PMMS
Historica Production
LandRover
AR110 AMI

Historica Production No. Art.1029

1/35th Scale

First Look Review by Terry Ashley

Historica Production

Historica Productions specialise in producing kits of vehicles that served with the Italian armed services and following their kit of the short wheelbase AR90 (Land Rover Defender 90) comes this full resin kit of the AR110 (Land Rover Defender 110).

The kit consists of 100 parts in light cream resin with an etched fret, two ‘Grief’ lenses for the lights, a good sized clear sheet for cutting the windows and a generous decal sheet plus a six page instruction sheet.

Historica Production Historica Production

The quality of the resin casting is very good without any warping or blemishes on the parts except for a couple of small air holes on some smaller parts that can easily be dealt with. There is the usual casting blocks to be removed and some thin resin film (flash) to be cleaned from some parts due to the fine casting and also from inside the window frames but again quite easily done.

The casting of the single large body and separate hard top roof is noteworthy as they don’t use the conventional large casting blocks but instead several small pour points on the underside of the body and roof with multipart moulds, this results in warp free castings with very crisp details on all sides and nice undercuts and angles.
There is some excess resin ‘flash’ along the lower edges of the body where the moulds meet but this looks worse in the images than it actually is and was cleaned up easily with a light pass of an X-Acto #11 and light sanding for a perfect finish.

The body casting includes the lower chassis and suspension springs, exhaust, lower parts of the engine and fuel tank included with separate axles and drive shaft and nicely detailed wheels, there were a couple of air holes on the underside but you won’t see these anyway. You will have to add a few parts such as sway bars and steering arms yourself but the instructions have photos showing where these go.

The detail on the upper body is crisp with inside details on the floor and forward foot plates and in the rear compartment as well as nicely rendered head light clusters and side panel details with separate front and rear doors again with clear sheet for the windows. The doors have the later type door handles not the typical ‘cut-out’ Land Rover handles and the separate front radiator grills have two holes for the additional lights fitted to Italian vehicles as well as a separate engine bay hood which is not designed to be shown open but is separate just for better detail definition and fits well to the body along with a separate front bumper bar.

The separate doors have details on both sides and the separate windscreen frame also comes with separate wiper blades for good detail definition and the two side rear view mirrors are also separate parts.

On the inside is a choice of four dash boards, three LHD and one RHD to basically cater for any variation as well as separate steering wheel and foot pedals but you will have to make the gear levers and wheel indicator levers from thin rod. The two bucket seats are nicely detailed and there is the central consol storage box and in the rear are separate bench seats.

Four Dashboards included in kit, three LHD and one RHD
Historica Production

There is a good selection of radio equipment for the rear with various radios, receivers and speakers but again you have to scratchbuild some of the mountings for these depending on the layout and version with the instructions having photos of the assembled parts and real vehicles to help with the placement of the radio parts.

The hardtop roof is again warp free and is cast quite thin with just the film inside the window frames to be removed before adding clear ‘glass’ from the sheet provided, you will have to carefully mark out the correct size before cutting but this shouldn’t be a problem and the fit of the roof to the body was very good helped by the warp free castings.

There are additional resin flashing warning lights to add to the roof as required suiting the vehicle being modelled as well as exterior antenna mounts at the rear and roof sides.

There are a number of smaller items you will have to add yourself such as some tool mounts, inside door grab handles and spare wheel mounting as well as the previously mentioned parts but these are well within the capabilities of anyone who would tackle a full resin kit in the first place.

The etched parts give you the mud flaps and other smaller details although there were a few parts not shown in the instructions so I’m not sure where they go but shouldn’t be hard to work out with some good references.

The decals sheet is well printed with overall carrier film meaning you have to cut out each item before use but is quite thin and provides markings for 3 vehicles;

Historica Production

The 6 page instruction sheet has colour 3 view drawings of the three marking options as well as photos of the model under construction showing the location of the parts called out by number for easy identification and to supplement the construction photos are small photos of the actual vehicle detail for on the spot reference as well as other overall shots to help with painting.
As with any instructions of this type careful study before glueing as well as test fitting the parts will ensure there aren’t problems.

Conclusion:
Overall a cleanly cast and well detail kit of the AR110 AMI, with the distinctive features of the Italian version of the Land Rover 110 with the addition of the etched parts and decal sheet finishing off the kit nicely.

The fit of the parts was good on those that were test fitted and with minimal cleanup the kit shouldn’t pose many problems during construction but remember this is a resin kit and the normal precautions apply when working with resin.

While the kit represents the Italian version it could be converted to a British, Australian or any other user of the 110 without too many problems and provides all the basics for the 110.

Highly recommended.

The resin parts:

Click on thumbnails for larger view
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References:

Thanks to Fabio and Renzo of Historica Production for the review kit which is available along with all other Historica Production kits from steelmodels.com in Italy.


Page created 18 November 2004

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