THE ELM CITY HOBBIES SPRUE VIEW

Posted May 13, 2011

Welcome to the Great White North! EH!

The AVGP (Armored Vehicle General Purpose) Cougar was based on the 6 wheel version of the Swiss MOWAG Piranha I, and were introduced into Canadian Service in the 1970’s. Intended for use within Canada, but have been has seen service with the Canadian forces in Somalia, as well as the former Yugoslavia, just to name a few.

The Trumpeter kit is comprised of 216 pieces of Trumpeter’s familiar grey styrene, as well the kit also includes a fret of 6 photo-etched pieces, 6 black vinyl tires, 17 clear styrene parts as well as a turned aluminum metal barrel for the main gun. Markings for 2 different variants, one the black and green camo as normally seen on vehicles in Canada and in combat zones, as well as an all white UN scheme as seen on UN Peacekeeping missions around the globe.

Here are photos of the sprues and instruction sheets. The gallery will open in a popup and you can click through to the next and read descriptions.

This is the first AVGP kit in styrene plastic, the only other AVGP kit that I know about is the big chunk of resin you can buy from Hobby Fan, at a primo price. Trumpeter is going to follow the Cougar up with the Grizzly, which is supposed to be released in August, as well the Husky is supposed to be released at some point after that (probably closer to Christmas), and who knows after that….maybe we will see a Late Cougar at some point? Very possible, as it wouldn’t take much to add in the few pieces to do so, basically deleting the marine drive, turret basket extension and upgraded wheels/tires.

From initial look and fit of the some of the parts, this kit should pretty much go together with no problems at all. The fit of the 2 hull halves didn’t seem to need much if any filler at all once they are glued together. It has been said on a few other sites that the engine intake isn’t as accurate as it could be, but for the most part, unless you worked on, ate, slept and breathed on the vehicle for days on end, most people won’t know that, and the kit looks the part very well. I for one am glad to see another great Canadian piece of equipment be made into a scale model…who would have thought that even 2-3 yrs ago we would have a plethora of modern Canadian armored vehicles in styrene!!! There really should be no difficulty in building this kit for anyone, the few PE pieces and metal barrel may shy some beginners away as you need a CA glue to adhere them to the kit, but be-careful and take your time and it should be no problem at all.

Pros: – Only kit in plastic of a AVGP Cougar, kit definitely looks the part, metal barrel is a nice bonus. UN Markings are nice to replicate one of many Cougars that served in peacekeeping missions around the globe.

Cons: – No interior, supposed errors in some parts, front axle can’t be posed (don’t know why Trumpeter won’t do this….wouldn’t take much!)

If you have any questions or comments about this kit, you can post them here:

http://www.scalemodeladdict.com/forum/index.php/topic,2841.0.html

This kit retails for $33.00CDN and can be ordered from Elm City Hobbies

I would give it 4.0 out of 5 Sprues!

Scott Millican lives in Elm City, New Brunswick.
No one is exactly sure where that is.
He owns an awesome hobby shop
and has a really cool website too.