Most of my M47 collection is quite old. Some of them I purchased new as a child in the 1960s, and most of the rest I got used. This one is another of the vehicle is not painted but decals were applied anyway school of model building. Note also the weathering on the road wheels.
More weathering, I find it strange that someone sophisticated enough to weather a vehicle would not paint it first.
This one has been detailed with extra gear. Very nice choices, I think. But they have camouflaged an otherwise unpainted vehicle.
But the strange part is the 1/32nd scale serial number decal on the storage boxes! That way you can do inventory from a helicopter.
This is a common strange thing. The vehicle has been painted gold.
But they very carefully avoided painting the radiator, or front bumper, or headlights. Gold team / Blue team? Goldfinger?
From what looks like brush strokes on the hood, I think this was hand painted. I have three identical versions of this in my collection. Someone told me once that gold spray paint was an excellent and inexpensive primer paint. But this does not look spray painted. It certainly is a pain to remove.
Years ago I got a couple dozen used vehicles and stripped the paint off of them. Every one of them had a gold layer. Yes, layer, some of them had 13 different colors of paint on them. Gray, green, gold, olive drab, green again and so on.
Gold paint with another Roco painted in Testors Olive Drab spray paint with seats and tires detailed.
This vehicle has carpet threads stuck to the bottom of the track, the track had started to melt due to being in contact with some spongy drawer lining material. I was able to scrape off the melty part. It's another unpainted but weathered vehicle. But look at the holes in the hull where the wheels go.
It's chocolate colored soft clay. Can you imagine the labor and expense involved on filling each of your Roco vehicles with clay?
It's ALIVE! It pried up easily and the clay came out okay. The theory behind this is that the model will weigh more and so it will sit better on the wargame table. Being heavy it's more like playing with lead tank models and gives your plastic Roco MInitanks more gravitas.
A quick scrape with a dental tool and it was out and clay was in the trash. I wiped down the inner lower hull with alcohol to clean out the last bits of clay. Soon these three vehicles will rejoin the fleet in better condition.
I hope you have enjoyed this overview of some of the strange Roco vehicles that have made it into my collection over the years.
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Bunker Talk blog
Mike Bunkermeister Creek