Roco Volkswagen and land Rover

[Albert]

I am looking for Roco a VW T3 Transporter with rectangular front lights. I thought those front lights were specific for the Syncro version, but I bought one and the lights were rounded.
Do you know the reference and if that model was an specific model?

About the Roco Land Rover 109, I am looking for one without that white part the roof. Does it exists?

[Eric]

I think you are right about the square lights being typical for the Syncro version but I also think Roco may have saved on moulding a new grille for the model and just did the pad-printing to re-create a Syncro.

As for the Landrover, I think it isn't possible to release the models without the roof, if you take the seperate part off you will see that there are holes in the roof.....

[Alan]

I have a military version of one of those. Was this "roof extension" a military part? Otherwise, why did Roco do it? I have never seen a prototype Land Rover with them. (Or models in other scales for that matter!)

[only87]

The second roof isn't a miltary thing. It's an accessoir called "tropic roof" (I don't know if this is the right term in english, I translated it from the german word for it: "Tropendach" ).
It's a simple but effective air-condition. On these cars several holes were cut in the normal roof . The second roof is mounted with a few centimetres space to enable a better air circulation between the inside and the outside of the car and to protect the inside from dust or rain. This is very useful on dusty roads, so you can keep the windows closed and won't suffer from heat and bad air too much.
The second roof is always painted white to avoid heating up the passengers part from the sun.
Of course, this option was only available for the Land Rovers with fixed steel roof (neither soft- nor hardtop) which were mainly 5-door 109ers as the Roco Landy. Look out for 5-door landrovers of the 3rd series, you won`t find many without a tropic roof.

The VW syncro wasn't assemled in germany, but in austria by Steyr Puch I think.
The rectangular lights were used before on the Multivan, which is the comfortable version on the T3 and also on some special series at the end of the pruduction.
The syncro models were only fitted with water-cooled engines. This is why all of them wear "mustaches", a second grille on the front.

I hope this helps a bit,

Peter

[skunk]

Oettinger made a version of the VW Caravelle that also had the rectangular headlights - what made it special was the Porsche flat six mounted in the rear. If anyone knows of "Oettinger" decals in 87 scale, I think I'll make one...
www.scirocco16v.com/oettinger_gallery/vwp-aug87-85.jpg