Hi,

Aside from Italeri, has there been any other kit manufacturer that released one in plastic?

Cheers,

Tat

Not that I know of.

Hi

Yes, there was another company, from Historic Plastic Models. Not seen it myself but I gather from comments the Italeri offering is better.

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/135906-historic-plastic-models-hs35004-sd-kfz-231-6-rad

Be nice if someone like Bronco, AFV Club or one of the other newer manufacturers had a go at doing it.

Alan

Thanks Tom, Alan. Seems Italeri is a bit difficult to source out these days. Just saw thw HSM kit on sale at Sprue Brothers. Yes, it sure would be nice if other manufacturers do release one in plastic. Cheers, Tat

Sovereign made a resin and metal kit, but it is a little bit more expensive than either the HPM or Italeri.

BTW, there are three of the HPM kits and four of the Italeris currently up on ebay USA.

I had to search using "1/35 6 rad Italeri" to get those four to show up as they are 232's, not 231's which is what the HPM is, I believe.

Be forewarned--the overall fit of the HiPM kit is very poor (it's an Eastern European kit from 25 years ago). You will need to do a lot of filing, test fitting, and putty work to get it assembled, particularly the chassis.

Neither Italeri nor HiPM noticed the engine air vents on the lower body sides ahead of the driver's position, as this area is so heavily shadowed in period photos (one issue of Ampersand Publishing's "Allied-Axis" revealed some manufacturers' photos that show these clearly, and they differed between the three truck makers who built the cars). You'll have to scratch build them, as I haven't seen any resin versions on the market.

Frankly, I hope Bronco or Miniart or ICM redo these, rather than struggle with these older efforts.

Thanks Shell, will look these up at eBay. Heard about Sovereign as well, unfortunately resin kits are not my game. Cheers, Tat

Thanks for the tip Gerald. The reduced price I saw on the HPM was tempting. Hmmm....

Tat;

I have both the Italeri and HiPM (HIS) kits... There are actually 2 Italeri kits around - one has some interior stuff added on - I think it may be CMK resin parts? As those driver's doors are large, and you can leave open some other hatches and vents, you can see some of the interior, so... And with a little PE (there are some Eduard PE kits available for these kits), and metal gun barrels, it can look pretty OK.

Note that the Italeri kits have more open hatches (including those small dome-lids over the driver's stations), as well as better fit and better molding detail in general. As Gerald noted above, both makers seem to have skipped over those side vents for the engine up front... Probably the single largest gaff, IMO.

And, I think, one needs to do a little homework before plugging into these kits - the 6-rad was built on three different chassis (M.Benz, Magirus, and B. NAG) - and some chassis have 1 or 2 small roller-wheels each side roughly beneath those driver's side hatches (much like the more-modern Russian BRDM wheeled AFV does) - and those front-end side vents also differed in shape and slat-orientation between manufacturers.

As to the 231 versus 232; the external differences of note are the frame antenna and its mounts - with some variation among mounts. There were also wheel-rim differences between manufacturers - and some wheels had attached hub-armor (like on earlier Sdkfz 222). The 231 and 232 hulls were the same for each manufacturer (actually, the hulls, per common German practice, were built by different manufacturers than were the chassis), other than those antenna mounts... So, you can construct an antenna and mounts and add it to a 231 kit as you wish if you want to make it a 232.

FWIW, I would recommend the Italeri kits as being pretty workable and the best styrene 231/2 6-rads available.

Of course, once one really jumps into one of these elderly 231/2 kits and gets fully cranked up to do it nicely... Bronco or ICM or MiniArt or maybe HobbyBoss will slide out a much-nicer modern styrene kit!

I have both kits. My strategy is to keep fondling the Italeri plastic and wait while others keep popping this interesting vehicle up for discussion... Teasing model companies! I figure that if enough of us quack often enough about it, perhaps one of the modern kit-makers will rise to the bait, and I'll be able to slide my historic kits off into the bin or onto eBay or donation or... Keep quacking and squawking, guys! I'm not getting any younger, here!

Bob

Spot on Bob! IIRC Hobby Boss has recently been releasing those early 4-Rads, so hopefully they'll have either variant of the 6-Rad out in our lifetime!

Cheers,

Tat

I also have both the HiPM and Italeri kits. Even if the HiPM kit is cheaper, go with the Italeri kit. Not only is the latter a much better basis, the HiPM kit had all sorts of clean-up issues, etc. FWIW the Italeri kit is built in my collection, and the HiPM is a shelf queen, and may never get built.

Damon.

Hello,

I was able to get the Italeri #6445 -- the one with the added PE / resin parts. Read the review at PMMS but I didn't see any mention of the omitted engine vents. Anyways, are there pics in the web that can be used as reference for a scratchbuild? Also, as #6445 is an SdKfz 232, can it be finished as an SdKfz 231 by simply forgoing the frame antenna?

Cheers,

Tat

HISTORIC PLASTIC MODELS, also known as HIPM. ITALERI's IS BETTER. You can also check for resin kits and conversions on ebay- NEW CONNECTIONS, older (I believe) REAL MODEL, ACCURATE ARMOR, CROMWELL MODELS. Also, there once was a really neat conversion to make an Sd.Kfz.247 Radio Command Vehicle, which was a 6-wheeler conversion based on the Sd.Kfz.222 4-wheeler, or a chassis similar to the 6-wheeled Krupp "Boxer", I'm not sure which vehicle was used as a base-vehicle to build the real 247...

IIRC the 247 was based on the Kruppe Protz. Cheers

The difference between the sdkfz 231 and 232 related to the installed radio equipment, so if you wanted one without the frame antennae that would be just fine as the vehicles were mechanically otherwise identical. I suspect strongly that Feld werkstatt units typically swapped the radio equipment from one to the other as needed by merely shifting the radio gear and bolting/welding on the frame antennae.