Greetings all!

Back in November of last year I did a build review of the then new Dragon Armoured 4X4 trucks.



If you missed it you can find it HERE. One jeep was fully constructed for the Review and the other partly so. When possible I like to do as much of a build so that I can relay how a kit will go together and then have it available in a timely manner. From the many comments in the past, people have told me they prefer this to a plain In-Box type without any construction. Unfortunately what has happened is that I've fallen behind in finishing up some of these builds. It's my intention with this post to start finishing some of these outstanding builds.

As the timing was appropriate I was able to enter these "Jeeps" in the Technical Campaign. Anyone that took part in it will have seen updates of the progress. With the campaign ending I thought that I'd post in this forum.

First off is a couple of pictures of the .50 cal. Jeep with painting almost finished, decals applied and a couple coats of matt varnish.





For the campaign I resumed work on the second jeep and the first part of that was to get the armoured shield bent and fitted.





I had a few more problems with bending this second shield as I'd forgotten how I did the first. Once I attached the wheels and a few other plastic parts I put down some Future and applied the decals according to the instructions. Someone in the campaign asked me to post pictures of the little tykes with pennies as reference.









That's about it for now but any comments or questions are always welcome.

Cheers,
Jan

Thanks for the review, these jeeps are little gems indeed. I'm really preplexed as to why the seats don't have any seat cushion...a real head scratcher. Also under the driver side seat, there's a fuel tank part that is in the kit but not mentioned in the instructions (if you look closely you will notice that the drawings already show this part attached in the instructions).

@orange_3D - Sonny, thanks for taking the time to take a look and especially comment. The kit really is a very nice one, despite needing some work and having a flaw or two. The lack of seat cushions as you said, is definitely a "head scratcher." As there were two Jeeps in the kit I did the first (.50 cal version) basically out of the box. However, with the second I took some extra time and added them to the front seats using shaped and formed pieces of Evergreen styrene sheet. You can see the effect in the picture below.



As for the fuel tank, its existence and positioning is clear as mud. If one knows what one is looking at one might guess what it is but there are no reference numbers or arrows or anything to suggest that it exists. I didn't find out about this missing part until a member of the local small scale group brought in the Dragon LVT with Jeep kit and I looked at the instructions. In that kit Dragon corrected their omission and at least gave it a part number (A7)

Another glaring omission is the lack of any representation of the carrying handles on the Jerry can. Was the designer of the kit-hung over on a Monday morning when he designed that part!

I saw your post here about designing and producing a Dragon Jeep PE Set.. I see that it is still not available but it looks fantastic and even has the handles for the Jerry cans.

Just as an amusing aside, here's a picture of the first Jeep that I put up in the campaign thread.



As these were first used during the Battle of the Bulge, it's extremely plausible that at least one might have been captured!

Cheers,
Jan

Jan, putting to one side the question of what that thing is that the German crewed Jeep is sitting on, I think I gather from your review that no figures were included in this kit. Although I recall at one time, having made a similar observation, receiving criticism from someone along the lines of "don't moan about it" or something, it does seem a shame that not even a couple of drivers were included. Are there suitable Dragon figures available separately to crew these? Unlike a tank, where you can at least have all the hatches closed, these Jeeps are a bit lost looking without people.

Matthew,

The "thing",as you colourfully put it, that the Jeep is sitting on is another of my ongoing "experiments" in base creation. It is actually the 2.5" plastic lid to a jar of peanuts covered in the Decoart Fiero medium, sprayed Flat Earth with a couple of appropriate washes. Far from complete by any stretch, it may have a purpose for displaying smaller subjects.

You, and several others, are justifiably perplexed as to the lack of any figures, especially drivers, that fail to find themselves in these kits and in particular open topped vehicles. This has been an ongoing complaint about Dragon as we know that they can and do produce exceptional figures in this scale (PaK 40 gun crew, German paratroopers and infantry). However, I have yet to hear or see any Allied figures by them in this scale. Perhaps if more people complain loudly enough they might get the hint.

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I felt it might be the time for a further update. The second Jeep is coming along and in the following pictures you can see that some detail painting has progressed and I have dry fitted the Bazookas and the armour to it. It also still needs the night driving light attached. To the curious, this one is also on an experimental base.









Cheers,
Jan