MSRP: $50.00 Website: www.roden.eu Available now from Squadron, Great Models, LuckyModel, numerous others, at varying prices. First Look I've always associated Roden with aircraft kits, even though they have a small line of 1/72 armor. I've always liked their kits, because of their quality, their WW1 focus, and their ability to "shock" the modeling world with something unexpected -- for example, the Felixstowe and the Staaken. As a manufacturer, they've been very responsive -- when their 1/48 SE5a came out with the incorrect number of lower wing ribs, they re-tooled and sent replacements for free. My 1/32 SE5a wing came with some molding flaws and they sent free replacements. Of course, not all is wonderful -- all this detail comes from very, very tiny little plastic parts that have a love affair with the carpet, their decals are notorious for shattering, and sometimes electronic communication can be an adventure. Still, a great company filling modelers needs with quality kits. So it was no surprise to me that, for their first 1/35 scale release, they didn't just do the same old Shermans and Germans as everyone else. However, I was (pleasantly) surprised, as were many, with what they did do! The Rolls Royce Armoured Car The RNAS needed a way to seize and protect airfields and the Rolls Royce Armoured Car (RRAC) was born, based on the 1914 Silver Ghost chassis. After one initial mod, this became what is known as the 1914 Pattern RRAC. Not very useful in the stale-mated mud of the Western Front, it was elsewhere -- Egypt, the Middle East, India, Africa. When the RNAS was absorbed into the RAF, the RAF kept them, formed into Armoured Car Companies. Likewise the British Army used them. Postwar, came the 1920 Pattern -- very similar to the 1914 Pattern. The major differences were the turret height and the changeover from wire wheels. These were used in Ireland and again in Egypt, the Middle East, India, Africa, etc. Shortly thereafter came the 1924 Pattern, a major redesign of the body, among other things. A variety of turrets sprung up and a lot of mix/match appears to have gone on. After a while, some original Rolls chassis wore out so bodies were transferred onto a Fordson chassis. I'm not sure of the exact numbers but it seems there were about a hundred on charge at the peak. The last ones were withdrawn about 1944, after 30 years service. It is quite possible to find a WW1 1914 Pattern body built for the RNAS, used by the Army and then the RAF, on a different chassis when it was retired in 1944. Quite a record and probably why they engender such loyalty and enthusiasm amongst a small band of modelers and history buffs. The Quest for the Holy Grail This is the short version -- y'all have seen my previous RRAC builds, they are posted on our website -- the JMGT kit -- the Jordi Rubio kit -- and of course my comments at meetings about the Resicast kit, which is sorta on my workbench now.

And then, just when our small band of RRAC loyalists were all happy and warm with the Resicast kit, what pops up but the Roden announcement!! Three RRAC releases, in less than a year!! How could we be so fortunate and where in all this would the Roden kit fit -- other than the obvious very, very low end of the price range? The Kit A typical Roden kit box with a sturdy bottom and great cover art. Note the apparent licensing issues with Rolls Royce -- it is not labeled as such on the boxtop (nor is the Resicast kit) - instead we have the nondescript "British Armoured car". Just in case we don't know it's British, there is a bulldog. And, by the way, the "WWII" is a misnomer as it can be placed in the 'tween wars period also. The somewhat artificial scene is unknown in place or time, although one almost has to think of England or more likely Ireland in the 20's since the RRAC appears to be blocking a road. In the background is what appears to be the original 1907 Silver Ghost and two gentlemen, perhaps out on a tour. There is no sign of the RRAC crew, thus making the roadblock somewhat ineffective -- perhaps the bulldog has frightened them off. Inside the box we have two bags. In one bag are the instructions, the decals, and a tiny acetate sheet for the lenses (not sure how well these will work) -- be very careful to check for the latter as it is easy to get lost. The instructions are typical exploded view -- there is a nice history of the RRAC line, a page of warnings and Model Master paints, 2 pages of sprue layout, one page of color/decal markings, and 36 assembly steps (actually 35, there is no #9) on 7 pages. Some of these 36 steps are no more than gluing 2-3 parts together, so it is not as daunting as it seems. The two markings options are both museum pieces; one is SV-4996 at Bovington and the other HMAC AJAX of the 1ACC, preserved at Hominstone. There are extensive color instructions throughout the construction steps -- far more than in all three resin kits combined.

The other bag contains 8 plastic sprues and two vinyl sprues for tires. The plastic is a green color. The detail is generally soft and sometimes heavy and there are a lot of poorly placed injector pins/holes, some sink marks, and what appear to be stress marks, perhaps from removing the sprue from the mold. Many of the parts have a rough finish as if to portray metal, but this is not consistent. Having said that, nothing appears to be bent, warped, broken, or otherwise damaged. Considering the thin plastic and the tiny, fine detail on some of their aircraft, I'm a disappointed with these parts. There are no greyed-out (not used) parts on the sprue diagrams so we have no hints of future variants -- bummer. I'll talk a bit about each sprue -- the pix show front and back side of each -- note the ejection and sink marks. Sprue A holds the majority of body and turret parts. The RRAC had prominent rivets, but not this prominent and a study of SV-4996 shows that the kit and vehicle rivet patterns don't always match up -- see the turret front for example. Other parts are heavy -- the two rear doors, the battle shutters, etc. The rear hatch on the turret is molded in, necessitating some work if you wish to have it open -- but note the hatch is detailed on the inside of the turret even though it would be hard to see. The battle shutters have louvers only on the outside -- this in contrast to the box art that correctly shows them inside and outside. The kit instructions only show them assembled in the closed position so if you wish to have them open, as would be common except in actual combat, you have some work to do as there are other parts not included. It is funny the inside louvers are missing as they went to some effort to put some rivets on the inside of the doors. There are not a lot of interior pictures of RRAC and I've not seen inside the museum ones, so let's just say I'm suspicious of the full drivers seat on the 1920. The dashboard is blank on both sides - not gage one anywhere in sight. The Vickers MG isn't very good, being very soft at the muzzle end; and there is no ammo.

Sprue B has the front fenders, the cargo body, and other pieces. I'm having some difficulty with the rather heavy portrayal of a board structure. Again, I've not seen the museum pieces, but no pictures I have suggest the cargo body was wood or if it was that it was so obvious. See for example the tailgate (3B) versus any pix of the back of SV-4996 or ARR 1.

Sprue C is the chassis and running gear. The support rod structures are molded on, have several runners, and will take much care to clean up. The chassis has two separate rails and all the crossmembers. I'll talk more about this, but the engine has the mounts molded to it, so in Step 16 when assembling the chassis, you must insert the engine. This does not bode well for painting the chassis without harming the engine. On the other hand, all the linkage for the braking system is present, even on the rear wheels, so running a few pieces of rod between them will give you fantastic detail. Whoops! Closer inspection shows that the brake arms are not molded onto the shaft on part 11C as shown in the instructions -- if you are doing nothing underneath you won't care, but if you are you'll need to make some -- we'll address this in the build. Note the very heavy gear and handbrake levers assemblies. On the other hand, the ignition lever (spark) on the steering wheel hub is barely visible.

Sprue D (x2) has tool boxes, braces, and details. The Enfield rifles, if used, are best replaced. Some of the parts here show the fine detail Roden is capable of. The shovel is crude and the only piece of gear included.

Sprue E is the 40/50hp engine and a fine one it is. The problem is, the kit is not designed for an open engine compartment -- to have one, you have to hack it in yourself and then you'll find the hood and sides are very thick. The only thing missing from the engine is the wiring and some fuel lines. The painting instructions are basically correct but don't distinguish adequately the copper pipe and brass fittings. Again, the engine must be glued between the frame rails in step 16, an unfortunate kit design if you are thinking of opening up the engine compartment. And if you are thinking about adding details, those are dual plugs on each cylinder -- the 40/50hp had both battery/distributor and magneto ignition.

Sprues F (x2) and G (x2) comprise 8 wheels and tires, with the tires being vinyl. Note the 4 runner points on each tire, 3 right in the tread. The tires are 2 singles for the front wheels, 2 duals for the rear wheels, and two singles as spares. An extra set of spares would have been nice as many carried them. Aftermarket guys -- lets get some resin replacements out there! Then (are you listening?) we need some wire wheels -- backdating this to a 1914 pattern is not difficult.

Initial Thoughts Overall, it appears to be a good kit. The size and shape appear to be correct -- when done you will have a 1920 pattern RRAC. But the detail, when present, is heavy as are the basic parts. The body and turret pieces are at least 3x as thick as the Resicast kit -- admittedly that's an unfair comparison, but I've seen, and was hoping for, a lot thinner styrene from Roden. If you want to take this kit up a notch -- open the engine compartment, show the turret and driving compartment, you'll have to do some work. References: The Rolls Royce 40/50hp Ghosts, Phantoms, and Spectres, W.J. Oldham, G.T. Foulis & Co Ltd, 1974, ISBN 0854291628 Rolls Royce, The Story of the Best Car in the World, AUTOCAR Archives, The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd, 1978, ISBN 0600349810 The Book of the Silver Ghost, Kenneth Ullyett, Ullyett & Craft Publications Trust Ltd, 1977, ISBN 0879380411 The Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, Profile #91, Anthony Bird, Profile Publications, 1967. War Cars, British Armoured Cars in the First World War, David Fletcher, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1987, ISBN 0112904394 WarPaint, Colours and Markings of British Army Vehicles, 1903-2003, Volume 1, Dick Taylor, Stratus Publications (Mushroom Models #4104), 2008, ISBN 9788389450630 The RAF Armoured Car Companies, http://rafarmdcarcomp.multiply.com/. Google & the internet, of course ... The Build First some general comments. The plastic is thick and soft. If you want to open it up, you'll have to do some sanding down or make your own parts. The soft plastic means you have to support pieces properly when cutting from the sprue and sanding down seams, etc. The detail is a little weak for both these reasons. There are numerous small seams on the plastic, there is a fair amount of cleanup to do. At several places, notably the engine, there appears to be a little lip around both the locator pins and holes that must be trimmed off. The instructions, again notably for the engine, don't always show the best picture for locating parts and references are handy. I do not think a modeler was on the instruction-writing team. The kit has interior detail -- engine, driver's compartment, and turret. If you think it's not much detail, well the RRAC didn't have much inside. Unfortunately the instructions only show it all closed up -- engine, driver's compartment, and turret. Maybe because the plastic is so thick .... but it is such a shame, given how detailed the engine is. I opted to open it up -- one side of the hood (bonnet) up, driver compartment rear doors open, and turret top and rear hatches open. As noted, this required some thinning, but more importantly it required me to deviate from the instructions, primarily to defer mounting the engine until after I had much of the chassis and body assembled and painted. Regardless, much of this kit goes together without comment, so I'll just hit the high and low points. If you are going to build it closed up, then you can ignore much of this and many of the kit parts. Step 1-3: The Engine You know there's a problem when the instructions want you to glue all the detail to one half, then to the other half, then glue the two halves together. Anyway, we all know better, so glue the two halves of the engine block together, clean that up, then add the detail. The drawings aren't all that clear but you can probably muddle through if you have some photos of a real 40/50 engine. The lower water pipe (24E) appears to be hanging in space but should connect to the radiator in step 19 -- all this is not explicitly called out. The other end of 24E connects to the water pump (22E) which connects through a short pipe (11E) to piping 25E and also via a shaft (10E) to the distributor housing (19E). All this goes forward of the carburetor (18E), a fact not evident from the drawing. It also doesn't all fit right and I ended up doing some slight surgery to the various pipes to get it to fit. The exhaust manifolds (13E,14E) should be put on before the fuel piping (15E) and make them stick out so that the exhaust system will clear the frame and block and attach to the manifolds. Then just get 15E to fit neatly. The fan blades are terrible, I sanded, and sanded, and sanded ... Painting: Copper pipe, Brass fittings -- take a look at mine for an example, it varies somewhat from the Roden callouts. Summary, it ain't easy, but it's a really, really nice engine. It begs for wiring, lines, additional piping, etc, but I didn't -- this time.

Step 4: The drawing correctly shows brake arms that simply are not on part 11C -- if you are going to detail underneath, you'll need to make some. I did but then punted on running cable back to the rear wheels. Step 6-9, 27: Wheels and Tires You can assemble all the wheels and slide the tires on later. They fit well and won't distort if you just do that once or twice. But the tires are a mess. Each one has three sprue points distributed around the tread -- you can't hide them and barely clean them up. Trakz makes a resin set of wheels, which I got but did not use on this review. On any subsequent builds, I'll use the Trakz wheels and the Roden tires can be spares or something. Be careful assembling the brake drums and arms -- only one assembly is shown, but you have to make the left and right assemblies work out right when installed in step 17. Step 10: Floor and Seats I believe this version should have a simple foldout rest not a full seat back, so I hacked the seat into a couple parts and built one. The passenger seat should also have removable strap as a seat back, which I did not do. Step 14: Radiator and Battle Doors The kit has you build battle doors closed - I wanted them open. But to open them you need to fabricate a louver on the inside as is provided on the outside. To really detail it, then you need the X-shaped arms and spring that were part of the door opening assembly. I did all this. Then in, step 35, I found the lights were incorrectly sized and/or placed and prevented the battle doors from being fully open. Just a warning.

Step 16-19: Chassis Assembly Note I actually started this at the same time as the engine and body so I could test fit all the big pieces as I went. As I wanted the engine visible, I did not want to build it into the frame at this time. After a bit of study I decided I could glue everything together except one side of part 21C and that would allow me to later spread the front frame rails and slip the engine in. It worked, although it isn't that simple and some test fitting of the engine and steering gear is needed. Now I could spray paint the chassis. Next, the rear axle and springs. Do not follow the instructions or you will have difficulty getting it all aligned. I assembled and painted the drive shaft and rear axle and glued them together. Then I painted and mounted, but did not glue, the two springs to the axle. Then I test fit the assembled frame, the exhaust system, and the rear axle assembly. I had to use a little heat on the exhaust to get it bent properly around the axle and the fuel tank, then I glued it to the frame, using the engine as a temporary guide. With that done, I went back and properly fit the rear axle, twisting and tweaking a bit to get good alignment of the drive shaft front-back and side-side with no load on the parts, they aren't that strong. Then I put on the brake drums, etc. I left wheels and tires off until later. You'll see in the pictures that I failed to get some warp out of the front and rear axles -- the wheels all sit on the ground, but the vehicles is all a-hoo. Probably a combination of kit issues and my failure to see and correct them. With all that done, the chassis painted, and the body assembled, etc, I was ready to mount the engine. The fit against the radiator is tight so I drilled a small hole in the back of the radiator to take the fan hub.

Step 20-25: Body, then Assembly I actually started the body at the same time as the engine and chassis and did test fitting of all along the way. I filled all the trenches and assembled the body parts. As I wanted to display the engine, I cut apart one side of the hood so I could fold it open -- that required quite a bit of thinning. I also wanted the rear compartment doors and the driver's front shield open. All these components were painted separately. There is no detail on the instrument panel (14A) -- OK if you are going to leave it closed up, but mine is not, so I made some instrument faces from 1/32 aircraft bezels and moved on. When it come time to assemble everything note that the rear of the frame slides into a slot under the floor of the cargo compartment. It is a very tight fit especially after both have been painted. This is something to test fit well before you get here. Anyway, I put it together and wiggled and jiggled to get it all lined up. I didn't bother to correct some errors in rivet pattern.

Step 26-34: Details and the Turret The little tabs shown on the seat supports (13D) are not there. In step 30, there is no 12D, they are both 11D and you must trim them to get one for the left and one for the right, facing forward of course. It does not help that 11D doesn't look like the drawing. The lights have a simple clear plastic lens which you must cut from a sheet. I wanted an open turret so I chopped out the rear hatch, added a lip on it, tidied everything up, and have a fair representation. I also added a short ammo belt to the Vickers. I didn't bother to correct errors in the rivet pattern.

Step 35-36: The End With that comes final assembly of bits and pieces. I left out the rifles and skipped any internal add-ons. I took a wheel from another RRAC kit and that gave me a dual spare for one side, a single on the other. I mounted my sand channels differently. The paint is White Ensign, my own mix of Mid-Bronze and Slate. I elected to use a light grey interior, white would also have been correct, as would a mix of the colors. I skipped any markings. Closing Summary Well, it's not the Holy Grail -- that remains with the Resicast kit -- but it's a solid second place, despite the issues. On the positive side are the price, the possibilities, and the overall appearance. The engine and chassis are great -- with that you can actually scratch build your own body, in whatever variant you want, and be as well off -- or take the body and scratchbuild a Fordson chassis. The 1920 is very close to the 1914, so a decent set of wire wheels in 1/35 will get you started on a WW1 variant. On the negative side are the soft, thick plastic, the rubber tires, the inconsistent details, and some fit issues. The negatives are less if you build it closed up. Do I recommend it? Yes, if you are at all interested in these vehicles, if for no other reason than it is an affordable option, but understand that you may have to do a bit of actual modeling to get the result you want. I have 3 more of these, I guess that's a decent recommendation. One will be spare parts, and the other two will probably become a tender and a WW1 variant. I have extra wire wheels from the Resicast kit to help with that. OTOH, the engine parts from the spare will be used to enhance the Resicast engine. My sincere thanks to Roden for the review sample and to IPMS/USA for allowing me to review it.

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