Kit # 2843

1/25 or 1/24 Scale

Availability: Now Available Or Soon To Be

                         Retail Price: About $70

In the rescue business these days there are several scenarios when you might need something bigger than what the standard fire truck carries to move large items such as building collapses, large trucks in a pile up and situations in between. This is where the L.A. Fire Departments two Peterbilt 40 ton boom trucks can come handy. The emergency vehicle builders were excited when this kit was first mentioned and the original artist rendering showed the big Peterbilt in all it’s glory. With the release of the kit, the excitement is not as enthusiastic. Looking at the box art it shows not a Peterbilt with a Century body as the LA trucks are but a Western Star with an articulating boom mounted on a short body instead of a straight boom on a long body. The kit is not a new kit but reboxes of the Western Star Constellation kit with the sleeper from the US wrecker kit and the wrecker body used on the US  wrecker, two Scania wreckers and a Mercedes wrecker as well as the Revell Scania wrecker.

Even the description on the box and instructions of the truck goes into no details of the fire department use, only the standard spill of how with as many big trucks are on the road these days and when they break down they need to be towed. The cut and paste of that from other kits just mirrors what is in the box though. 

Moving into the box, the sprues are molded in black, grey and red as well as two clear and two chrome. Several are not in a plastic bag while the others one bag with the chrome being packaged separately. The ten tires are vinyl and are nicely detailed. The instructions are in a twelve page book and look to be easy to follow. The decals are nice, while incorrect for an accurate LA rendition, and include the dash board as there are no raised details on the kit part.

 

The moldings of the parts are free from flash and ejection marks look to be contained on the non viewable sides of the parts once constructed. The chassis and engine look to well detailed once they assembled and the cab allows it to be tilted for display. The instructions show two options for the boom, and the cable is a molded part. The boom once built is not moveable and is built in a raised position. The kit features no Code 3 Excalibur light bar as the actual truck appears to have but instead have two rotators as used on the previous wrecker kits.

 

The news of a new emergency vehicle kit is always exciting for those of us that build them, it’s not something we get very often as other subject areas do. The results of this one are a bit depressing as it is not a new release but two old kits combined or either an accurate rendering of the truck advertised. With that mentioned though, it does look to build up a nice model of a tow truck and I look forward to seeing the results of the combination of the kits. That is what we emergency vehicle builders are good at any way, kit bashing things.

Additional Parts Photos Coming Soon

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