The Little World

I find that I am impressed more by model trucks than by model cars. This is not to denigrate the efforts of the customisers and hot rodders, but the realism of the model trucks is what grips me. I’m by no means an expert on heavy haulage, but I can recognise the things from my daily battle on Leach Highway and the details do tend to stick in your mind.

Of course, a lot of the kits and models built have an American or Canadian flavour – this is natural as this is probably the biggest market for the plastic kit. And there are some European ones in the shops as well – thought I am skeptical about some of the running gear that they purport to carry.

Russian trucks seem more realistic when they are hard-working and worn, and in general seem more basic than everyone else’s. The military vehicles are another matter, but then they attract unlimited government spending.

The scale of the trucks at the Model Car Spectacular is probably 1:25 or 1:24. Or maybe 1:35, though that is an armour scale. Whatever, they are small enough to be buildable in an average hobby room and big enough to see all the details.

I was very pleased to see a service vehicle as well – and there are collectors who make entire showcases out of fire trucks of various types – you cna spend hours trying to work out the fittings on them and imagine how they are used to fight fires.

And then there is the mental speculation that you do when you are stuck behind a trailer on Leach Highway and see some strange shape to the load area. Why the heck would they make it that shape? What does it do? Makes you want to run up and pull the lever on the tailgate and see what comes out…

And then there is the obvious…

And the historic…

And altogether the whole thing is a great good lesson in 3D about our transport system. Next year I’m going to enter a Bedford tanker of the RCAF.