When General Montgomery commanded the 8th British Army in North Africa, he was provided with a specially designed staff vehicle. This original vehicle was created based on the standard British army vehicle, the Leyland Retriever. A non-standard structure was installed on the base chassis, which served as a mobile field office. The interior of the vehicle was divided into two rooms. The small front room was equipped with a bathroom, while the larger room contained wardrobes for personal belongings and clothes, a writing desk with desk lamps, and a large sofa.

Previously, this office belonged to the Italian General Bergonzoli and was mounted on a Lancia 3RO truck. After the vehicle was captured by a unit of the 7th British Armoured Division, the structure was transferred to the chassis of the British Leyland Retriever. After the end of the combat operations in North Africa, the mobile station was moved to Europe.

Montgomery also had two other specialized trucks: one was converted into a mobile bedroom, while the other was used for large staff maps and meetings. All three vehicles became known as “Monty’s Caravan.” These vehicles were used by General (and, from 1944, Field Marshal) Montgomery until the end of the war. They are currently on display at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford.

ICM’s Monty’s Office Caravan is a spectacular offering for the modeler. The box cover display shows a military truck driving through an oasis, leaving a cloud of thick sand and dust behind it – very nice. The box contains 436 parts, including 11 gray plastic and 4 clear plastic sprues, 7 rubber tires, a decal sheet, and one photo etch frame with three parts.

There are three marking options provided in this kit:

• Monty's Office Caravan, North Africa, Autumn 1942
• Monty's Office Caravan, Tripoli, Summer 1943
• Monty's Office Caravan, Germany, Spring 1945

The instruction manual describes 191 assembly steps in 36 pages. The downloadable instructions are also available online. There is a color chart with 17 equivalent ICM acrylic water-based paints and their catalog numbers on page 1. There is also a QR code to access a step-by-step video instruction page. The last three pages of the instructions show the vehicle painting schemes. They have front, back, side, and even top views, depending on the scheme. Page 33 of the manual has color templates for the carpet and the bathroom floor. They are in 1/35 scale and can be cut out and attached to the kit’s parts – a very nice touch.

Assembly

The assembly starts with the chassis, the engine, and the wheels. The vehicle’s engine is very nicely represented. However, only its bottom will be visible after the cab is assembled. I noticed that in step 25, the cooling fan (part B69) shows the attachment point incorrectly. The next step (26) shows the fan attached in the correct spot. I recommend watching the step-by-step video as it displays this assembly step correctly. I did not attach the tires as indicated in steps 47-51 of the manual as I wanted to paint the entire chassis first without anything interfering with good access to all areas on the vehicle’s chassis. The supplied photo-etched grille for the engine’s radiator is superbly represented. Care must be taken not to bend the fairly large and delicate part. The grille fits onto the plastic part like a glove. I was quite amazed at how well all the parts fit during the assembly.

The assembly of Monty’s office structure begins at step 91 and ends with the very last step in the instructions. There are a lot of great details provided for the assembly of the bathroom and the office. We find picture frames for the pictures of the German generals, cabinets, a sofa and a chair, desks and shelves, an ink bottle in a writing set, two desk lamps and lighting fixtures. The office section is separated from the bathroom by a wall with a sliding door. To make the door work, I added a small squared rail to the top part of the separating wall. The floor has a groove that the door fits in which makes it possible to slide the door along it. The bathroom is also well-equipped with details. One will find a full sink with a drain pipe and a faucet, a covered toilet box, towel rods, shaving gel container, and a mirror with a small shelf. Instead of painting the mirror silver as suggested in the instructions, I used a sticker with a mirror-like finish. Assembling the desk lamps was difficult because the two curved stems of the lamps (parts S27 and S38) were impossible to detach from the sprues without damaging them due to their thin shape and fairly thick injection molding attachment points. Both parts broke into 3 pieces while I was detaching them from the sprue. I replaced them with a thin wire instead. My only recommendation for ICM in this build is to provide other materials for thin parts like wires, etc. The two lamps have light bulbs made of clear plastic, and they look like the real thing. I was able to find a few pictures of the Office Caravan from the War Museum and added a few extra details. These included another ink bottle I scratched built from plastic parts and a horseshoe which was attached to one of the walls. To make it also more realistic inside the office structure, I added a bottle of wine to a shelf and two more inside the hanging cabinet. Finally, I resized and printed several small maps of the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding continents and placed them on the table and the sofa. I placed three rolls of similar maps on the desk in a corner, thinking that maps must have been key tools used by the famous general. The entire office structure is covered by a roof. I did not want to permanently glue it to the walls. Instead, I used three very small magnets that hold the roof in place, enabling its easy removal to expose all the details, if desired. I painted the walls with the light earth color per instructions. However, looking at the reference photos, the walls looked like stained and finished wood. I used a Tamiya clear yellow and clear orange mixture on top of the recommended color to make the walls look like wood. The provided picture frames held pictures of German generals and ICM supplied decals of these pictures in a miniature form. These are the highlights of the entire build, in my opinion. After painting the model (see painting below), I attached the headlights, windshields, and six windows to the kit. I was able to slide the windows into their frames by pushing them from the outside. The finished kit looks impressive, especially its inside.

Painting

My review sample included ICM’s Monty’s Office Caravan Acrylic Paint Set (Item 3078) in six colors. These were:

• US Dark Green
• Buff
• Light Earth
• Chocolate (Chipping)
• Offwhite
• Extra Dark Green

Thanks to that, I was able to use the specific colors for the vehicle. Three walls in the bathroom have an off-white color. I masked the walls and painted the bathroom section off-white. I matched the color of the provided floor template and painted the floor with Humbrol paint instead; however, I used the template for the carpet. I did not install the clear parts (windows, windshields, and headlights) until the very end and masked these sections before I applied the camouflage colors.

I diluted the paint 50% (ICM recommends 40-60% water or acrylic thinner). The paint sprayed consistently at about 12-15 PSI when the paint layers were thin. The paint started to run, however, when I accidentally sprayed certain spots with too much paint. Therefore, I opted to use the Tamiya X-20 thinner at 50:50 mix of paint and thinner. The results were much better with a solid Matt texture. I chose the second paint scheme option of two colors: Buff and US Dark Green, using the Tamiya thinner again with the paints. I enlarged the paint scheme to 1/35 scale, cut the paper pattern out, and attached it to the model using blue-tack. I sprayed the lighter buff color first, followed by the US Dark Green. I sprayed the acrylic Future coat before the application of the decals and the decals conformed to the surface very well. They also responded well to the Super Sol decal setting solution. I sealed the entire model with Testors dull cote. It was great to have the ICM paints formulated exactly for this vehicle, although only the six key colors were included in the set out of 17 recommended colors for this build.

The Monty’s Office Caravan kit was a thrill to assemble and paint. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of building it. The final result is very rewarding. ICM brings us a very interesting subject to model with fantastic details, great fits, and options. I highly recommend the kit to any modeler who is interested in the African campaign of WW2. I am looking forward to more similar offerings from ICM. Because I mainly build airplane and armor kits, I did not think I would be assembling a full-size sofa, bathroom, or office equipment. Nevertheless, this kit’s great features surpassed my expectations and drew me in like glue. Thank you, ICM, for providing such enjoyment while building Monty’s Office Caravan.

My sincere thanks go to ICM for generously providing this kit and the paint set to review and IPMS USA for allowing me to review it.