to produce. But, in the depths of our secret souls we know it'll never happen - they're too obscure, too difficult to produce or, most likely, just not commercially viable. So, to satisfy our latent desires, we usually build a smaller-scale plastic kit.In my case, it won't surprise you to hear that I'm passionate about anything WW1
. A notable piece of armour from that conflict is the German A7V - the only tank they made themselves. But they only made 20 of them, they were all subtly different, and they weren't very good, so there's absolutely no prospect of Armortek making one. As Mark Watkins (the previous owner of Armortek) once memorably said "Who wants to buy a shed on tracks ?" 
. Well, there's me, and perhaps half dozen others - which couldn't justify a production run.I suspect most of us are aware of Cobi, who make not-Lego tanks and other military things. Well, I was flicking through Bovington's online shop recently and noticed that Cobi had produced an A7V ! That's just a toy, right ? But time hangs heavy in lockdown, so I jumped. And this is the result:
It's about 23cm long, so I'm guessing it's around 1/32nd scale. It took me about 10 hours to finish - there are a lot of bits, of many strange and wonderous shapes and sizes (definitely not just the standard building blocks from our childhoods), and if you don't follow the instructions religiously you'll get it wrong. It's very cleverly designed - all the guns move, the hatches and doors open, the tracks go round, and they've even managed to simulate sloped armour through clever use of hinges.
In some ways I likened it to building an Armortek kit:
- I'm in awe of how these things are designed, so that they go together logically and relatively easily;
the parts come in many, many packets, and a lot of time is spent searching for that one piece you need;
you definitely speed up towards the end.
I could get the books out ..... but I'm not going to. I like the Iron (Imperial) Crosses (which are part of the brick, not transfers or stickers) much more than I would the later Balkenkreuz. It can only be an A7V, so that's close enough for Government work, as they say. In fact, the only thing that bothers me is that the enclosed soldier is wearing a Pickelhaube rather than a Stahlhelm ....... So, if Cobi produce your pet tank, you need to indulge your Inner Child, or you just fancy trying something different for a change, give not-Lego a go !
Best wishes, and stay well,
Chris
A bunch of Tiger and Panther variants, Leo II, Famo, 222s, a few 88`s and smaler ones like Hetzer, Stug III, 251, etc.