Building the Matchbox M7 Priest

This is the boxart of this venerable kit, mine is copyrighted 1979. It has since been reboxed by Revell. 

Matchbox kits were molded in different colours, Quite handy in those days when not everyone actually painted their models 😉
Plus, they came with a small diorama base and some figures. 

The two main sprues. Attachment points are very small and in many cases not easy to access. I don´t remember whether the plastic was as hard and brittle back in the day, or whether this is its age showing. Anyway, I encountered some breakage where I didn´t like it. 

The tracks are similarly strong and by far not as flexible as the Airfix tracks of similar vintage I recently used. I bought resin replacements from OKB Grigorov, for the M3/M 5 series, and hoped they would fit. 

The decals are unusable. At least for me. I bought a small sheet for Normandy Priests from Braille Strike. 

I needed some little putty, and though the parts fit well, you need to be alert when gluing them as their fit is not exactly poositive and free of doubt. 

My subassemblies. Things went fast as I had time on my hands and only added a few PE handwheels, and stayed OOB for the rest. 

I made a similar presentation base as for my Airfix 88 mm gun. The second time was much easier and faster. 

And made it fit some of the parts of the box. 

Here is the completed presentation, without the model base proper. 

Which is here, with the Matchbox dio base glues onto its top with PVA glue I had brushed over the entire top. Fine sand helped adding some structure to the foam board. 

The three figures are actually quite neat, and I toyed around with paints and washes and some drybrushing. 

The vehicle after some coats of paint. 

And after some weathering. 

The inside must have been quite dirty at times. 

Adding the road wheels. 

Sadly, the resin tracks were too narrow for the road wheels, so I had to use the kit tracks instead. 

They were anything but easy to apply, and needed sustained firm pressure after gluing them to the underside of the road wheels. 

The completed model on its base. 

And from above.