White-Freuhauf Gas Truck

Atlantis (Revell), 1/48 scale

Reviewed by Cookie Sewell

Summary

FirstLook

As I noted in a previous review, the 1950s was a great time for modelers – now called the “First Golden Age” – as companies tried to kit just about everything they could think of and that someone in marketing thought would sell. While a fight was on in automotive kits for domination by 1/32, 1/25 and 1/24 scale kits, they also turned to smaller scales as well in order to market larger vehicles.

Aurora came out with a line of commercial trucks based on Ford and White tractors, but these were in the smaller 1/64 scale. At that time that equated to S Gauge train sets but unless you were an American Flyer fan or into “rolling your own” they were an oddity. They did try to market them in olive drab plastic as military haulers but again no compatible vehicles by anyone else at the time.

Revell chose 1/48 for their line, and released a total of five vehicles in this scale: a Ford pickup with a police Harley Davidson motorcycle; this kit, a Chevy Two Ton rated 4x2 commercial truck; a Kenworth tractor with a 40 food Freuhauf van; a White cab over tractor with a 5000 gallon Freuhauf gasoline trailer; and later the Kenworth with a 40 foot Freuhauf flatbed and a disassembled Honest John rocket in crates.

While the scale did match with both O Gauge trains and many model aircraft kits, the vehicles were commercial vehicles and the appeal was not was wide as hoped. Still, they were nicely done kits for their day and the mold did hold up over the years.

This kit is now available from Atlantis as well as the Chevy two ton but now they are in new colors: originally the Ford pickup and bike were light blue, the Chevy dark blue, the Kenworth white as a van or green with the flatbed and the tanker bright red orange. The tanker was also originally a Mobilgas truck; someone cleverly used a computer with the original artwork to change “allegiance:” to Sinclair.

The model represents a combo of an “aerodynamic” White 3000 tractor which was introduced in 1949 and built up to about 1960 and a 5000 gallon Freuhauf F-1 tank trailer. As noted as it was a 1950s kit it comes with rolling wheels, a flip-up cab to show a basic engine, opening doors for the controls to the fuel delivery system, and a separating trailer. It also comes with two uniformed figures, one standing and one kneeling, to provide a crew for pumping the fuel out of the tanker. A small sign is included with markings for Sinclair “Dino” Gasoline.

This version of the kit also now comes with window glass from clear styrene, something sadly missing from the 1956 releases of the Revell kits and their own “repops’ such as the 1994 re-releases.

As noted the details are a little soft and the “working” parts are a bit overscale, but it is a nice place to start. A few years back a modeler completely overhauled this kit and won a first place at the IPMS USA Nationals with this kit. I would recommend at least drilling out the headlights and replacing them with MV Lenses or similar aftermarket headlights.

It comes with two finishing options: Sinclair gasoline or USAAF markings from WWII. Alas, the latter are somewhat specious as the tractor was not produced until 1949 and so far I have not found any photos of one in USAF service; most of the heavy fuel tankers appear to have preferred Autocar heavy tractors for towing and not this commercial White model. They do provide both white decals for an OD model or black for a more common yellow one.

Conclusion

In summary, it is still nice to see older kits that have not been produced for more than 25 years come back onto the market.

Sprue Layout:

-          13           Landing gear, wheels, front axle, interior, figure

-          9              Truck chassis, engine, bumper, wheels

-          22           Fuel distro piping, mud flaps, trailer axles, fifth wheel, wheels

-          11           Cab, rear axle, wheels, figure

-          1              Ladder

-          1              Distribution heads

-          2              Trailer body

-          4              Clear styrene