Italeri upgrades their Leopard 2A6 with new moulds.

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Thanks!

Finnish? Really??? Their turrets look pretty different to the dutch orginals. They have been "finlandisized"....

But a portuguese Leopard is also great. I'll have a closer look at the kit when it hits the shelfs of my LHS ....

Torsten

This is a 1980s vintage kit which Italeri are attempting to keep up-to-date by offering different markings - much like they did with their 2A4 a while ago.
There are now much better kits on the market, notably from Tamiya, with a new one about to be released by Border Models. Even Revell Germany's retooled 2A6 is better than this old kit, not one of Italeri's best. The best thing about this release are the new decals. Otherwise it appears unchanged, apart from tracks in a different material.

Thanks Michael!
I will consider getting slightly excited after reading the first reviews ...
/ Robin

The still have those horrible side-skirts/toolbox door combinations. Thats a "no" for me.

If it is cheap enough it might be a good beginner kit but otherwise there are simply better kits on the market today for this to be of much interest to most of us.

Even when brand new the Italeri Leopard 2 was a disappointment and really lackluster model. I still have the ancient IPMS Update with the initial review. On the Mark made one of the first Photo etch sets for it or the even simpler Esci kit. You never realized how much was missing until you saw the update sets.

The upgraded molds tag mean there are some tweaks to the parts that you'd have to examine both releases of the kit to discover. It may be a new piece or a revised bit that are really hard to notice in a sprue scan. It could even be something as simple as a piece notorious for sink holes now has an insert in the mold to prevent them.

And much, much softer tracks that can glued with super glue and accept paint.

Not worth the price tag you'll find in a lot of places.

Revell Germany will re-release their 2A6/2A6NL this year. Have built it when it first came out and it's a good kit. Was my 2nd ever built tank. I believe it's a better choice than Italeri. As far as I know it will cost something around 30 Euros here in Germany. And maybe Revell includes some other than german and dutch decals, as they did with their 2A4 ....


Happy modelling!
Torsten

It looks like Italeri have added the late-pattern smoke grenade launchers to this issue.

I built this one a while back. It's a mixed bag with some nice details, but the problem is Italeri have just kept upgrading their original Leopard 2 molds, so it has the early pattern non-slip patches for example.

I agree that if you want a budget Leopard 2A6, Revell's kit is a much better bet, especially now they're issuing their kits in sensible grey plastic and not that awful green plastic they used to use.