Nutrocker Hover Tank (1983)

Scale: 1:76
Initial Release: 1983
Medium: Polystyrene
Kit Rarity: 2

About the Design

The SF3D collection was arguably the most ambitious series of original sci-fi model designs ever produced.  Based on a series of photo-illustrated articles by Kow Yokoyama, Hiroshi Ichimura and Kunitaka Imai that ran in Hobby Japan magazine from 1982 to 1985, the models were of various "battlesuits" and fighting vehicles used in an imagined war between rebellious colonists and a fascist government for control over a war-ravaged Earth several centuries hence.  All the SF3D kits had a not-so-subtle Teutonic style to them, as if Nazi Germany had been able to extend WWII into the 21st Century.

The Nutrocker was the only true armored fighting vehicle to come out of the SF3D series.  It was, in fact, a hovercraft with a small gun situated on its upper turret.  The kit came with a 1/76th scale battlesuit to provide a sense of scale.

About the Kit

Nitto's SF3D kits were all excellently engineered and molded, and came complete with brass-etched parts, springs and rubber tubing for extra detail.  Due to a legal squabble, the kits went out of production in 1986, but were subsequently released by designer Kow Yokoyama under the name 'Ma.K. ZbV3000 Maschinen Krieger' in 1999.

This Nutrocker was built from an original 1980s issue.