ICM has been pumping out the WWI-era model kits as of late and I have been reveling in it. After learning this kit was available, I jumped at the chance to grab it after recently finishing their FWD Truck kit. For this moderately skilled modeler though, this one proved to be a bit more challenging and frustrating. Details on the parts were crisp and the included engine is nice as well. However there are quite a few sink marks, and not all of them are so easily hidden.

What’s Inside the Box

The kit comes as the standard ICM kit does—with a colorful box top that slides off of an enclosed brown cardboard box. Parts were packaged well and details were crisp with no flash to speak of.

• 2 light gray plastic sprues
• 1 small clear sprue
• Decal sheet featuring two schemes
• Instruction booklet

Construction

Construction begins with the engine and as mentioned, the detail is quite nice. There is room to improve to be sure, but unless you have the engine cover off or partially open, it won’t be shown. From there we move to adding the radiator and front end suspension, as well as fuel tank. Fit here is crucial, or you will run into the problems I did later on. The engine is supposed to fit in behind the radiator next but I must have misaligned something- I tried to straighten things up, only to snap the front end off…and fixing that proved to be pretty challenging.

From there, you must add the rear axle assembly, exhaust, and front linkages to the underside. There were sink marks all over the large body piece and the ones under the fenders had to be filled and sanded. They would have you add the four wheels next, but for ease of painting I held off. Assembly of the rear bed was next- and unfortunately more sink marks were present. They were especially bad and difficult to clean up on the rear gate where they were quite visible. After adding the seat and side canvas roll, you are to attach the bed to the main body.

The sparse cab details were next- a few control levers, ammo for the Lewis gun, the front floor and pedals. You are then to add the sides of the cab to the front, but there were no real obvious attachment points here, which further exacerbated my fit problems in the front. This assembly was then added behind the engine. The engine cover louvers were next, but they didn’t fit well over the engine and behind the radiator. It took some finagling but I did get it in place, but with the earlier breakage and fit issue, it doesn’t look true. Lanterns and headlights were attached next.

They would have you attach the steering wheel and column next, but there is no way you’d get the driver figure in easily, so I had him assembled and holding the wheel before I put it in place. The seat back, Lewis gun and bracket, spare tire, and tool box and fuel cans added to the sideboard completed assembly. The instructions show tread plate detail on the running boards, but there is no such detail on the actual parts. The figures assembled nicely and were pretty well detailed.

Painting and Weathering

There are two paint schemes offered in box- and the colors vary as long as you like Sand. Both schemes are for Palestine-based Model T’s. I went with the one with the colorful radiator detail. For paint, I used AK Interactive AK726 British Sand Yellow paint. After a quick coat of Future, I applied the four decals with no issues. A quick coat from Testors Dullcote completed the build. I then went to attach the wheels and that “fixed” front end came apart again. This time it snapped in a way that I couldn’t easily get things realigned so this one won’t be winning any awards any time soon.

Conclusion

I was frustrated much more with this kit than I was with the FWD. The sink marks required quite a bit of extra effort- which for a newer kit seems a bit much for me. The underside fit was extremely fiddly and I didn’t help things by hamfisting everything into literal pieces. I really wanted to like this kit- and someone with more skills and patience has probably had no similar issues and delivered a beautiful piece in the end. For me though, this kit was not that. I imagine a beginner would have similar issues. I can only recommend this kit to someone with good skills and much more patience than I had in the end. Having a few kits under the belt is recommended.

My sincere thanks to ICM and IPMS-USA for the review sample.