Zil-157 Soviet Army Truck

Manufacturer: Trumpeter (#01101)

Trumpeter is a Chinesemanufacturer with very inconsistent releases. Some of theiraircraft and 1/35th armor releases are simply cheap copies ofother manufacturer's kits. Whereas others are brand new molds,sometimes of high quality. Their small scale armor kits are ofthe latter category. I have read that this kit is NOT a directre-boxing of the ICM kit, but rather, an improved copy of it.Trumpeter has apparently cleaned up the molds considerably, andre-engineered certain aspects of the kit, so that this version issuperior to the ICM version.

The kit is fairly wellmolded. No flash, and very few sink marks. The detail is verysharp on some parts, but a little soft on some others. It's notas highly detailed as, say, the MGD Gaz-AA/AAA kits, but it isoverall pretty good nonetheless.

The clear parts are alittle thick, and Trumpeter has included replacement wind screensin very thin sheet plastic. The axles are included in metal. Thedecal choices are few, but well-printed.

I like this kit a lot, andwill probably buy others from this manufacturer. Wouldn't it begreat if Trumpeter would begin a line of modern Chinese mainbattle tanks?