This is a Hot Wheels fuel truck. They are sold in several different color schemes.
This is the same truck after it has been painted olive drab. The US Army used trucks like this from about 1970 to about 1990, or even later. They work for late Vietnam War and the first Gulf War, as well as the Cold War. I have a number of them in my collection. The rear half is pretty good and could be removed and be placed on the back end of a WWII or modern Roco truck too.
This shows the fuel truck and the Hot Wheels 2 1/2 ton cargo truck and the Roco 2 1/2 ton cargo truck. These three trucks fit in well together and what's more the Hot Wheels retail for only a dollar and that's about one tenth the price of a Roco truck.
6 comments:
I've got a batch of the Hot Wheels trucks, as well as their half-tracks. Also some Zylmex and a boatload of post-war trucks (M998s I think?) from Maisto I believe they are. And of course, the Matchbox Sherman tanks.
I love the Paul Heiser Models Sherman tanks in resin, plastic and white metal, over 22 versions. But die cast models can be inexpensive ways to increase out units so we can both field units that don't get made by the major model companies, and have more variety.
Inexpensive is definitely the reason I started with diecasts. It's a pity, in some ways. My dad talked me into buying the diecast Hot Wheels rather than the Roco Minitanks that my local hobby shop then had, as it allowed my limited money to get more vehicles. Which was a good monetary decision at the time as a teen. Little did we know then that the Rocos would become collector's items and cost 5 times even what they were then, which was early 90s.
I've been replacing some of my vehicles with Roco and similar as funds allowed for the past couple of years. I've managed to retire all the Hot Wheels "Big Bertha" and "Command Tank" tanks for more in-period vehicles, most of which are either Matchbox Shermans or a non-branded set of Pz III or IV in a somewhat underscale plastic that I obtained from another wargamer online.
The Hot Wheels and other diecast trucks, however, are likely to stay in my inventory for a good long time. They're roughly the right size, though a number of them are out of period. And the cost of Roco trucks is abominable when you consider how many of them you need for wargaming purposes.
The one set of diecasts that I would most like to replace in my inventory, but it's much too expensive to buy proper 1/87 scale vehicles, is the half-tracks. All of my half-tracks, for all sides, are diecasts.
Yes, halftracks are a real problem. The Roco US ones did not come out until the 1970s so they are not old enough to appear in collections very often. They also go in and out of production so the used cost stays high. The Trident German 251 and Paul Heiser Models ones are great, but expensive as well. I was lucky enough to get a bunch of the Roco M3 when they first came out and the same with the Paul Heiser 251 when they first started. He upgraded them and I got a good deal on some of the old versions.
Too bad the die cast stuff is never to a consistant scale. I understand they want it sized to fit the package, but a fraction of an inch up or down should not make that much packing difference but makes a big difference for us.
One reason I got into resin casting was to make my own vehicles cheaper than I could buy them. It is not too hard and allows me vehicles I would never had. I have scratchbuilt my own vehicles but it is hard to scratchbuilt a battalion, resin casting is much easier.
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