BOX ART

BREIF HISTORY

In 1994 Land Rover created the Defender XD. Powered by the 300Tdi engines, the XD has a much stronger chassis, with fibre webbing around the welded joints in the chassis and around stress points to massively increase load capacity. The XD is available in both the Defender 90 and 110 forms. They are known to the British Army as Land Rover Wolves. The 110 are much more common and are used for patrol, communications and supply duties. They are available in both the soft top  and the hard top versions.

THE KIT

The kit consist of 186 very well molded  plastic  parts, 19 of which are molded in clear. There are also 5 nicely detailed rubber tires. A small sheet of photo etch for the light guards is included as well. Decals for 2 different vehicles are included. One is tan in color and the other is sand over green. All of the parts are crisp and the detail level is great. The instruction sheet is very well laid out and easy to follow.

THE BUILD

Step one has you assemble the very complete engine. The detail here is great. The fit is very nice. No problems were encountered.

Steps 2 and 3 have you assemble the frame and drive train. Take your time here. While the fit is very good, make sure that you build the frame square so as not to create fit problems later. I did add a little filler to the top of the front bumper due to it being cast in 2 parts. This kit builds really fast because of the wonderful engineering!

Steps 4 thru 6 have you assemble the interior details. Again no problems were encountered.

Steps 7 and 8 have you attaching the main body to the frame. If you were careful with the frame assembly, everything will just drop into place.

Steps 9 and 10 have you build up the front of the vehicle. Again, take your time here and everything will line up just fine. HobbyBoss have included a bunch of details to the inside of the engine compartment should you wish to display the hood open.

PAINTING

I started by painting the frame and engine compartment in my scale black color. I also painted the tires at this point with the same color. I sprayed the main body with Tamiya XF-59 Desert Yellow. As this is a relatively new vehicle, I did not do any paint fading. I applied a gloss coat to the areas that were going to receive the decals. The decals went on without any problems. They were then flat coated to match the rest of the vehicle. I applied a MIG filter to give a little life to the single paint color. When this had dried, I pin washed the truck with some AK Interactive Wash for DAK vehicles. I then did all of the detail painting on the tools and such. The final step was to add some subtle streaking using the AK Interactive Rainmarks. The last step was to add a little dust to the windshield.

CONCLUSION

Another great kit by HobbyBoss! Great details, great fit and it goes together very fast. Well done HobbyBoss!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

My Sincere Thanks to Squadron for the review sample!

Model built and painted by Dave Manter