I just received this large (about 2 feet long, weight about 30 pounds) metal (all magnetic) scale model of an Austin Putilov armored car, I think series 2. The tires are very hard old rubber. All of the rivets are individually driven in and finished off. the doors, hatches, and visors all swing up and open, one of the gun port hatches swings freely, the others seem frozen, there is a dog latch on the side hatch (the one just below the LH turret), the turrets turn and lift out. The front steering is complex, the suspension actually looks like they made individual leafs, joined them together with metal bands, and bent them like a real leafspring suspension. the rear end housing has very nice detail. the one remaining front headlight has a domed glass cover. The paint looks very old. And where it is chipped off the metal has old looking rust. Oh, there were no guns with it. I stuck a couple of old German toy cannon barrels into it for display. I'm going to try and find some more accurate looking MG's. I got it from a guy in Belarus. He did not know how old it was, and didn't say where he acquired it. Does anyone know if this is an original builders model? Or something made at a later date (although, why would you?). I've been doing research on this, and it's amazing the history on these. I'm trying to find out anything on who, when, or why this was made.
-- Edited by Ascot500 on Tuesday 7th of July 2015 06:00:03 PM
Hard to date something like this, probably a scratch build by someone who normally builds model traction engines. Could be 1930s, or maybe a retired soldier's build in the 1950/60s. If you could find the model that the wheels came from, then that would at least give you a 'No older than' date.
Thank you for showing us the model and good luck with your investigations.
I'll post some more pictures of the underside, the detail on the suspension and the transmission are amazing. This appears to be such a perfect scale model of an Austin Putilov that my thoughts are running to a museum piece, or something made by one of the makers (not so much Austin, as perhaps the Russian armorer?). I might need to haul this to one of the toy soldier shows and see if any of the dealers have run across one like this. It's definitely not a toy - it weighs as much as most little kids!
