Mack R685ST AMT 1/25 Kit Review

This is a nice AMT Kit, with a few extras but no big surprises. I tried to figure out which year this truck could be, but Mack manufactured pretty much the same R685ST for several years (at least mid seventies to mid eighties) – so I couldn’t find out the year this truck is supposed to be. But I can show what this kit is about in this post – which is what I am here for 😉

The body looks pretty neat and it is very well moulded. The holes help to fit the numerous parts to the cabin. It also has marked holes on the top of the cabin that only need to be opened from the inside – this is of great help to apply the extra lights on the roof. The nose tilts to let you see the engine, which is a nice piece of scale modeling, by the way. In general, all the mechanic parts of this truck are just beautiful. The drive train, the suspension and the frame are very well moulded and have lots of details!

The instructions are made as two very large pieces of paper – which I don’t find very handy. The steps are pretty well ordered, though. The legends and arrows help you understand where everything belongs to. But the references aren’t very clear – specially when it comes to the colors. This is the kind of instructions you need to figure out the color codes first and note them on the steps or have some piece of paper at hand as a reference, to avoid turning around the big sheet all the time to find that color reference table again. Other instructions show you the colors directly on the steps, no codes or numbers are needed – why not writing the assembly instructions always like this?

The transparent plastic parts are pretty cool and have all what you would expect for a truck. Not only you have clear head lights, but many amber and red clear parts! These are specially good for the roof of the truck.

You will also find enough chromed parts in the box. The Mack emblems for the front and the sides are very well moulded and give the truck a great finish. The kit also includes the chromed bull dog for the radiator cap as well as two extra chromed dogs – these figures look just great and can be used with no further clean up work. The front grill looks fine, but it is a pitty that they made it massive. I would take the extra time to make grill see-through by sanding the back with a file tool or a dremel – can be tricky, though, since the bars are pretty thin.Alternatively, you could cut the middle out, leaving only the frame, and rebuild the bars with some evergreen plastic and bare metal foil.

The bumper looks like a mirror, as well as all the other chromed parts. The rims look great as well. So do the side mirrors and the chromed horns for the roof.

Pros:

• Around 250 parts!!
• Great looking and well moulded chromed parts
• Highly detailed engine, suspension, transmission and frame
• Lots of colored clear parts

Cons:

• The instructions aren’t really handy and have coded color references instead of the color names
• More decals could have been cool

Conclusion: this kit isn’t full of very special surprises, but what is inside the box is just great! I wish all kits would be done like this.

I thought about making a rusty, mean looking big rig wrecker with rusty front protectors and lots of dirt on it. I would need to custom build the wrecker back. I also thought of using the engine, clutch, gear box and one of the differentials to custom build a tractor together with some thin sheet metal. Maybe I would have had to buy this kit twice or buy a lot on ebay with the extra parts I need for both projects.

Buy the way, there was a “junkyard dog” edition of this truck by AMT. I never got to see that kit. So if someone ever got it, drop me a line or leave a comment. I would like to know what was special about that kit.

Tagged as: 1/25, AMT, kit review, Mack, Mack R685ST, truck