A number of years ago, I built the Verlinden M-578 light recovery vehicle conversion on the M107/M110 chassis. It's a great kit, but the biggest disappointment was that the cab was a solid single block of resin. NOT the way I like to do kits.

Recently, Perfect Scale Modelbau came out with a new, complete resin kit with an open cab with interior details, AND had the GREAT sense to offer JUST the cab and blade as a separate kit!

So while I don't like rebuilding a completed kit, I've removed the old cab and blade and replacing them with the PSM cab and blade.

First step is the blade, which unlike the Verlinden (which molded the two pieces into a solid block, not that that stopped me from separating it so it would articulate!) is already in two separate pieces. The attachment is different and is requiring some modification to the back of the chassis. Here are some shots of the original Verlinden build, along with a "before/after" on the rear blade attachments.

http://s360.photobucket.com/albums/oo41/thathaway3/M%20578/

More to come later.

Tom

nice we had 1 of these that came with the M548s that we used as MSTs for tracked Rapier i always wanted a good kit the Verlinden seemed too much DMs at the time

This kit, even just the cab, isn't exactly cheap, but since I live in the US and don't have to pay the VAT, (and I REALLY wanted it!), for me it's worth it.

I built their M-561 Gama Goat last year, and was really impressed with the overall quality of PSMs work.

I don't think the Verlinden is in production any longer, so if you want to build one of these, this is the way to go. You'll need to have the Italeri M110 kit to start and that requires some modifications but is cheaper than getting the entire vehicle kit from PSM. (I have no idea how good that is but I'd expect it to be pretty good.)

There's no PE like the Verlinden had which is a MINOR drawback, but having an open cab with detailed interior more than makes up for that in my opinion.

I'm looking forward to it!

Tom