Background

For the past couple of years, MiniArt has been producing some exquisite, super detailed kits of Soviet/Red Army armored vehicles from the Second World War and immediate post-war period. The company has decided to take various components of these kits, and repackage them as “Up Grade” sets for the kits of other model companies. In the case of the set under review, MiniArt has taken the running gear (road wheels, idler and drive wheel, plus tracks) from their T-44 tank kit, and reboxed them as T-34/85 Late Type components.

The Opel “Blitz” truck was produced from 1930 to 1975. It was used as a commercial vehicle, and when the Wehrmacht needed a reliable and fast truck, the Blitz was chosen. In 1937, the Nazis had Opel build a factory at Brandenburg, which turned out over 130,000 Blitzes, until the RAF stopped production in 1944 by bombing the plant.

This kit is the ambulance version of the Opel Blitz. The ambulance had a transportation box on the back to handle casualties.

The Kit

There are two sprues, along with a clear sheet for windows, and a decal sheet. One sprue is for the chassis and cab, the other is the ambulance box. No PE, no resin, no problem.

The model is fairly straightforward to build. There’s a frame section, the cab, the ambulance box, the wheels, and some detail parts. The kit is a reissue of the ESCI ambulance from the 1970s. The molds have been reworked, as there ‘s no flash, and the parts are pretty well molded.

Specialty Press’ biography : “Col. Doug Barbier grew up to the sound of F-106s flying out of Selfridge AFB, MI, where a visit on Armed Forces Day 1962 began a lifelong interest in the jet. A U.S. Air Force Command Pilot with more than 3,500 flight hours, he flew the Lockheed T-33, the supersonic Northrop T-38, and logged more than 1,000 hours in the McDonnell F-4 Phantom II. Barbier finished his military career flying the F-16, spending many hours sitting Air Defense alert, and making three intercepts of Soviet Tu-95 Bears along the way. After retiring from the Air Force, he flew for a major airline for twenty years.