When I wrote the preview article for the MarS Sd.Kfz. 263 kit, I said, "It's very difficult to say when I have seen the best resin kit ever, but I'm getting close to it with this one. I hesitate to say that it is the best, because I don't want to do an injustice to any of the other very fine kits out there . . ." I still do not want to insult any other kits, but I think that this time, I am actually going to say that this is the very best resin kit I have ever seen to date. Take a look:

I am sorry that I didn't take the small parts out of their bags, but I really didn't want to spend 15 minutes cleaning them up again, and risk losing some while scanning. But even so, you can see that there are a bunch of them, and they are all very finely molded. There are no molding imperfections on any parts in this kit. The detail cannot be beat. The hull is completely detailed inside and out with open visors and hatches. Mesh is included for the anti-grenade screen on the turret.

I am actually surprised that MarS did not also detail the engine compartment. It seems to me that if you were going to go this far in producing the world's most detailed kit, you could have gone all the way.

You know what would be great? If MarS produced some figures. Can you picture a line of tank crew (or even infantry) figures produced with the same high quality and artistic level of casting as they do with their vehicle kits? That would be amazing. They could start out small, and include a couple of crew figures with each of their kits, but then expand from there, releasing full sets of tank crew for various nationalities, and infantry sets, and . . . ahhhh, but it is a dream of mine.

Thank you Rafal, this kit is absolutely amazing. When I can overcome my fear of utterly ruining it, I will actually try to build this little masterpiece.

Postscript: An anonymous viewer (thanks Adam :-) sent in the following scan which better shows the parts after they have been removed from their sprues: