PMMS

1/35 Scale - HMMWV Kit comparison

For years we have only had a choice of two HMMWV kits from Academy and Italeri, although both companies released numerous kits of different versions they were all from the base kit. There was the old ESCI kit also but this was so far out of whack forward of the dashboard no one will mourn its passing.

With the new Tamiya HMMWV release we now have a state of the art kit and can only hope they follow the lead of the others and release a number of versions. We can be pretty sure there will be an M966 TOW vehicle to come and possible a soft skin version due the inclusion of the soft top hood grills but I presume for there it will depend on kit sales.

The Academy kit has long been regarded as the better of the two as it has a number of details not included in the Italeri kit such as the side indentation and right hand front intake louvers and better suspension details, the biggest problem with both kits were the tries being nothing like the big chucky tires on the real thing.

For this comparison we will look at the hardtop Weapons Carrier/TOW Vehicle version of each kit to show the differences between the main components of each kit to see which comes out better, but I can tell you straight off that there isn’t really a contest as far as details and moulding is concerned, the Tamiya kit reflects the fact that it is a 2003 vintage kit while the others show their age.

I won’t spend time with a detailed rundown of the parts but instead rely on the images to tell the story, click on the links below to see each section on the kits components. Please note some of the pages are image intensive and may take a while to load.

Chassis/Suspension
Wheels
Body
Engine Hood
Doors
Roof

Overall the Tamiya kit is by far the best kit but I guess the price of the kits will play a role into which kit you chose as the Academy and to a lesser degree the Italeri will still build a reasonable model of the HMMWV.

Return to Tamiya HMMWV kit review

Page created 29 April 2003

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