RPM 1/72
Mack AC 'Bulldog' Truck Type EHC1 (1919)

Background

The Mack truck was one of the mainstays in early motorized transportation. The Mack AC Bulldog series were workhorses with serious hauling capacity that second only to ships and railroad transportation of the day.

During WWI, the Mack truck was pressed into military service, and variants of the truck were used for everything from tank hauler to supply truck. The HC3 was a three-ton capacity vehicle!

One of the unique features of the Mack trucks of the day was their chain drive that transfered power from the transmission to the rear wheels. The transmissions of these trucks weren't attached to the rear of the engine as with today's powertrains, and the rear differential was not yet available. Instead, the transmission was attached to the engine flywheel via a drive shaft, and the transmission itself resembled a differential. At the end of the power shafts from the differential were sprockets and larger sprockets were on the inside of the rear wheels. Over these sprockets were what looks like oversized bicycle chain.

The Kit

The kit comes in an end-opening type box. The box art shows a Bulldog type EHC1 with a cargo load of a French Renault FT-17 on it. Two GI’s are lounging around it and in the back ground is a brick building with an American flag flying from it and a Ford Model T truck parked in it’s garage. Up in the sky are 2 biplanes flying over. Quite a nice box art!

The rear of the box shows two painting and markings schemes. However, you are not told what outfit these are…other than it’s obvious that they are U.S. units. These are done as full color paintings and there is a row of color swatches below them labled with Humbrols H numbers that they use to designate their different paints. Up in one corner is a full color illustration of the decal sheet. A side panel of the box shows 5 other box arts for other kits in RPM’s 1/72 nd scale line.

You get the identical stuff in this kit that was in the Type HC3 kit. So..what’s the difference in the kits? Really, it is just using the alternate parts for the engine hood (with the louvers on the sides), omitting the canvas bed cover (or using it if you want to) and omitting the big head light. You still use the same 16 spoked pattern wheels that the HC3 also was mounted with on this one too. The HC3 paint scheme shows no markings what-so-ever to use and that vehicle is labeled as being in 1917, whereas this kit depicts a Mack in 1919.

Conclusions

This looks like it will make up nicely as a companion kit to the other three “Bulldog” kits that RPM markets in this scale.

For a look at the kit built-up, click here.

My sincere thanks to Squadron Mail Order for this review sample.