Baikonur Rollout [2]: Tatra 813

The biggest part of the terrain at Baikonur is steppe. To get to a launch site with a group often goes fastest when they use an off-road vehicle. They are often seen in pictures of the Kosmodrom nowadays and I presume it was not much different in the early seventies. So I looked for a nice buildable vehicle in 1/400 to put in the fields next to the train ridge. I happened to have a simple Tatra 813 8x8 Kolos in my collection of models. It was a free kit I found here. So I did this "colossus" in a microbe version today.

This is the real thing. An eight wheel driven Czechoslovakian giant which V12 engine guzzles roughly 2,5 litres to the kilometre. Almost 9 metres long and 2,5 metres wide. Weight: 14 tonnes. The military version was able to run on diesel as well as gasoline and even kerosine. I'd like to have one some day. No parking problems, you just park it over the other cars! (source picture: Jano Gallo / Wikipedia)

Here's a shot of my little version. The original model was 1/100 so I had to reduce it to 25% of its original size.

And some more closer up after the jump.

The tarpaulin cover over the back is scratch built. The original model had an open pick-up truck style loading bay. The grey paper was rolled and the lower parts were cut with a 2mm hollow punch to get a kind of tension effect on the tarp cloth.

The wheels were actually punched out of black paper with a 3mm hollow punch and given hub caps of 2mm. I might still thicken the tires on the inside to give them a little more body.

The back of the tarp is left loose and it opens a little "in the wind".

The truck is just about 25 mm long. It's kind of small. Hope you like it, it was fun to build.

Up next is the transporter! This might be a little tough since it all is very small and delicate. I tell you some more the next time, hopefully with some results.