RPM 1/72
Mack AC 'Bulldog' Truck Type EHT (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

This kit, like the other three variants of the Bulldog reviewed on this site, comes in an end-opening type box. The box art shows a Type EHT in French Army service with it’s cargo bed wood side-walls removed and being ready to be onloaded with a French Char Snieder tank. Although French soldiers are shown there are no figures included in the kit. This is the case of all four of the RPM Bulldog kits reviewed here.

The contents of the kit are identical to the other three kits. To see pictures of these contents, go again to the review of the Type HC3. The back of the box has the color schemes for two Bulldogs in French service in 1919. One is overall gray and the other is in a wave pattern camouflage. Neither have any markings on them whatsoever.

So what is different you say. Not much…other than the paint scheme. You use the 4 x 4 beam for the front bumper…like is the same on the HC3 version, leave the wood side-walls off the cargo bed and use the seven-spoked wheels rather than the 16-spoked ones used to build either the HC3 or the EHC1 types. The side panel of this box shows five other box arts of 1/72nd armor offerings from RPM.

This looks like it will make up nicely, like the other three Bulldog kits. Only thing is that only the box art and what you use or don’t use of the identical kit contents is up to you.

RPM surely is getting a lot of mileage out of the same sprues and decal sheet on this subject, so pick and choose which variants you want to do. The parts trees are in a cello bag and display no flash that I detect.

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.