Thanks again to Ross at SAC for providing IPMS USA this review set. Keep the production line up, many of us will continue to buy them!

Pardon a quick interlude on the relative merits of Metal gear over plastic. About three years ago I built one of the new 1/32 JU-88 kits on the market. The proprietor of a now-defunct, not-so-local hobby shop asked if I was interested in SAC metal gear for the kit. I said, “naaa”… I was not convinced of the merits. He purchased one of the Junkers for himself, and asked if I would build it for him.

“Certainly” says I.

Car History Brief

Mad Max's black Pursuit Special was a 1973 Ford XB Falcon GT351, limited edition hardtop (sold in Australia from December 1973 to August 1976). The car was modified by Murray Smith, Peter Arcadipane and Ray Beckerley. After filming of the first movie was completed, the car went up for sale, but had no buyers and eventually it was handed over to Murray Smith (film mechanic).

When production of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior began, the car was purchased back by George Miller for use in the sequel. Once filming was over, the car was left at a wrecking yard in Adelaide since it again found no buyers, then was bought and restored by Bob Forsenko. Eventually it was sold again and put on display in the Cars of the Stars Motor Museum in Cumbria, England. That museum closed and the car is currently in a collection in the Dezer museum in Miami Fl.

Scale Aircraft Conversions specializes in white metal replacement parts. Its line of replacement landing gear has been expanded to include a set for the Academy 1/48 P-47D, which has been boxed by Italeri and Eduard too.

The set includes 5 parts, two landing gear struts and scissors plus the tail wheel, finely molded in white metal. These parts are drop-in replacements for the plastic parts.

You can see from the pictures the parts are very cleanly molded and formed. Attaching the struts scissors is very easily accomplished with superglue as regular plastic glue will not work on white metal.

While dry fitting the parts, I’ve noticed that the white metal landing gear struts are molded a little bit shorter than the plastic ones. I was able to tell that when I presented the metal part to the landing gear cover and the alignment pins did not completely line up. Not a big issue and actually the shorter struts represent a combat loaded P-47 better in my opinion.