Subaru Sambar: Complete (#17 for 2018)

With the Suburban out of the way, I decided to get the Subaru done as well. This was pretty quick as I didn't bother painting the body, which is molded in Subaru Rallye Blue; the panels show the flows of the molten styrene as it filled the mold but I decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Also the detail is very fine, and thin  coats of paint add up; a lot of very small holes and so on would have been obscured.



The interior is very well detailed, right down to little decals for the headlamp and washer control stalks on the steering column (which I didn't bother installing).



The cab went together well, in spite of consisting of multiple pieces; heaven help you if you get a kit with a warped main cab shell.



The fussiest bit is the little black panel below the tailgate, which hides the motor; it appears this is meant to swing down for engine access, but I mounted the hinges upside down and decided just to glue it all in. A shame as the engine is pretty cool looking.



Here it is with the box in place. There are a number of finicky little bits that need to be just right, or the box won't go on properly.



I have built better models; the quality of this kit is such that in retrospect it would have benefited from a bit more care. The photography, for instance, hides a couple of fingerprints arising from my fat thumb having got some glue on it.



The difference with the Suburban is huge, and the size differential would be worse if both were the same scale. The Subaru is 1/24; the Suburban, at 1/25, would be 4.2% bigger if it were 1/24. A small but in some cases noticeable difference.



40 versus 421 cubic inches. The tidy little 658 cc 4-cyl, lying on its side behind the rear wheels, is a miracle of packaging compared with the Suburban where a quarter of the road space occupied by the vehicle is taken up by mechanical bits. .



So that's that. No excuse now not to get back to the ambulance ...