Retromodels 1/72 Mk A "Whippet"

This kit comes in a hard and somewhat brittle grey-coloured resin. The moulding is delicate - the hatch handles are hollow! The main parts are a hull, the top of the fighting compartment, and two tracks. 

The tracks are detailed on the back, but have been somewhat misaligned in the moulding, which only shows on the top, which requires some sanding. In addition to this there are a number of smaller parts, including hatches, spuds, stowage boxes, MG:s - due to the brittle nature of the resin, they can be tricky to detach from the small sprues they arrive on; I lost one hatch this way. 

The spuds are somewhat crude, and could do with some detailing - I did this, and made several copies in casting resin: a "Whippet" carrying spuds often carried a lot of them.

The fighting compartment is hollow and contains some interior detail, as does the two engine small rooms, leaving room for super-deatiling. Several hatches can also be left open. The fit of the roof of the fighting compartment is not that great, and requires some filling. 

The Hotchkiss MG:s are very fine, among the best I've seen. Some of the details are a bit vague, especially the rivets. The small engine grills on both sides of the engine compartement are also a little crude, and a purist will probably replace them. The stays between the mude cutes are moulded solid, but again I think this is a detail that will only offend purists. The size and shape of the kit seems OK to me, and it really looks the part of this rather complex and odd vehicle. 

The Master Maker (Vincent Weyer) has even remembered the asymetrical arrangement of the engine hatches. (The only thing I needed to add, was a pistol-port, next top the top hatch. The rest were there.) Included are also some gasoline cans, which look more like WW2 Jerry Cans, than the box-like "Flimsies" used by the Brits in WW1, and are best discarded.

The instructions - written in an easily understood French - are rudimentary but OK. There are no decals supplied. Reservations aside, this is the best "Whippet" to be found in this scale, and if it still can be bought, it can be bought from Exokit.