Almost 70 year old Monogram Military Jeep Model (and friends)

This was a mighty and adaptable little toy.  Monogram models offered this model of a jeep and 37 mm gun together in 1957, during the early years of plastic model building.  By the 1960s one could buy plastic model kits of cars, planes, ships, and tanks in hobby stores, department stores, even drug stores.  The jeep was a famous vehicle of the Second World War and the gun was an early American weapon to combat tanks.  The two together perhaps gained mutual fame from this photo taken before the US entered the war.

It’s a nifty photo from the period the US was rearming before Pearl Harbor.  Readers would find it exciting that the jeep was so speedy that they were airborne, but guns this light were found to be wanting in actual war and were replaced by bigger, heavier guns.  Even the helmets the soldiers wear, leftover from the First World War, were replaced in 1942 with helmets that covered more of the soldiers' heads.

I got the model about a dozen years later.  The scene depicted in the box art bears little relation to the contents, apart from the model is a jeep.

It appeared when models were played with as much as they were displayed, especially in tandem with other model kits by Monogram.  The mini-catalog here shows a range of American military vehicles, most of which will appear in the post.

When I was a kid, I had the jeep, the figures, and, from a trade with Allen across the street, the weasel.  I would play with them, break them, fix them, then play with them some more.  Ship models of the time seemed to be intended for play on the floor as well, as many had flat bottoms without propellers and rudders so they could be slid along the floor.

In my late 40s I started fiddling with models again after passing by the USS Massachusetts tied up on the Falls River on our way to visit an old friend, and, on the return journey, stopped off to visit the ship and, on our way out through the museum store, bought a model of the ship.  That was in 2008 and in the years since I have built dozens of ships and vehicles and even some planes of various sizes, some taking an hour or so to build, some taking days.  

I ran across my old jeep model.  I can see broken bits from a vicious battle near the living room sofa five decades ago.

Among the models I have bought since 2008 were a couple examples of this jeep model, typically some poorly built model from someone’s attic that I’d buy for cheap and refurbish.  I tried a couple settings for the model, with figures and assorted accessories added.  Today there are many companies that sell model figures and accessories for model hits.

Here I joined the gun with some figures to show American soldiers either on maneuvers before the US entered the war or perhaps soon after entering the war.  

One of the snazzier incarnations of the jeep in World War II was during the ebb and flow of battles in Egypt and Libya where a group of British soldiers who were the forbears of the SAS would strip down the jeep, add weapons and supplies of gasoline, water, food, and ammunition, and go raiding the German and Italian supplies and airfields.  Here is my take on one of these jeeps.

The jeep was used by the US and its allies all over the world.  Here are some Canadian soldiers in their jeep celebrating the liberation of Holland from the Germans with some appreciative and friendly local folk.  Thousands of Dutch women would eventually marry their Canadian liberators and emigrate to Canada after the war.

The model jeep is still available today, mostly on eBay and similar outlets, over sixty years after it was first sold.  So the model jeep is just as versatile as the real thing, decades after it was first built for the army.

Btw, this is not Robin and me.

Over time I picked up other old Monogram kits of American military vehicles and refurbished them, adding figures and accessories.*

A M-3 half-tracked vehicle from the Second World War which carried troops to battle.

A special M-13 half-tracked vehicle from the Second World War with anti-aircraft machine guns (I think the model kit by Monogram is the ONLY model kit of this particular vehicle ever produced).  The US adopted another design later in the war that had four machine guns instead of two (the M-16 half track).

A M-35 truck adopted after the Second World War to carry supplies and troops.

An M-48 tank, nicknamed the Patton tank after the American general from the Second World War. introduced in the 1950s.

Fun to think that some of these may have been built for the first time before I was born.  Most of these are available on ebay in various conditions, from the unbuilt to the poorly built by an 11-year old (like me back then) to the fastidiously built by an nostalgic if not also a little obsessive compulsive adult.  So there is a little history to these vehicles, both commemorating the equipment they represent and the soldiers that used them but also the hobby of model building.  These were basic models, without much finicky detail that characterize current model kits, but served their purpose, much like the vehicles they represent in comparison to what is used today.

*Some of the figures and extras are original Monogram figures, while others were made by the Japanese firm Tamiya (the founder of which recently died in his late 90s), the Italian Italeri firm, and by the Ukrainian firm Master Box.

• The 37 mm gun has some Tamiya US soldiers and British 6 lb gun crew members
• The SAS jeep has assorted Tamiya accessories and Italeri British figures.
• The Canadians are Italeri British soldiers and the Dutch women are Master Box figures.
• The first half-track has some modified Tamiya US soldiers.
• The second half-track has Monogram US soldiers from the jeep and military figure kits.
• The truck has Monogram figures from the Jeep (ah, again) and military figure kits.
• The tank has Tamiya figures from the M113 personnel carrier kit.
• All the accessories--bags, barrels, packs, etc. are from Tamiya accessory sets.