ROCO Minitanks

Anybody else do these? They’re 1/87 (HO scale) armored vehicles, really common in the '70s, went out of production for a while, and I understand they’re back. I know you can find lots of them on Ebay these days. Anyway, they’re nice simple little kits, easy construction, reasonably good detail. You can finish one up in a few hours, and they don’t take up a lot of space in the display cabinet. Here are photos of a few I’ve done over the years. The only problem is finding 1/87 decals. I’ve tried handpainting some of the markings, with obviously mixed results. The decals turn up on Ebay every now and then, and I plan on buying some to see if I can finish these.

I just got my old box of these out, and thought I’d share. I’m starting another, a T-34/76. I’m thinking of adding winter camo and doing a mini-diorama, a small winter scene. Should be fun, and help me work on diorama techniques. Also going to check Ebay again - lots of these I’d like to add to my collection. If that doesn’t work, I’ve got a whole 'nother box of ones I built when I was a teenager. I’m sure some of those can be resurrected and refinished into decent models. Hope you enjoyed these.

Dan

Fantastic job on the camo.

1/87th scale? You’ll go blind doing that!

Seriously cool nonetheless- the hand painted markings look pretty good to me.

I’ve got a couple of tank platoons worth of these. I remember when the Roco M1A1 was the most accurate Abrams in any scale.

I just got one of these–a Grille with Flak gun on it.

Hey did you knwo that Preisser makes 1/87 figure kits? You can make full dio’s and all. I’m gonna make a 1/87 Grille dio…

Nice painting; you might want to try some weathering on the next one? The “decals” look fine!

I had a few, they were great because you could find odd-ball stuff like a GMC 6x6 with a LaCrosse missile. They all got lost during a move though…