As you may know, besides the American fire engines, the tow trucks and wreckers on the other side of the Atlantic are my favourites. But here in Germany, too, there are recovery vehicles that look very appealing and are powerful as well. After my two books about tow trucks and heavy tow trucks in Germany, I thought: why not build a German tow truck as a model? Original photos in the archive.
Then I went looking for a suitable vehicle. Not far from me, about 15 minutes by car, I found this MAN TGA with Empl-Bison recovery body. It belonged to a haulage company in Bad Salzuflen. The owner allowed me to enter his premises on a few Saturdays to measure and photograph the MAN. I had to do this because the Austrian company EMPL did not want to provide me with any drawings. On request I received a chassis drawing from MAN, so I did not have to redraw the four-axle vehicle, which would have been a lot of work.
The question remained which MAN kit to use for the parts I needed to build the model. Neither Revell nor Italeri made a TGA, and EMEK had a four-axle tipper in its range, but not with the large LX cab. So I bought the MAN TGA tractor unit, used only the cab from it and built everything else from scratch. It is in 1:25 scale, but I did not mind; I simply build a model in this size. The Americans all use this scale as well.
This is the EMEK MAN TGA tractor unit that I am using for my conversion. The Finnish manufacturer reproduced it true to the original, even though it is actually "only" a children's toy meant for the sandpit. Chassis, wheels and axles: I could not use any of these parts, they were too simply made.
If you would like to see how the tow truck was built, you will find it in the Wettringer Modellbauforum.
