A while back i bought two of these Airfix German Reconnaissance sets from Hannants, mainly because they were on sale and a bargain too good to be missed. Even though they were listed as 1/76 scale i thought i could fit them in somehow. On opening up and building these little models i realised that the Kubelwagen included was just so tiny and a really bad looking model that i could not use it after it. The SdKfz.222 is a very average kit but once he is painted up he is passable. Luckily i have a couple of Dragon small armoured cars i will be building soon which will probably replace this guy.

So i still needed Kubelwagens for my officers and forward observers. I soon found some Esci Kubelwagens on sale at Lucky Model in Hong Kong and picked up three boxes of them for bugger all, and you get two vehicles per box which is a bonus. Super easy to build and so much better than the Airfix version. They are only a few parts, which is not a surprise being a little car really, and can be modelled with their canvas roof fully up or totally retracted. I wanted to see my occupants so kept the roofs down in both my builds. You get a few decals too which is nice, but i ended up using my Airfix ones instead. I gave them a two colour stripey camo scheme over the usual dunkelb base coat.

One Kubelwagen is transporting a couple of very important generals while the other has a forward observer unit. The dude in the front has his radio headphones on (Bose wireless i think) and the guy in the back is at the ready with his MP40 and his feet on the seats. Figures are all from the great AB Figures and fit beautifully. Although i did have to glue the front seats back a bit in one so the long legs of the front occupants would fit. You could cut their feet off i guess but how will they drive without any feet….