Background

Fuel Trucks are the perfect accompaniment for aircraft models as they are usually pretty large vehicles. Sadly you don't find many of them in injected plastic, even for Luftwaffe dioramas. One of the most popular trucks, the Opel Blitz, still hasn't been produced by a mainstream manufacturer in 1/48 scale, not to mention the refueling version. So if you want one, you have to search for a alternative resin kit such as this one made by Sol Model.

The kit

The kit is packed in a side opening cardboard box with a picture of a finished model on it (picture 1). The resin pieces are all protected in various plastic bags to prevent damage. An instruction sheet is also provided as well as a photo etched fret and various wires. I found no damaged parts in my sample.

The biggest parts of the kit are the truck's cabin, the cistern (in three pieces) and the chassis (picture 2). The casting is pretty good and I noticed only a small number of air bubbles. Alone the cleaning will require some work as there is a lot of flash on the parts and sometimes big pouring stubs are present (chassis). The level of detail is overall excellent (picture 3) and the assembly doesn't appears to be too complicated.

The smaller parts are located in a seperate bag with three compartments (picture 4).
- In the first one, you will find the remaining parts to build the cabin (floor, seats, doors etc...) but also additional parts for the chassis (laminated springs for example) and the doors for the cistern (picture 5).
- In the second compartment are placed all the truck's wheels (picture 6). You have six in total (with differents designs) and one spare wheel. I like the rendering of the tyre's treads as it imitates quite well the caracteristic aspect of truck wheels.
- For the tiny detail parts there is a third compartment wich includes a steering wheel, lights (including a notek light), various levers, fuel pumps, etc... (picture 7)

An additional PE fret is provided in the kit (picture 8). It is composed of levers, pedals, windscreen wipers, number plate, etc... Together with two metal wires, one small vinyl pipe and transparent plastic (you must cut the windows out of it), the photo etched parts will improve the overall detail level of the kit.

The instructions (picture 9) are quite basic as there are no historical text, no parts layout and no painting guide! Only an exploded view is present on the A4 sized photocopy. It's not much, but fortunately the drawing is well done and very clear. Some more infos would have been welcome though...

A nice surprise is that Sol Model included two Luftwaffe figures in the kit (picture 10). They look good and will allow you to display the truck in a fully operational situation as one mechanic is depicted while transmitting the fuel pipe to his colleague located on the wing of an aircraft.

It is to note that Sol Model also produced another Opel Blitz truck (picture 11), this time in the cargo body version (ref. MM067). Both kits are very similar and share common parts but are not identical. There are also two "bonus" figures in the kit, that are different than the ones of the Fuel Truck boxing. Five crates are also provided.

Conclusion

If you don't want to wait for an hypothetical 1/48 scale Opel Blitz truck, then the Sol Model kit is made for you. It will not represent a big challenge for an experienced modeller but I wouldn't recommend it to someone not used to resin as there is some skill required to build such kits. The fact that you can have the Blitz in it's Fuel and Cargo Body version is also a nice touch. I know there are other 1/48 scale Opel trucks kits on the market, but Sol Model's ones are amongst the cheapest and represent good value for money.

Please remember, when contacting retailers or manufacturers, to mention that you saw their products highlighted here on AeroScale.