Minairons Miniatures: 20mm Bilboa Armoured Car

Hi, I just finished the review of the 20mm resin Bilboa Armoured Car of the Spanish company Minairons Miniatures and was really surprised about the the quality their first resin kit which was made in cooperation with another Catalan Company called Barcino Miniatures. For those unaware of who Minairons Miniatures is here's a small sunmary of their goals and future ranges: 

We are new company aimed at producing fast-assembly, hard-plastic, quality miniatures for wargaming and collecting. After a number of months of planning and hard work, we are now close to proudly watching how the new firm is born and becomes fully operational --this event is scheduled for mid-October 2012. Minairons miniatures' ranges will usually have a close relationship with the military history of the nations of the Iberian Peninsula --logically with a special accent on Catalonia, where the brand is born. In this manner, our starting range will consist of a selection of Spanish Civil War fighting vehicles, mainly those with a wider use in other Inter-war conflicts, or even early WWII. These are to be released in 1:72nd and 1:100th scales first --leaving an eventual 28mm range for a little later, depending on demand and budget volumes.

The content

The Bilboa Armoured Car was  initially intended to perform as an anti-riot media for the Guardia de Asalto police, the 1936 military uprising against the Republic forced to press them into field service as a fighting vehicle, thus filling the republican armour gap until the first Russian tanks were delivered. The model kits contain one 1 resin model in an auto-wrap bag with header card. The Bilboa Model consists of just 8 parts and the kit includes a paper sheet containing 3 textured Spanish Republican flags --that of the Republic itself, along with those of Basque and Catalan Governments.

The assembly

The Bilboa Armoured Car kit was well casted with the exception of a hole in the back of the turret which needed to be filled with some green stuff but no need to worry as the new retooled armoured car will probably come out in plastic and will be remastered from their 1/100 Bilboa Car. The new armoured car will also come with a seperate machinegun as the resin kit version machinegun is bit fragile when handled uncarefully. But as said otherwise no problems with this well-detailled resin kit and the assembly proved easy enough to be finished in less than an hour, I lost one of the headlights and needed to search them on the floor!

Scale Comparison

I have also included a scale comparison on the model with some vehicles from other manufacturers and of course the plastic Panzer I model from Minairons Miniatures as the Armoured Car needs some opposition. From the left to the right we see: the Bilboa from Minairons Miniatures, the Blitz from Airfix, the Hanomag from Armourfast and the Panzer I from Minairons Miniatures of which you can find a detailled review here. As you can see he fits in well with the other vehicles and will be a good addition to your Spanish Civil War carpark.

Conclusion

This excellent resin kit was the first resin kit made by Minairons Miniatures and despite some minor issues with the casting I was impressed by this great and unusual model. I have contacted the friendly chaps over at minairons Miniatures telling them about the casting issues and they said they will probably release the car in plastic solving the issues as I had mentionned. Sounds goods but no need to wait as the resin version is still available for €9.95 and can be bought directly from Minairons Miniatures.

The upgraded version has now been released with plastic front wheels and machine guns solving all of the above issues. You can see the new version in this blogpost.

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