So there I was at the Hobby Store

[Av8fan]

I was told by my friend at the store that the kit is an older one, but can still be made into a nice kit.

This one also has the unhappy Cyberman look on the bottom.

The tracks are Vinyl as expected, but, I wondered about replacement bits.

Perhaps a better main gun, or tracks?

Usually I can find this info.

Went to armorama and well, info overload! Not being up on my Armour terms(or many others for that matter) I couldn't be sure that I was looking at the right thing.

So now I have a British Challenger MK1, This kit, a Dragon Tiger and a Canadian Leopard Tank with a much coveted bottle of Nato Green. I had to wrest that from the hands of an Armour builder at the store...(j/k)

So any thoughts/Tips advice on this kit?

Thanks in advance.

[Guest snipersmudge]

personally I would build it straight from the box and use it as an experience improver yes it's not a bad kit but the newer tamiya offerings are more dimensionally accurate and build much much better. I don't think it's worth throwing metal barrels and tracks at this one. Just build and enjoy!

Pete

[daz greenwood]

As Pete says this was one of Tamiya's earlier effort's, so just build oob and enjoy it!

I build one many years ago that was given to me and I enjoyed it!

Of course my skill's are still as they were then, as I haven't improved much!

[Mike]

however... you CAN throw anything you want at it if you want to - it's your choice old chum

For tracks, look at Pacific Coast Models for Fruil Modellismo metal tracks (try ALT08, ALT21 (Panther II), ALT33), and for barrels, try RB Models, Jordi Rubio or Armourscale - I get most of my barrels from Luckymodel.com, but you might want to source them locally

[Av8fan]

Thank you all for the information.

I am not sure how I will proceed as of yet. I kknew I could get the information I needed here.

Many thanks!

I was just thinking that the "unhappy cyberman" would make an interesting avatar lol.

It's early and no caffeine(well, not enough)

[Mike]

Still might be too much

[pigsty]

That 2200 at the end of the number, by the way, isn't part of the serial number; it's the price in yen. All Japanese kits have it. Handy way to get an idea of relative pricing.

[Av8fan]

pigsty,

thanks for that info.

Interestingly I only paid a bit more then the current exchange.

I will have to take my time.

I keep reading about people having interesting times with those vinyl tracks.

[denstore]

I would say that it isn´t worth it to buy a lot of aftermarket stuff for it. Fruil tracks and a barrel alone will probably cost you more than a brand new Dragon kit, which is lightyears ahead of the old Tamiya Panther.

[Richard M]

I did this one, just added some mesh grilles at the rear and did home made zimmerit from humbrol filler as a bit of a test build and fun. Cheap as chips and it does fit together well.

Yes it should be primer red exposed from the chipped zimmerit rather than steel - live and learn!