Meng 1/24 Ford F-350 Super Duty Crew Cab Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

For decades, Ford Motor Company remains one of the leaders in pick-up trucks and even in my early days in the US Air Force, I drove a stepside Ford F-150. In 1999, Ford introduced the F-350 series with a wide range of powertrain, cab, truck bed, and towing combinations to suit your needs.

Meng is a model company based in Hong Kong, China and has released an interesting new range of kits for subjects that have never been produced in plastic before. One of these is this Ford F-350 in 1/24 scale. Specifically, Meng has produced the Crew Cab 4-wheel-drive truck with single wheels on the rear axles and powered by the Power Stroke V8 turbo diesel engine.

The kit is molded in black styrene and presented on seven parts trees plus separate cab shell and chassis frame, one tree molded in gray styrene, one tree molded in clear, one tree of chrome-plated parts, and five Continental tires in rubber (vinyl).

Among the features and options in this kit:

• Detailed four-wheel disk brakes
• Detailed chassis and suspension
• Detailed powertrain
• Detailed cab interior
• Hood can be opened and closed
• Two styles of wheels to choose from
• Two types of running boards to choose from
• Tail gate can be opened and closed
• Optional bed extender

This kit is really nicely done and hopefully Meng will consider variations of this vehicle including the dually, Triton-powered option, and some aggressive-tread BF Goodrich tires. The only down-side to this kit is the suggested retail price which will give the average car builder sticker-shock (given the complaints about the prices of Moebius Models' beautiful car kits), but Meng has brought the model car (truck) world into the same state of the art molding technology enjoyed by aircraft and armor modelers.