Tamiya released their Daimler Mk II some 34 years ago, and while this is a nice little kit of a fairly obscure piece of military equipment, advances in molding technology and increasing standards have not been as kind to this.

Out of the box, the kit is basically accurate (at least as far as I'm able to judge using reference pictures). However, the level of surface detail and finesse of the moldings are not up to modern standards. What you get is a basic kit with a number of good but spare details. For such a small kit there are a few areas that can be improved upon. Most notably is in the interior. Missing are the protrusion of small bolts, nuts and other details one can find in the actual vehicle, and a few Grandt line nuts and bolts really helps out here.

Although the vehicle is ostensibly armed with a Bren machine gun, no such thing is included in the kit. I have seen plenty of reference photos both for and against this inclusion, so it may be that not all vehicles were so equipped, or, perhaps, equipped when the necessity dictated it. Also missing are the stowage panniers for spare BREN magazines that can sometimes be seen underneath the driver’s console. Additionally, missing are the articulating arms for the vision hatches, easily remedied with strip plastic. Unfortunately, there is no provision to open these hatches, and the representation of the vision block on the driver’s side is poor and needs replacement. The back end and fenders could also benefit from a few added rivets as well.

Unfortunately, I found the fit on my kit not quite up to the standards we now expect from Tamiya. I'm not sure if this is inherent in the kit, or if this shows the age of the moldings (my kit is a fairly recent issue). Nonetheless, I found most of the major body components a little tricky to fit together.

The kit assembles with the driver’s compartment floor trapped in a recess between the two hull halves. Here’s where trouble began. The fit was very tight, and required a bit of sanding to make it slip into place more comfortably. That being said, the alignment of the two hull sides was not perfect, and took a bit of work to develop a decent join. Fortunately most of this will be hidden by the hull bottom once assembled. Additionally, fit of the hull front and compartment rear wall was a little sloppy and produced gaps. Again, much of the hull sides and fenders hide the fit problems to the front, and having a seam line is actually somewhat accurate as this follows the construction of the actual vehicle (though weld lines would be needed for complete accuracy.

Another area to watch are the front fenders. I glued mine in and pressed against the hull sides until the cement cured. This created a slight cant in the alignment, which later threw off the fit of the stowage bin. Once the stowage bin and fender is in place, much of any gap would be hidden, so in the end the fit here wasn't necessarily critical.

Beyond that, the rest of the construction was simple. There are not a lot of parts in this kit, so once the hull is constructed, the rest is a breeze that might take an hour or so to complete. One disappointment is that there is no provision for leaving the front fender off (as it seems a lot of vehicles did), and you probably could not get away with just not adding the piece, since it appears the mounts would need to be constructed.

The kit also came with two compartment roof components. These were often left off (or, at least, I couldn't find any photos with them actually on), and the instructions indicate as much. I did not fit these on my kit, so I cannot comment on how well they fit.

Also included in the kit is a separate sprue of figures, including one officer, a driver, and an infantryman. Although the poses are appropriate for the subject, and out of the box it makes for an instant diorama -- just add terrain. By modern standards they are definitely not up to par. The detail is either crude, lifeless, or flat. At the very minimum I would replace the heads and equipment to bring these figures to a usable standard. Some modellers might not even want to bother with them.

Decals are included for five vehicles in British service. This vehicle served from North Africa all the way to the end of the war, so there’s a lot of opportunity for different paint schemes or unit affiliations. Painting instructions are very vague, with no real colour call outs. Good colour references would be useful at this stage. The decals are very well printed in my example, though typical Tamiya. Interestingly, there is no Tamiya logo on the decals, and the sprues have the typical Tamiya information obliterated. While I am unsure what this means (if anything), it was a bit surprising. Perhaps this merely indicates that the components are no longer manufactured by Tamiya in Japan anymore.

Overall a neat little kit. I picked mine up cheap, and given the roles this vehicle played, and its size, it would make a useful addition to an armor diorama, beyond the typical Jeeps, knocked out Kubels, and so on. Although a bit dated, it should not be beyond the skills of the average modeller to build, and I knocked my kit out in a long evening (not including painting and decaling over subsequent nights).

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