This is what I call farfetched. A Porsche Tiger chassis with a great big ram in front and covered with thick armor to protect it from falling debris. This thing was designed to knock down buildings during house to house fighting. Kind of like the Sturmtiger without the gun. I wonder if it could be used to push derelict vehicles out of the way? Anyway, onto the conversion.

Conversion

This is a combination of your standard Italeri Elefant/Ferdinand and the Cromwell (CA-44) conversion kit. I happened to find this hiding under a pile of stuff at Brookhurst Hobbies in L.A. I picked up the Italeri Ferdinand in Hawaii and ordered the Friulmodellisimo Elefant tracks.

How easy can this conversion be? Assemble and paint the hull. Add the tracks. Paint the inside of the shell red oxide primer, and add to the Ferdinand hull. I added handles on the back from wire solder.

Paint

Mask off the opening in the front. I used an airbrush and Tamiya dark yellow and panzer red brown for the colors. I decided to have a little fun and painted a mustache and eyes on the front of the vehicle and "der Fürer Kommt" on the side. The Balken Kruez markings are all painted on using Stencilit stencils as a guide. I like to lay the stencil onto the surface, trace the shape with my trusty pencil and fill in with paint later. I added a liberal dusting of dark earth on the track and lower shell sides to give a little bit of weathering.

Text and photos Copyright © 2002 Valentin Bueno

Page created August 19 2002.