The Vehicle

In December of 1941 the US Government put all manufacturing on a wartime footing. Many of the factories which had been producing civilian cars went over to producing Jeeps, pickups, cargo trucks, ammo carriers, tanks, guns, and other wartime necessities. There were still a few assembly lines which continued to produce a few cars, and most of these were sold to the Army or Navy for use as “staff cars”. Because it wouldn’t do for someone as important as an Admiral or General to ride around in a canvas topped jeep. It might seem that it was tough on civilians to not be able to get a new car, but with gas rationing they couldn’t drive much of anywhere anyway.

The Kit

You get two resin staff cars in the kit. There is a photoetch fret, an instruction sheet, and a small decal sheet with license plates and white stars for two cars.

Assembly

There really isn’t any assembly to this kit. I removed the pour block from the connectors at the bottom of the car, and then cut these connectors off of the bottom of the car.

Brengun did a marvelous design job on the mold for this car. The pour block is easily removed from the connecting parts with a saw. I then used a PE razor saw to remove most of the connectors from the bottom of the car. I used a #11 blade to remove the last of the pour connectors. This was one of the easiest resin prep jobs I’ve ever done.

Painting

The paint job was fairly easy to start with, as the Army staff cars were Olive Drab. I used Testors faded OD, as I thought the regular OD was a little dark for this application. The actual painting was just to paint the entire model OD, then go back and do details. After the paint set, I painted the tires, using Tamiya Flat Black. I left the hubcaps OD. I then painted the windows with Tamiya silver, as well as the headlights.

The tail lights were done with Tamiya flat red. I also put a light wash of black in the slots in the grille simulate the openings. And paint was done.

There was no PE indicated on the instructions, except for the license plates for the civilian version. There are also command pennants, if your passenger is important enough.

Decals

The decals were OK. I thought they took a long time to come off the backing paper, but once they came free, they behaved pretty nicely, without tearing or folding. I had a little trouble with alignment on the trunk, as the decal kept moving as I tried to wick up the extra water.

And I had finished my 1/144^th Staff Car.

Overall Evaluation

Recommended. This is another great addition, to use on a 1/144 diorama with an aircraft. I posed this one with my recent Brengun P-39, and it looks pretty darned good sitting there. Since there’s another car in the kit, I may have to do the civilian version.

Many thanks to Brengun for this really interesting and well-done kit. And thanks to IPMS USA for allowing me to review it.