Until this Italeri new tooling of the mighty Tonka, the only game in town has been the relatively ancient Revell/ceji tooling from 1985, or the more recent Revell only tooling from 1996. Both have their good and bad points but I think both are now well and truly eclipsed by Italeri's offering.
The box is substantial, measuring 560 x 280 x 115mm and fairly weighty! Although the tray of the box is of substantial cardboard, the lid is somewhat flimsy and will readily crush if smaller boxes are stored on top. The artwork depicts RAF GR.4 ZA542 'Danger Mouse' against a stormy background with some lightning thrown in for good measure, and is very appealing indeed. For once as far as I can tell, you can actually build the aircraft depicted, in the manner in which it is depicted; in other words, you now have the option of deploying the slats, spoilers and flaps without resorting to major surgery or after-market products. The only bit missing from the box art depiction is the pilot & Navigator...
In the box you find a lot of plastic, (including the signature massive fin) moulded in light grey plastic. I have not taken the frames out of their bags as yet, but from a reasonably good look through the bags there does not appear to be any flash, nor sink marks evident, attachment points are nice and small in most cases and there do not appear to be any excessive or awkwardly placed ejector pin marks. Panel lines are engraved, but not excessively so and the detail looks to be well defined and sharply moulded (something that the newer Revell offering cannot claim to be the case on all parts in my experience).
There is a fret of PE, mainly for use on the ejector seats, vinyl tyres and wing glove (nice!) and some very nicely moulded clear parts for the canopies etc.
Options-wise, there are plenty in the box, from undercarriage up/down, flaps, spoilers and slats open/closed, air-brakes open/closed, reverse thrust buckets deployed/stowed and of course, wings can be deployed at any of the variable locations. It should be noted that if you build the kit with flaps deployed then you will not be able to swing the wings inward, as the flaps will not pass through the wing gloves in this position; there again, I don't think the real thing could either so no great loss. There are also options for displaying the nose open or closed (with radar parts provided for the former, re-fuelling probe deployed or stowed and canopies open or closed. All in all, pleanty of variety for posing the built kit, and a good reason to buy several!
Weapons & stores are abundant and varied, comprising fuel tanks, BOZ pods, Skyshadow, AIM-9L and GBU-12s.
The decal sheet provides stencilling (without going overboard with them) for one aircraft and specific decals to allow any one of three subjects to be built; all are grey painted but with the provided nose art and/or special scheme decals all will be good looking aircraft. The decals are very nice, well printed with absolutely minimal excess carrier film, good colours and appear nicely in register
For fans of the Tonka, and who like the larger scales this has to be a must I would say; the options of having everything 'hanging out' makes for both an interesting build and resulting model. I'm sure there are already various bits and pieces coming out from the after-market chaps to provide even further detailing but from what I can see in the box and in the instructions it's going to look pretty good OOB.
