Kit stash - Moonlite Modelwerkes resin trucks

Yes I said I wasn't spending any more money this month, but this was actually ordered a couple of months back (so there)! I recieved my order for a couple of pre/early WW2 American trucks this week and they are a couple of beauties.

My new Moonlite 1936 Ford and 1941 Chevrolet trucks in 20mm.

This is my very first order from Moonlite Modelwerkes of USA and it really was worth the wait. When you consider that these models are more or less made to order and there is some hand assembly done to them (they aren't the usual war game quality one-piece lumps of resin) then you understand why there is a bit of a delay between order and delivery. Besides that they do seem to be up to their eyeballs in orders, and I can see why.

I opted for a test order of just two truck (and now I wish I had ordered more!), a 1936 Ford V8-51 2½-ton truck and a 1941 Chevrolet MS4403 4x2 1½-ton truck. This was initially for my Finnish WW2 Rapid Fire! army project, but I have changed my mind now.

These models seem to be true 20mm (1/76) and won't fit in with my 1/72 kits - even if I kit bash them like my V3000 conversion. But they are just so nice that I may have to start a brand new project just to utilise them (in the meantime they will go into storage).

As I said these are war game quality ready-made models, with solid filled-in windows, so I would feel obliged to only use them with other similar 'ready to rolls'. Despite this the level of detail on these trucks is excellent, I particularly like the way Moonlite makes a proper chassis and wheel base for it's trucks - unlike the one-piece filled in and supported bases like those of Valiant and other resin war game model makers.

Another excellent feature of Moonlite's models is the rather unusual subjects of some of it's vehicles. Along side the usual military types they include quite a few less well know commercial types - like my 1936 Ford - that were common in early WW2 armies (like The Netherlands, Finland, France, etc).

Well, as you can tell I am very happy with my purchase and will think long and hard about how I can utilise these excellent resin models.

Here I compare my Moonlite models with a couple of resin one-piece models
I purchased from Valliant. Aside from the solid one-piece casting you will
notice a lot more fine detailing on the Moonlite vehicles. The Valliant
trucks are also closer to 1/72 scale.

To order from Moonlite you must email David Reasoner in the States and ask for a catalogue, all sales are conducted by email and you pay by PayPal. Postage was reasonable and David himself was exceptionally helpful:  hmsdiomede@aol.com

As an example, my Chevvy was $12 and my Ford was $10, which once you take the hand assembly and short run nature of these nice little models into consideration is well worth it.