ESCI – 8334 – 8032 – T34/76 1942 Model

Description:

T34/76 1942 Model

Unassembled plastic model kit in 1/72 scale of a Soviet T-34 tank, with a 76mm gun, model 1943, still with the early wheels with rubber bands and a cast turret.

ESCI tooled this kit and his brother ESCI – 8335 – 8047 – T34/76 1943 model in 1976. At the time and for long they were the best depictions of the famous Soviet T-34/76 tank.

The kit has several problems, but the main ones are the common of the all ESCI line around the tracks, even worse if you get the early ESCI releases with vinyl single piece tracks, but the link-and-length version of the ESCI-Ertl era were quite better. In this case, the wheels were not a double wide single piece ones though they have some problems about the lack of bolts, but nicely done the rubber part.

The kit also includes two hard plastic figures as usual in the early ESCI kits, a practice also shared by Matchbox or other makers. One of the figures is a half figure, tank commander, and the other is a Soviet infantryman seating over a tank, a rider, as the early ESCI boxes belows depicts. Quality of these figures is below the best standards of the scale, but certainly they nailed the concept of the rider and was an excellent addition when released in the late 70s. The same figures are also present in the ESCI – 8335 – 8047 – T34/76 1943 model kit.

A so important subject like the T-34 tank, in lot of variants, got the attention of many other brands, specially after 90s, and today you can choose in between more than a dozen of options just for the T-34/76 variants without enter in other T-34 versions. Dragon, Trumpeter, UM (Unimodels), Zvezda or Eastern Express produces or produced T-34/76 1/72 scale kits that pair or surpass the ESCI/Italeri kit.