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A Tale of Three Jeeps

Final Touches of the Engine Compartment

Tamiya’s is certainly the simplest one. All components not directly part of the engine are included in one part. Bronco has a somewhat similar approach with the battery and one more part separate. However, the molding is so delicate that the part broke. A nice touch of Bronco is to include the attachments for the headlights from PE. These are easily bent to shape and will look great when displaying the engine. DML has all the parts separately and the attachment of the filter is a bit unclear.

Windshield

Tamiya and Bronco have the full windshield, while DML and Bronco have the canvas-covered windshield. Clearly one big plus point for Bronco here in providing both options. Another plus point goes to Bronco for the detail while Tamiya’s is clearly the easiest to build and paint, with the glass parts separate. Bronco on the other side has finer wipers but requires you to mask the glass as it’s included in the inner frame. Bronco also has the option of modeling the Glass and inner frame open, another nice detail touch. Some nice PE parts complete the Bronco windshield and the attachments include very fine wing nuts.

The M1 Rifle racks are both very fine items, however, Bronco’s has slightly finer detail and the more realistic attachment points from PE. No rifle rack is included in the DML kit as it would be under the canvas.

Canvas covered windshields: DML has an amazing one piece molding while Bronco has a similar item with separate back. Bronco again has the wing nuts to add. What I don’t like on both parts is the missing details on the lower opening of the canvas, but I imagine this would be hard to replicate other than taking an actual windshield and adding a canvas from lead foil, tissue paper or similar?

Engine Hood

Tamiya’s part is the simplest and least detailed one. Bronco has some really pesky little PE parts here and I can understand that some people call Bronco’s kits over-engineered. DML’s PE is a bit simpler with what are several parts for Bronco included into one. Attachment was done once the engine was painted and posed no particular problems other than the items being very fiddly to handle.

A note on dimensions: DML and Tamiya have almost exactly the same width, while Bronco is small enough to fit exactly in between. On the other hand, Bronco and Tamiya are the same length while DML is about 1mm longer. The width issue could also be due to some warping of the Bronco part.

Tools

A Jeep’s tools consist only of a shovel and an axe. Though these were standard issue items, all manufacturer’s look different. Personally I like Tamiya’s basic tools best. However, they have no attachments other than the most obvious brackets, making them float and defy gravity on the Jeep. The shovel bracket is included in the shovel – also with DML – while the axe bracket is – as with all three kits – included in the body. I detailed the Tamiya kit with some wire, stretched sprue, tape and some Verlinden resin buckles.

DML: One strap is molded with the shovel; the other is made of PE. I didn’t think the PE part would be snuggling to the contours enough, so I decided to use some tape and add the buckle from the PE part. The tools themselves seem a bit soft and do no have the sturdy look of the Tamiya parts.

Bronco has the straps molded onto the body and tools, which looks good enough, but is of course solid on the back. The bracket for the shovel is a PE part, which is a nice touch. What I don’t like is the attachment for the axe, which is made of a very fine PE part that is hard to handle. I replaced this with wire, which is more realistic than the flat PE.