Hitler's Ride - Ancient G4 out of box review

[Dave Van]

That TILT 312T kit looks interesting.....never seen it. I'd be happy to pay the 640 Yen marked on the box at then current exchange!!!!

[Mike999]

I-Corps Models re-popped the TILT/MARUI kit in resin.  If you ever see one for sale, RUN!  It's a horrible kit.  I bought the one in the pic from Herb Deeks.  Even he gave up on saving it.  In this pic you can't see all the pinholes, voids, short-pours and other delights.  I-Corps is long gone, and good riddance.

 

[Faust]

Wow. that' is nasty, and really, theft.

That kit is everyting that's wrong with recasting. Essentially, it's forgery, and they even ripped off Marui's box art!  

That's a pretty sad effort. Glad to have the original!

[Mike999]

Wow. that' is nasty, and really, theft.

That kit is everyting that's wrong with recasting. Essentially, it's forgery, and they even ripped off Marui's box art!  

That's a pretty sad effort. Glad to have the original!

Once in a Taipei hobby shop, I saw a white box marked with black handwriting: "MB G4 and Fuehrer figure." Sealed and the shop owner wouldn't let me open it. Shoulda known better, but this was years ago. Long before Plus Models did their resin G4s and ICM did the plastic kits. it was cheap, so I bought it. 

It looked a little better than that I-Corps thing. But it was a straight copy of the ADV/Azimut kit.  Right down to the instruction sheet, which was a Xeroxed copy of the Azimut sheet!  The kicker - all the Azimut photo-etched parts had been duplicated in very thin resin.  They fall apart if you even look hard at them.  Even the Hitler figure was ripped off from another company. Sovereign, I think.  Live and learn...

One of the best reference books for these cars is "Mercedes-Benz Parade and Staff Cars of the Third Reich" by Blaine Taylor.

 

[Danno]

Most likely about half of the libs that get all lathered up about Hitler references drive VWs and don't think anything of it.  

[Faust]

Oh, Danno, you're likely so right! 

There's something just fantastically ironic about the thought of it.

[CometMan]

That is a cool looking car, other than the box art is no different on the PC scale than models of any other Nazi era subjects (Bismarck, Hindenburg, etc.)!

[Faust]

That is a cool looking car, other than the box art is no different on the PC scale than models of any other Nazi era subjects (Bismarck, Hindenburg, etc.)!

That's very true, on both fronts!

I just picked up the ICM G4 the other week, and while it's a much nicer, and more accurate, kit by far, it doesn't have the same visceral appeal, at least box art-wise, as the Marui. It's all politically correct, not HISTORICALLY CORRECT (why be true to history on a model kit, right?) and it just comes with some random staff officers. I was hoping to not have to build the marui, since it's such an interesting bit of history, but what's the point of a G4 without Hitler in it? 

Seems kinda weak...

 

[Mike999]

A quick search shows that Hitler figures seem to be well-represented in all common modeling scales. So you can probably find an aftermarket 1/24 Fuehrer.

Banning the swastika had nothing to do with the dreaded "PC" or those fearsome "libs."  It has been generally done by governments with pretty good reasons.  Would anyone like to go to Germany and advocate FOR the public display of Nazi symbols?  Even in countries where the swastika is strictly banned, exceptions are usually made for historical displays etc. 

In Hungary, you can not only get in trouble for displaying a swastika, but a hammer-and-sickle or even a five-pointed, Soviet-style red star.

Other than the USA, where swastikas are protected by the First Amendment, there's another country with no restrictions on displaying Nazi symbols - Israel.  Go figure. 

I worked in Saudi Arabia for 2 years, which is certainly not a "politically correct, lib" type of country.  In a Jeddah toy store, I found a whole shelf of old 1/72 scale AIRFIX aircraft kits, gathering dust.  All the German aircraft kits had the box-art Balkenkreuz crudely blotted out by hand, with a black marker.  In other toy stores they were not marked out.  I asked a Saudi friend about that. He was just guessing, but suggested that the Balkenkreuz could be considered a Christian cross. And the shop owner probably didn't want it displayed in his shop because the Religious Police might harass him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_legality_of_Nazi_flags
 

[gray07]

wasn't there a vw bug model done up as his car too

[Faust]

Oh, interesting. I didn't even know there was such a thing. 

He doesn't strike me as the "VW" kind  of guy in a lot of ways, despite it being his idea to have a car that looked like a beetle.

Edited May 10, 2017 by Faust

[Mike999]

RIO Models did a 1/43 VW Beetle with figures of Hitler and his dog.  They were available in several different configurations - top up, top down, etc.  I couldn't find one in a larger scale.

 

 

[89AKurt]

I thought this was going to be about the ICM kits, I have acquired several.  I managed to build one of the 1:35 versions, over 300 parts!  I also have two of the 1:24 versions which are simpler believe it or not.

[Faust]

I  bought the ICM 1/35, and yeah... that looks a bit more complicated than I would have thought. It's a typically over-wrought armour kit masquerading as a car. Of course, that's kinda what the G4 is anyway...

I wouldn't mind getting my hands on the 1/24, just to compare it to some of my other stuff, like my Civic and Today. That would be such a scream.