just picked up one of those Revell 32nd scale military wrecker trucks on ebay. Has anybody ever built one.? Figured the Hobby fan (?) resin kit at $150 and extremely difficult to build from reports was something to avoid. For $38 figured I can't lose too bad. Animal, any ideas about maybe kitbashing a bit. Are the crane/flatbed areas adaptable to 35th scale? Does the kit look pretty good OOB?

If this is the truck with the fire department wrecker on the cover, I have bad news for you.
It's not too difficult to build, but it's a lousy attempt to being the M35 series truck it should be.
It's quite out of scale. It IS a collector's item, though, so if it's in good condition you may prefer to put it away for a few years and sell it for more than the 38 dollars you paid for it.

If you want to build an M35 wrecker that looks GOOD, you may consider the AFV M35 kit (which is an excellent 1/35 copy of the M35), and add a resin wrecker kit on the back.

The Hobby Fan resin wrecker kit IS expensive but not incredibly difficult to assemble if you're a patient modeler, using good tools (a sharp knife, fine sand paper and fresh CA glue).

If you want an alternative, I suggest you try the Real Model kit no RM35038. Though I never compared it to the Hobby Fan parts, I suspect they are suspiciously identical. And Real Model should be a lot less expensive. I'm sure you can mail order it from the internet.

But if you haven't started building the Revel kit yet, my advice would be to leave it alone and hope to find someone who pays a good price for it on ebay. Time is on your side.

Sorry Steve I am not familia with this kit.. I have a couple of photos of the wreckers in my Vietnam Gallery here and I am sure that Rob will have some info about it. I see no reason why you could not do some scratch building of and you might be able to kit bash some parts. Anything is possible when you put your mind to it. You have the talent to turn it into a top knotch example.

I'ld like to check out the Real Model kit of a wrecker, the number General failure posted was for some Mercedes Benz truck item. Anybody have a different number for the conversion kit?

Sorry for that. The number you need is RM35083. I swear I wasn't drunk when I posted that. Must be getting dyslectic with getting older...

It's sold for 85 USD on http://www.panzershop.iol.cz/realaj.htm


Please don't let my ranting keep you from building this wrecker if you feel like it ! But if you've made some Tamiya, Italeri and AFV models you'll be quick to spot the difference in quality. Then again, the model you have there may be older than you are. The original kit molds are older than the average member of this Armorama community, for sure !
That deserves some respect in its own right ... You have a vintage kit there, man.

The 5 ton wrecker is not based on the M35 series truck. The M35 is 2½ ton and while it looks a lot like the old style 5 tons, the 5 tons trucks are much larger.

I think, but am not sure, that the vehicle is supposed to represent either the M816 or M819 5 ton wrecker. The M816 has an open gondola and the M819 has a closed gondola. I built that kit back in the early 80s so you'll have to jog my memory as to whether the gondola is opened or closed.

HI All
Actually the kit in question is the old Renwall kit done by Revell it is based on the Older M-52 series of 5 ton Trucks(These were the series replaced by the M-800 series of 5 Tons) , this kit can me made into a good model with proper references and some work. Not a bad starting point.
HTH
Jeff Larkin

(eating my foot...) Of course it's a five ton, Rob. Could this be an M62?

Never the less, I still think this old Renwal kit in white plastic is a lousy kit compared to modern standards. I built two, and neither looked very convincing.

There's no cheap alternative though. For 160$ there's always the full Real Model M62 in resin, but I have to agree that's over my budget as well... looks nice, though.

I haven't gotten the kit yet, just won it last night, but that's kind of what I thought when I was bidding on it, that it was the revell redo of the renwall kit. Well, we'll see when it gets here, and if I like it I'll build it otherwise I may seek out the conversion route

Here is a five ton wrecker in Nam.

Does anyone know where there are any ore of these/ i used to operate one in the 70's and I would like to build one with my son.

I bought and built one in the early 90's when it was reissued.It had a picture of the truck on the boxtop,and had it lifting a box.I was all set to do a dio of it and my M-60A2,from Reforger 76,but the scale mismatch quashed that idea

I know that the city of Marlborough MA has aquired at least one of them. I can try to get some pics of it sometime soon and post to my gallery. I see one on my way home every night tucked in behind one of the aux. fire stations. It looks like it's still 'original' , but not sure. It has been repainted in black (?) and white, and it is crammed in with a few other vehicles so photographing it could be kind of difficult. Maybe if I show my city taxpayer 'badge', they'd pull it out for me. (Assuming that it would start as I don't think that it has moved all winter long.)

I don't know what the designation is (was), and I can't tell if it's the same pic that Animal has posted, but it has the M123 looking front end. Quite the honker of a truck, and if they're not going to use it, I'd certainly love to have it.

(Sabot, (or anyone) if interested, it is approx 1 mile east from STS on Rt. 20. Perhaps your uniform would have more 'pull' than my long hair, unshaven winter face and my mini wallet sized copy of DD Form 214.)