Working on this diorama that will accompany the kit is part of the IDF 77 Campaign.
I’ve always found it interesting how the IDF has always reused materials and the captured vehicles are an interesting part of this theme.
The inspiration came from this photo of a captured Unimog near the Suez Canal.
I will use the ICM Unimog S 404 kit and some figures.
Since I don’t have any 100% IDF figures from the period that represent the tracksuit in the first photo and my figure sculpting skills are terrible, I’ll make some adaptations to these two sets to get something similar to the photo, so forgive me for the heresy lol.
I imagined a truck with supplies for advanced troops that makes a quick stop so one of the soldiers can fish.
As I don’t like the rubber tires in the kit, I used them to make a mold for a resin copy, which is easier to work with.
I took the opportunity to copy a resin tire for an upcoming project, a modified M3 Scout Car armored vehicle from the Israeli War of Independence.
The results are terrible so far, lol.
I got some tips from a friend who makes resin kits commercially here in Brazil, Duarte Models. I’ll make new molds that should work.
In the meantime, I continued assembling and painting the kit.
In some places the instructions are not clear enough and the kit’s engineering is not “dumb proof” as I was able to prove, with several errors in the assembly.
I assembled this part incorrectly, which I only realized when I joined the cabin to the chassis. It was necessary to remove the engine radiator. Since the engine will be closed and most of it hidden, this won’t be a problem.
It is necessary to be careful with the alignment of these two parts, as it is on them that the cabin will be connected to the chassis.
Guide pins would be very welcome in this place.
Same as the previous point, these small pieces are the “bed” of the cargo body. Gluing them out of alignment is VERY easy since there are no references for assembly.
A mistake here will misalign a large part of the kit.
Looks like an interesting project Rafael, and a nice start!
Do you know what went wrong with your resin wheels attempt? Was it the mix or something else?
Thanks for the kind words, @SamS
Actually it was more related to lack of experience, as these are my first attempts at creating resin molds. I decided to make a mold with two halves, but I forgot to put Vaseline on the first part of the cured rubber, before pouring the second part of the mold. 
As a result I lost the alignment pins. Now every time I try to make parts, the two halves come out misaligned. 
About the terrible color of the resin, it is due to the fact that I only found transparent resin in the craft store. I brought along some special coloring powder, red was the “best” color available. 
Hello, everyone!
Following the assembly progress, to make painting easier,
I divided it into 4 blocks: cabin, chassis and cargo body.
I made an acrylic color, which seemed close to the color used by the Egyptian Army in the 1970s and painted the large blocks.
In the markings, I mixed the two photos, creating a fictitious record.
In the photo of the Egyptian Unimog, the IDF license plate painted on the door appears to be 137795, always starting with the number 1, traditionally used for license plates of captured vehicles.
So, I modified the license plate of the Egyptian Unimog to end in 9 and made the markings on the sides like the Syrian vehicle and painted the markings, trying to copy the “font” of the image, lol
Acceptable result so far
While I try to get a new mold for the resin tires right, I applied a gloss varnish to protect what I made and will move on to weathering.
In addition to the wheels, the load and the structure of the canvas roof are still missing.
Looking carefully, the Egyptian truck appears to have a structure made up of some supports along the body, with crossbars on top.
A guess is that, in this case, there may be three supports.
Some photos from the internet:
In these photos we have supports for all tastes, lol. Trucks with two, three, and even four, like in the last photo.
I’ll do it with three, plus some reinforcements on the top.
Interesting photo too in that the sides of the truck bed look like they’re corrugated. That may be tough to replicate!
Hello, @SamS!
I did some tests to try to get close to the corrugated effect of the Egyptian Unimog body, but I didn’t like the result.
Since the model will be a combination of the Syrian and the Egyptian, and the first one has the same sides as the ICM kit, I decided to go that way.
After gluing the cabin and body to the chassis, I did some tests with the load.
The red drums are resin copies (these were successful), one from the Tamiya Allied Veichles Accessory Set and the other from a T-54 from HB.
The Styrofoam blocks represent stacked boxes and will be covered with tracing paper, imitating canvas.
I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll cover just the blocks or both the blocks and the drums.
I’ll still add a few more items, like jerry cans, some personal bags and a tire.
The ICM kit is a Unimog 404, the one in your pics over the Canal is a 416, basically the same chassis but cab, body and wheels differ.
Egypt used the 416 while Syria mostly 404 and some 416. Seems the IDF had already captured some syrian 404s back in 1967, but also received some firefighting and ambulance models as civilian aid from Germany. During the YKW many more 404/416 were captured and put to use inmediately.
