Rob Haelterman, Kübelwagen

Preliminary remark
Even though I started from the DAK edition of S-Model's Kubelwagen, I built it as a non-desert version, using resin wheels from an MPK set. As with most S-Model kits, this box contains two kits, and as I am runing out of spare wheels, the other one will (have to) be built with balloon tyres. Note that the use of these tyres wasn't limited to North Africa, but could also be seen in Italy, even though they wore out very quickly on hardened roads.

I gladly refer to the kit review by Gert Ten Brink for another take on this kit.

Version represented by the kit and impact on the licence plate number
The kit represents a vehicle from a batch produced from late 1942 to early 1943, i.e. after the new spare wheel mount was introduced, but before the front bumper appeared.
In this timeframe it would originally have been delivered in a dark grey camouflage.

Looking through [1], I found the following:

The latest vehicle I find with the old spare wheel mount is WH-1279689. I feel safe to assume that the whole WH-127**** batch carried the same features.
This is also the last batch I’ve seen in the DAK with certainty, although the last chaotic months might have seen a few from a later batch.
I can’t find Kubelwagens at all in the WH-128****-WH-136**** range. Probably this sequence of numbers was allocated to other types of vehicles.
The earliest Kubelwagen with the kit's features in [1] is WH-1377130 and the latest is WH-1429394.
The earliest Kubel with the front bumper I found in [1] is WH-1429680. This means that the bumper was introduced somewhere in the [WH-1429395-WH-1429680] range. The cardinality of this range (285) is as narrow as I can get it, and it’s good enough for me.

While not 100% conclusive, I feel confident to say that the Kubelwagens with the features as represented in the kit would not be carrying licence plates outside the WH-1377***-WH-1429679 range. Pictures in [1] show vehicles of this batch both on the Eastern and the Southern front (which were the main fronts in the period of production). The diorama in which my kit ended up represents a scene from Germany in 1945, so we have to assume vehicles from this batch survived this long, which is not unlikely for a utility vehicle.

(Disclaimer: I haven't done the same analysis for vehicles used by other services than the Heer.)

Note that the kit doesn't come with decals at all, so I used licence plate decals from JK Resin and some unit markings from the spares box, including an instrument dial from an aircraft cockpit detail set.

Construction
The kit was mostly buit out of the box (except for the above-mentioned wheels).

I added the following details, even though the kit is already nicely detailed, as is:

Pedals for the driver
Legs for the seats
Detail to the backrest of the seats
Longer shaft for the steering wheel
Window wiper motors to the window frame. (I am wondering what the disk on the windscreen in step 6 is supposed to represent, as it is not present in the kit and doesn't match any known detail.)
Fuel tank next to and a little behind the instrument panel.
Clear acetate for the windshield

I did not use part A-12 (the air filter) or the spare wheel.

I was a bit disappointed that the tarpaulin only comes in the folded position and that the PE parts for the frame were not handed. As these parts have only detail on one side, and are identical pieces for both sides, you can only see the detail on one of them after gluing them in place. This was also the only area where some extra care was needed to blend in the tarp with its supports.

At the very end, I "misplaced" the steering wheel, so I replaced it with an item from Wespe.

The licence plate numbers were painstakingly assembled from individual numbers.