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General Patton's Command Car: 
U.S. 3/4 Ton WC57 Command and Reconnaissance

Skybow

 

S u m m a r y
Stock Number, Contents and Price: Skybow 1.35 Military Series No. TP3506; General Patton's Command Car: U.S. 3/4 Ton WC57 Command and Reconnaissance; 213 parts (202 in olive drab styrene, 6 vinyl keepers; 4 clear styrene; 1 nylon string); Price $32.95
Scale: 1/35
Review Type: First Look
Advantages: Completely new model literally blows away Peerless Max kit; promise of new "Beep" kits to come should be of excellent quality
Disadvantages: May prove harder to find in some cases than other brands
Recommendation: To All US Vehicle Modelers

 

Reviewed by Cookie Sewell

 

F i r s t   L o o k


It's nice to see older "Dog Pound" material kits replaced by newer, state-of-the-art kits, especially when their prices aren't too far out of line with the norm. Such is the case here with Skybow's gorgeous new kit of "Patton's Command Car".

The kit actually provides more than enough parts, including what are obviously parts for the rest of the Dodge WC-5X series vehicles. The kit provides parts for either Patton's WC-57 model command car with winch or a WC-56 without winch from the 82nd Airborne Division or 83rd Infantry Division. Patton's 3rd Army command flags and pennants, as well as very delicate styrene panels for mounting them, are included as well.

This model has absolutely nothing in common with the 25-year old Peerless Max (Italeri, Testors, Bilek) kit except for its subject. It comes with an amazingly detailed Dodge T214 engine of 18 parts by itself. Even the windshield takes seven parts to complete. While petite, none of the parts used in any assembly are "fussy" parts like those used by Heller, e.g. why use two parts to an assembly when seven are just fine? The kit also includes one of Skybow's excellent M2HB .50 caliber machine guns and other small details.

The kit comes with a clearly illustrated nine-page direction book, but while it is well illustrated it needs a better speller! Case in point is when the directions call for winding the "spring" around the winch drum prior to installation.

All in all this is a great little model, and while the price is higher than would seem fair for the size of the model, its quality is up with the best, rivalling that of most of the latest Tamiya kits such as the GMC and Jeep. The boxtop would indicate that perhaps their next release will be the WC-51/52 Dodge 3/4 Weapons Carrier, which also will be very welcome by fans of American vehicles.

Cookie Sewell AMPS

Review Copyright © 2000 by Cookie Sewell
Page Created 19 June, 2000
Last updated 22 July, 2003

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