The big German 8-wheeled armoured cars (the SdKfz 232 (8 rad) and SdKfz 234 families) have long been among my favourite vehicles.  I have fond memories of building both Bandai's 1/48 and Tamiya's 1/35 scale renditions of the SdKfz 232 (8 rad), but had to content myself with Matchbox's SdKfz 234/2 Puma (and Airfixs lacklustre SdKfz 234/4) in small-scale armour.  Roden has recently rectified that situation in 1/72 scale with the release of the entire SdKfz 231 (8 rad) family of vehicles - the SdKfz 231, SdKfz 232, SdKfz 233 (not yet released as of February 2004), and the SdKfz 263 command vehicle.  The first kit released was the SdKfz 231.

This was my first kit from Roden, a Ukrainian manufacturer better known for its excellent Great War aircraft kits.  The box has very evocative box art of an SdKfz 231 in Russia during the frozen winter of 1941/1942, with a four-view colour rendition of one of the four markings options on the back of the box (only Humbrol colours are called out in the instructions, incidentally).  Inside are four sprues, two each moulded in black (primarily the suspension components) and light gray.  My first impressions were mixed,  but favourable.  The plastic itself (especially the two colours) and some of the mouldings very much reminded me of Matchbox armour kits.  Now this is a good thing, since I was very fond of many of these kits.  Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that this company is capable of some very fine work.  Some of the pieces, such as the coaxial MG34 barrel and the vehicle jack, are among the finest plastic pieces I have seen in this scale.

Construction begins with the suspension.  This has been very nicely executed by Roden, consisting of no less than 44 parts.  The detail on these pieces, including the wheels themselves, is very good.  If you were so inclined (although I was not this time around), you could articulate the steering, which would involve turning all eight wheels in an arc (the eight-wheel drive and steering of these vehicles was both impressive and complex).

Moving onto the upper hull and turret, things get a bit more complicated.  This is due to the fact that Roden is trying to maximize the commonality of the kits in this series, and have opted not to include the pieces to make both the SdKfz 231 and SdKfz 232 in the same box.  The major compromise is using the same turret and hull for both the SdKfz 231 and SdKfz 232.  On the hull and turret pieces are all of the fittings for the huge bedstead antenna that distinguishes the SdKfz 232 from the 231.  Unfortunately, those fittings should not be present on the SdKfz 231, so they must be filled and removed (I have noted on the diagram above what's got to go).  Additionally, this kit does not include the supplemental bow armour that most vehicles got in 1940 (it is included in the SdKfz 232 kit).  The bow armour is not unique to the SdKfz 232, however, and should be fitted to almost all SdKfz 231s in service from 1941 on (most early production vehicles had the shield retrofitted).  Roden opted not to include the armour in this kit, but the slots in the front lower hull for locating the braces are still in this kit and must be filled and smoothed (this is also noted in the diagram above).

Overall, the kit above the fenders is pretty good.  A large number of stowage boxes are included, although the instructions are somewhat vague as to the placement of stowage items on the fenders (this seems to have varied a great deal throughout the production of these vehicles).  Additionally, there are no holes to aid in alignment of the four main headlights, so care must be taken here.  Details on the pieces are by and large quite good (I particularly liked the smoke dischargers - not used on early vehicles - and the jerry cans), especially given the limitations of the scale, and fit of the main components (turret pieces, upper and lower hull and fenders) is good, with minimal filling required.  A couple of constructive criticisms, however.  All of the hatches in both the hull and turret are moulded closed, and it would take a lot of work to cut them open - it would have been nice to have the option of putting a commander figure in the turret.  The four prominent driving poles on the edges of the fenders are not included (I made mine from wire), but they could not have been adequately rendered in plastic in this scale at any rate.  Also, the exhausts would look much better if there was at least a hint of texture on them (the real vehicles exhausts have perforated metal over them). 

This kit represents an early production vehicle, which can be distinguished by the rain gutters over the vision ports on the hull and turret and the fact that there are two vision ports on the glacis plate (later production vehicle only had one large vision port on the left side of the hull).  If you want to convert this to a later production vehicle, you will have many small changes to do to the configuration of this kit.  I opted to make a very early version, suitable for the invasion of Poland in 1939.  Aside from filling the radio antenna holes and slots for the supplemental bow armour, I left off the rather clunky brush guards on the hull side and filled in their holes and removed the armoured lip from around the hatch on the front hull (both features were introduced later in the production run).

The markings on the decal sheet are quite nice (although I understand that Roden decals are very brittle), including markings for four vehicles: two SS vehicles, one from Das Reich in Russia in 1941 and one from Liebstandarte in Holland in 1940; an example from the Hermann Goering Regiment in Norway in 1940 (all three of these are in overall German Gray); and a Dark Yellow/Dark Green/Red Brown vehicle from the 15^th Panzer Grenadier Division in Italy in 1943.  There are problems lurking here, however.  There is a photo of the Hermann Goering vehicle on page 199 of the Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War II showing that it was fitted with the supplemental bow armour and also a spare wheel at the rear (neither of which are in this kit).  It also seems to have an antenna mount on the left side of the turret (present on most SdKfz 231s after the Polish campaign).  The 15^th Panzer Grenadier Division vehicles all seem to be very late production vehicles (see photos on p. 8 of Panzer Colors III), with supplemental armour built into the bow (as opposed to the stand-off armour that most vehicles were fitted with), a cover over the engine louvres at the rear, a spare tire at the rear, no rain guards over the vision ports, the single driver's vision port and the antenna mount on the turret side, among many other changes.  Additionally, many of these vehicles are actually late production SdKfz 232s, with the bedstead antenna replaced with the much less conspicuous crows foot on the right hull

rear.  I couldn't find photos of the specific SS vehicles, but the 2^nd SS vehicle in Russia probably had the supplementary bow armour.

Overall, I really enjoyed this kit and would have no problems building others in the series (or the forthcoming SdKfz 234 series that Roden has announced), although I was a bit disappointed by some of the shortcuts that Roden took to stretch the moulds.  I would rather have seen the SdKfz 231 and SdKfz 232 in the same box with all of the parts necessary to build one or the other, with instructions to modify the hull and turret as I outlined above.  The lack of supplementary bow armour in this kit really limits you in terms of what you can build.  Regardless, however, I had a lot of fun building this kit and recommend it highly.  It's great to see such quality kits of much-needed subjects coming out in the small-scale armour world.

References:

Allied-Axis #4 (good coverage of the entire SdKfz 231 (8 rad) family, although no shots of very early SdKfz 231s).

Chamberlain, Peter, Hilary L. Doyle and Thomas L. Jentz.  Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War II.  Arms and Armour Press, 1978 (good shots of early, mid and late production SdKfz 231s and SdKfz 232s).

Culver, Bruce.  Panzer Colors I, II, and III.  Squadron/Signal, 1976, 1978, 1984 (a variety of photos of this family of armoured cars throughout the volumes).

Duncan, N.W.  German Armoured Cars (Armour Profile).  Profile Publications, 1973 (some good photos and a good technical description of the family).

Perret, Bryan.  German Armoured Cars and Reconnaissance Half-Tracks 1939-1945 (Vanguard 25).  Osprey, 1982 (some useful photos and colour plates).

Stern, Robert.  SS Armor.  Squadron/Signal, 1978 (some good photos of SS armoured cars).