1:35 Sd.Kfz 9 FAMO spare wheel rim (2pcs)

The eighteen-ton tractor that lifted tanks

The eighteen-ton class of half-track tractors represented the summit of German recovery equipment. The machine designated Sd.Kfz 9 was built by the FAMO works in Breslau, a large twelve-cylinder gasoline engine drove it, and its calling was to free a stuck or damaged tank and take it to a workshop. For the heaviest types one was not enough and the tractors were harnessed in twos and threes.

The wheel the machine carried with it

The set brings a pair of rims for the spare of the steered front axle. On this tractor that axle was unusually massive, because it had to bear a nose weighing as much as several passenger cars, and a spare wheel belonged to the equipment as a matter of course, like a tow rope or a jack.

What to do with the part on a model

It can be appreciated above all where the machine is to look fitted out for a long journey. Stowed on the platform behind the cab, lashed to the side of the superstructure or tossed down beside the vehicle in a workshop scene, it says more about service than a freshly sprayed surface without a single scuff. The best results come when you color it differently from the rest of the machine: a spare tended to be older, more scuffed and often came from a different delivery than the wheels under the axle. Before gluing, check how the part joins the brackets and level any excess with a file.

A rare machine among ordinary equipment

Relatively few of these tractors were built and units guarded them carefully, so in period photographs they look more like an exception than an everyday sight. From the same chassis there moreover arose a conversion with a revolving crane for workshop companies, which could lift an engine out in the field.