1978 GMC Pickup

This is a nicely detailed kit! Wasn't much flash or sanding needed done. I did not use the camo decals as I wanted to paint the body. One word of warning or caution is the bumpers do not have solid hold points and does take some extra time and patience. The tires are not real solid hold points either. Overall this is a great kit and tons of fun to build.

Where to start? I’ve always loved the 3RD Generation square body Chevy and GMC trucks from this era. My family have always owned General Motors trucks as long as my family has needed trucks: farming, logging and getting groceries. My Grandfather showed up mid-summer of 1972 with a Plain-Jane blue step-side and I was hooked. I waited a while to write a review of this kit, I’ve been having a hoot trying different things with my kits. My kit(s) came Molded in white. Yes, I LOVE the square body 4X4 so I bought several. It would seem this kit is just a reissue of the same tooling on the original 1978 kit and is a spitting image of the High-Roller kit from the early 80’s, except FAR LESS EXPENSIVE! The mold lines and even the flash is in the same place. The mold lines are very noticeable and so is the lack of any body badging, not even in the decals. I used photo-etch sets off eBay. The same goes for the bland interior. Photo-etch door handles and cranks. If you want to build any kind of detailed replica I think the normal enthusiast is going to find that hard: needs a lot of sculpting and a good imagination to create your own details to get that done. But coming from an optimist, isn’t that the point: creativity? The kit shows its age where the plastic is injected into the mold: ejector marks on the bed, radiator and hood, nothing that crafty painting and sanding can’t fix. Test fitting each major component before assembly is really important, you’re going to find that you’ll need to bore out the wheel retainers, partially assemble the cab for a constant paint job, and even partially assemble the bed for the same reason. Fit and Finish are definitely 1978 era modeling… a good finished product is going to take some modeling skill and patience. It’s a simple and simplified kit. I call it a blank pallet to invent something nifty. Pros: Rugged looking tires, nicely appointed decal sheet, Model looks tuff when finished Cons: Very over simplified and lacks detail, mold lines and injection marks are everywhere, poor INITIAL fit and it takes a fair amount of skill to get it to look just right.

My wife asked me to build a farm truck for her supervisor. So we picked the 1978 GMC 4x4 model kit. This was my first 4x4 kit. The assembly of this kit is fairly easy. There was only a minimum amount of flash. The instruction sheet was well illustrated and easy to follow. I had very little trouble assembling this kit. This would be a great kit for a beginning modeler to move from level one to level two builds. The cab aligns very well with the bed. The only issue I had were with the wheel and tire fitment. The rim does not want to rest in the tire very well, but if handled carefully, it will fit. My wife's supervisor was pleased with the kit. I did include the roll bar nor the spare tire or the fuel can as I just wanted to replicate a basic 4x4 farm truck.