Has anyone built LAV-25 Piranha?

The man who built the 1/16 scale LAV-25 (he also built a 1/25 scale Bradley) came by my office on Monday. He seems like a very nice guy and expert model builder. He left me with a very nice reference portfolio of his work and some good information on former Soviet style T-80 tanks.

Hi seakinght, to the forum.

Yeah, that 1/16 scratchbuild was spectacular.

Rob is right, Italeri released 4 variants, I know revell released one but it's a rebox of the Italeri one, and ESCI released some as well. I can't comment on the ESCI, but I've built the revell one and it's fairly nice, with well defined details. I know that the ESCI kits do have some problems with them, as the undercarriage is not completely accurate, to say the least
Have fun, hope you find what you're looking for.

I built the Italeri TOW version for the IPMS Nats in '96. The kit is OK, but very simplistic IMO. The TOW launcher needed some work (as does the entire kit) to make it right. There is no interior, and for me that was OK. The kit is typical Italeri: full of punch-out marks and significant seams that need to be eliminated. On my kit, the machine gun ring was molded backwards, or upside-down, or both--or maybe it was me. At any rate I had to do a little surgery to correct the problem. The kit builds up pretty good OOB (which is the way I built it), but cries out for additional detail.

Build it.

Gip Winecoff

I've built the Italeri LAV-25 a long while ago, decent kit IIRC. Italeri made four variants of the LAV, the LAV-25, LAV-Mortar, LAV-TUA (TOW), LAV-AD (air defense). The only one I don't have is the air defense one.

Esci made 3 of them a long time ago, the LAV-25, LAV-TUA, and LAV-C (command). I've got the TOW and command variants. Not as nice as the Italeri, but they look like an LAV when completed.

Revell of Germany reboxes the original LAV-25 with Desert Storm markings.

hi,italeri has 2 kits of lav-25s one is a mortar carrier and the other isa lav-25 tua, both of the kits are 1;35. hope this was a help to you.

gdarwin.

My son wants one. If I'm correct Italeri released it and Revell of Germany rereleased it. I too would like to know if it is a nice build or a dog before I get him one.

Welcome to the forums Seaknight.