Thanks Greg. Fearless? hah!
Bish, ESCI, did not do much in the way of 1/35 Armor kits. But in the late 80s, at the same time that Dragon was starting out, they hit the market with a series of modern AFVs that were all over the board. T-55s, T-72s, BMP1 & 2, LAVs, Leopard 2s, M-60A1 & A3, M1 and M1A1 (actually an M1E1 as it lacked many of the production changes) and some HMMWVs. Some of the kits were pretty weak, some were good, the rest were somewhere in between. But they all filled a then existing hole in 1/35 modern vehicles. AMT had a long association with ESCI here in the US, and they reboxed some of the kits for a lower price here. Italeri has since then obtained some of the molds and released the kits such as the M60s and T-55s, which were probably the best of the lot. They already had their own Leo 2, HMMWVs, and LAVs. The basic M1 was pretty good, but the T-72... well it was a victim of the late Cold War with size and detail issues due to information availability.