CollectAire 1/48 Curtiss AT-9 Jeep Kit First Look
By Fotios Rouch
| Date of Review | September 2020 | Manufacturer | CollectAire |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subject | Curtiss AT-9 Jeep | Scale | 1/48 |
| Kit Number | 4871 | Primary Media | Resin, White Metal, Vacuform |
| Pros | Nicest AT-9 in 1/48 scale (only AT-9 in 1/48 scale) | Cons | See text |
| Skill Level | Expert | MSRP (USD) | Out of Production |
First Look
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After completing my olive drab Tamiya P-38F Lightning, I decided to build another olive drab subject. This was going to be the Curtiss Wright AT-9 Jeep, a full resin and metal kit by Collect-Aire.
Opening the little box after so many years brought back memories. The proprietor of Collect-Aire had sent me this little kit with a personal note back in December of 2002.
Collect-Aire produced many esoteric subjects and the owner had a pretty keen eye in choosing subjects that were interesting enough, yet very unlikely to be produced by mainstream companies in years to come. This would have stayed true until the rise of the Czech limited run companies and the Chinese companies with their seemingly endless capacity for cheap tool making. So since then, many of their kits were done in plastic. The Jeep was not one of them.
Starting from the box art, I was pleasantly reminded that Gerry Asher was the artist with an artwork date signature of 2000.
The kit was designed based on Paul R Matt's scale drawings. The maker that mastered this specific kit and many others was very good at following plans blindly. He completely ignored photos all other evidence showing plan shortcomings. Enough said as none of this matters anymore and for all I know this old maker might not even be with us anymore after 20 years.
The resin parts were of a familiar quality to me with the requisite pinholes and resin imperfections. Not as bad as the early molding works from this same maker but requiring attention, nevertheless.
The vacuform parts were okay with a few small issues but very salvageable.
The decals represent four subjects, one in olive drab/ neutral gray and three in NMF.
This is a very rare subject and a very rare plane as only one complete museum sample exists (put together by parts from two planes apparently) and a wreck that was at Pima Air and Space many years ago and probably still is somewhere in storage. I took a few pictures of the Pima wreck back in April of 2000 and a few pictures at the WPAFB museum in 2003 and they should be available here (hyperlink to mine and your images maybe Mike?).
Check out the AT-9 Section also posted for your reference.