History

“The Mongoose” is a name that conjures up a lot of memories for me. I remember the Hot Wheels renditions of the “The Snake” and “The Mongoose” as any Hot Wheels collector worth their salt had those cars in their case. What I didn’t realize at the time was the marketing savvy behind those shiny little toys cars. As it turns out, Tom McEwen, the driver of “The Mongoose,” was a master of promoting drag racing and one of the key figures in developing sponsorships that although common today, were a novel idea in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Toms racing career would span 40 years and while he didn’t accrue the winning record of his nemesis Don Prudomme, the rivalry Tom created with the Snake and the Mongoose has become the stuff of drag racing legend.

The Kit

Background

The Sturmgeschutz III (Stug III) assault gun was the most produced armored vehicle by Germany in WWII. It was built on the Panzer III chassis, initially to provide infantry support but continually modified and improved growing into a very effective tank destroyer.

The Stug III F/8 was produced Sept. - Dec. 1942 with 250 being built. It introduced an improved hull similar to the Panzer III Ausf. J/L with additional armor of 30mm thickness bolted on to speed up production. It mounted the 7.5cm Stuk 40 L/48 gun that would become the standard gun carried throughout the G series.

Kit

This is one of Dragon’s “Smart Kits”. It contains over 800 light grey parts, photo etch, metal wire, and the Magic Track type individual track links. Many of the parts are slide molded and over all detail and appearance are excellent!

I have three or four of these magazines and have also written a review on volume 15. The magazine is always a good read and this issue is no different, there are fourteen articles in this issue. They range from a 1:72^nd scale Eagle Booster set (Space 1999) from Warp Models to 1:1 scale Galaxy Quest prop kits from Pegasus Hobbies.

This issue has the 3^rd part of a 3 part story on the designing of the Moebius Jupiter 2 which offered a chance for all of us to see what goes into designing such a kit ( I can’t wait to build mine). The article on how to repair a damaged Snow speeder has great information that should be of help to all who have had some mishaps happen to our models such as kids and the cat all come to mind.