ZZ Model 1/87 ZIS-150 Crane Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

The ZiS-150 was a standard production utility truck within the former Soviet Union in the early 1950s with nealy 775,000 produced before production shifted to the next generation of utility trucks.

As with any versatile utility truck chassis, the ZiS-150 was adapted to a variety of configurations including crane prime mover. The truck bed was replaced with a medium duty crane platform that had four stabilizing arms that would extend to provide load stability while the crane rotated with loads.

Here is a nice little kit of the ZiS-150 truck/crane combination in HO (1/87) scale. This is a nice bit engineering that will build up into a nice addition to your HO layout or your small scale battlefield. The kit is molded in various colors that some modelers will find will negate the need for painting.

The kit consists of seven parts trees molded in black styrene plus a number of individually molded parts in a variety of gray colors. One resin truckbed frame and three frets of photo-etch provide the intricate details of the crane boom and winch housings. The cab windows are vacuformed and a set of rubber wheels round out the kit.

The detailing in this kit is quite impressive given that this is such a small model and will look quite impressive after assembly. The kit is laid out to make the crane movable to allow it to be posed in a variety of positions to liven up a diorama or vignette.

Given the number of really small parts, this project should be undertaken by an experienced multimedia modeler and if you're not quite ready for such an undertaking, you might want to stash one or two of these for when you are ready as this is a limited run kit and you won't want to miss out on such details!

This is a nice little kit that will look great on your shelf or doing some construction on your HO layout.

My sincere thanks to HobbyTerra for this review sample!