Matchbox Car Scenery

 

OK, so a while back I bought a Matchbox car of a 1974 Volkswagen Thing for a dollar, just to see if it was the right size to be a Kubelwagen for background scenery in 28mm WWII gaming. I measured it, and it is 1:58 scale while 28mm is normally considered 1:56 scale (thank you, Warlord Games for standardizing this!) So, close enough for a scenic item, am I right? I know the front end is all wrong, but it should be fine for a bit of background color.

It took me a couple of hours to get painted, but I think it turned out well. I need to acquire some decals at some point, and get the windshield frame painted (my hands are too shaky tonight to fo that.) Maybe steal a matching wheel from another toy car to throw on the hood as a spare. But it's finished enough for now.

My DAK infantry models are from Artizan Designs, but are still unpainted. Instead, I have a British soldier from the same range shown for scale. The vehicle looks the right dize, with the top of the door being just above hip level.

 

As I was looking in to painting it, I found references all over the place for the interior paint color, the seat covers, and the canopy. So I am going to post a few of those pics here with my thoughts.

 So this is kind of what I expected. A nice tan canopy, and presumably matching seat covers.

 

This one here though shows a field grey canopy, much darker interior (left as panzer grey in the repainting, most likely) and dark wheels as well.

 

And then we've got this one here. Not only is the color the same as my Vallejo dark yellow, but it shows the top of the door about hip height, which matches where my Matchbox toy is next to my Artizan miniatures. The interior is the same as the exterior, and the canopy is this color as well. This picture also shows a nice variety of colors in DAK uniforms, which is highly realistic. Of course, this is a Barbie-scaled toy and action figure, but has great attention to color.