the main ones along with the masking headache with the one piece windshield, but with a moderate amount of "fiddling about", these were fairly easy to take care of. I highly recommend this kit to anyone wishing a simple weekend build, or who wishes to add this important Wehrmacht truck to their 1/48th military vehicle collection. On behalf of IPMS/USA I would like to thank Tamiya USA for sending this kit to us for review. You can see the entire range of 1/48th military vehicles, figures and accessories at: www.tamiyausa.com

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