Hey all:
I was pleasently surprised to find a Marine AAV7A1 in 1/35th scale this weekend with reactive armor at a shop in Minneapolis. Needless to say I bought it with visions of it as GW2 kit..
A cursory once over and it looks decent with crisp clean molding. Looks to be up to modern standards as a kit and subject. It may be based off the Tamiya kit, but brings the AAV7A1 to modern standards (as far as I can tell) with the reactive armor, a new turret and two pretty nice figures.
The kit is manufactured by Wasan Plactic Model Co. out of China. First time I have seen it, and snagged it for $19. Look forward to building this next!!!!
(If you have any of the spare Tamiya ALICE packs for trade let me know, I'm gonna load this baby up).
I'd be happy to hear from anyone who may have more info on the kit/vehicle....

Nate
Wisc. USA

FYI Wasan=Trumpeter, good they did that kit right, avoid their M60 series kits.

Hi
I dont' want to spoil your pleasure (I may have done the same) but the accuracy of the Wasan kit may be questionable. As far as I know, Wasan, MiniHobby and Trumpeter are one and the same company, and their kits are the same. Their AAVP7A1 kit had been modified to be motorized. So you may have a look at this site for an in-box Tamiya vs Trumpeter review :
http://www.isms.150m.com/r_t_aavp7a1.htm
The text is written in a langage I unfortunately don't understand (indonesian ? A translation would be welcome...) but the pics somehow speak for themselves (Tamiya kit is on the left)
I have planned to buy one MiniHobby kit just for the add-on armour I could use with the Tamiya kit (as soon as I find one )
Frenchy

Just a few things I forgot in the first post.
The kit I bought is motorized but can be built static. I will be pulling the motor out, but there is a big channel that needs to be filled by the rear idler wheel. It doesn't look like it will be too visible once the kit is done.
Additionally, the road wheels are molded as one piece, but look like 2 pieces. Basically, it's like someone sprebuils the roadsheels. Again this doesn't look like an issue when construction is done.
And, as Rob points out, some of the sprues are indeed marked TRUMPETER.
We'll see how this baby goes together....

Nate

Frenchy:
That is indeed the kit.
As you can see the running gear and rear hull are molded unlike the Tamiya kit. But other than that it appears to be the same.
Looks like the EAAK parts should work with a Tamiya kit just fine.
I did find one or two lines of English in that review ... "Well.... there's no winner, I like both kits !!!"

Have fun, at least we finally all have a place to start

Nate
Wisc. USA

Wasan is another name for Trumpeter. In fact, if you have any Trumpeter kits go look at the side of the box where the company address is and it says "Wasan Plastic Model Co." That particular kit is a copy of the Tamiya kit with added EAAK armor and modified to be motorized. I've never built it, but I've heard that it is made of a really wierd plastic that doesn't go together well with standard model glue. That kit is hard to come by because it has been OOP for quite some time.

At AMPS I spoke with Bruce Teal who made the AAV7A1 with EAAK and he told me that he only used the EAAK out of that kit (along with a Tamiya kit) because he had no luck with the Wasan one. He was displeased with the soft detail and the fact that nothing seemed to hold the kit together. Good Luck with it.

The biggest pain I found when dealing with the early Trumpeter Tamiya clones was that the directions often were exact duplicates of the Tamiya ones, but some of the parts were not included or were molded on the surface and not a separate part. The M60 I have was molded in a tank plastic like in that review, but it did not take to glue that well. I did use Testors liquid cement and tube glue, but you could tell it wasn't the best glue to use for the kit.