Verio 1/6th Armour Visit

An update with some pics courtesy of Victor, Verio's owner. Two Verio Tigers being worked on. The KT is being readied for a towing test after being fitted with new parts due to arrive. The gray coloured wooden crates are used to ship tanks.








KT #13 lower hull with motor and tracks install emerges ..


Steve and I have been invited to go to the workshop on Monday to see a towing test, so I'm taking my video camera.

Victor confirms that the vehicle to be towed will be his 1:1 WWII WC57 Dodge command car weighing in at 5900 lbs instead of his H1 (un-available at this time). At first, he was going to replace the H1 with his 1:1 VW82. Steve suggested the silver Lamborghini LM002 we saw in his 4WD showroom as that it would be about the same size as the H1, but he decided he would use the Dodge instead. Should be interesting!

Yaozza -- we will witness a tractor pull of a 1/6 electric powered King Tiger II towing an U.S. WWII Dodge WC57 weighing 5,900 lbs! That's this thing here (you can also see the front end of the Lambo 4x4 to the right.

We arrived right on time at Verio's location in Shatin to find the KT rolling chasis ready to go. Later we had to pick this sucker up and there was three of us. I estimate it easily weighed between 120 and 150 pounds without the battery which had been removed.

Speaking of which, as Victor explained last time, Verio's Tiger tanks are designed to be powered by a 24 volt system consisting of two motorcycle sized sealed batteries. For this morning's towing challenge, a regular car battery was dropped in place, which means we were pulling with just half the power as the tank was designed for. On top of it all, Victor switched from pulling the Kubelwagon to the Dodge command car, which was in perfect running shape but had low pressure in the tires. Plus the garage floor had a slight slope of several degrees.

It took about 20 minutes to get the car battery and the towing lines hooked up, which was anchored to a hard point to the rear left of the King Tiger. The technician held down the wires to the poles of the battery to start the tank and boy did the little tank start pulling .. within a few seconds, the WC57 front tires hit the wooden pegs that were laid in front of its path. Even the technician had a big smile on his face as he drove. I got too excited to snap finish line photo, but take it from Actionman & I -- the Verio King Tiger armed with 1/2 power would have towed the 5,900 lb WC57 command car with the technician's weight too all the way out to the street and up the hill the shop was situated at if push came to shove. I don't think the local traffic would have appreciated it though, since we are talking about two vehicles moving at 1/2 scale speed for a sixth scale King Tiger. The Hong Kong Police would have definitely taken offense to the stunt on public street anyways. :mrgreen:

Here's Dave (Actionman) and Victor Ma of Verio doing some heavy lifting, which I had to join-in on once they reached the staircase leading to the Verio Tank Room in the basement ..

Since it's at least a two man job, we all got involved with the assembly of the upper hull, turret, and main gun. Dave suggested putting a 12in figure in the turret to show the true scale, but either one of us had brought any and neither did Victor, so Dave's Marlboro Lights had to sub for an action figure. :mrgreen:

No sooner had Victor fiddled with the cannon did I suggest that we turn the turret for photo shots. I started to turn when Victor stopped me from ruining the turret motor and said he'd have to reach inside to dis-mount it. Dave and I had to lend our arms to hold up the entire upper while Victor fussed with the internals, after a couple minutes the operation is done. Please note -- all hatches on hand-built Verio tanks come as standard details and all actuate. Notice the hinged mud guards also actuate to reveal the hard point to which the towing cable was attached earlier. All accessories e.g. cables and hand tools come built in to the tank. Another detail is that all paintable parts on Verio tanks come sand-blasted and ready for paint jobs.

We had a look around the tank room again, of which we weren't allowed to take any photos during our first visit, probably because it was the first time Victor had met me and Dave, and for all he knew we were industrial spies. But nope -- we were just 1/6 collectors belonging to various international discussion forums with an interest in 1/6 scale metal R/C tanks. A quick look found Victor's other working prototype -- Tiger I number 34, which will also be assembled with the latest 3rd version heavy-duty gearbox anodized in blue.

Right next to Tiger I No. 34 were two gas engines, and quick questions received confirmation that these Italian-made scooter gas engines had previously been installed in two Tigers belonging to customers, and is said to make these metal monsters fly! Jumps off berms and catching major air like motocrossers are definitely possible. Gas power of course has its limitations in over-heating, so run time must be kept to a minimum.

Then the discussion turned to installing 4-strokers and water-jacketed Zanoah marine engines with custom built mini-radiators --> all possible, if that sort of thing fancies you, Verio will built it for you.

Lastly, a couple shots around the shop reveals the rack of tanks, some of Verio's earlier creations in 1/8 scale (the 1/12 Tiger I to the extreme left was the first Verio R/C metal tank ever) plus other fun toys -- including the owner's town & country sleds. Myself, I'm most taken by the pristine condition Lamborghini V-12 powered 4x4 LM-002 exotic, built for the Italian army for testing. Victor's desert camoufalge H-1 would have been nice, but he drove his maxed out Land Rover today instead. Lucky guy, Victor.

Actionman & I hoped you've enjoyed the images from our two visits to Verio. We may be back to meet Victor again in the near future, once he finsihes outfitting KT No. 13 and T1 No.34 and put them to test in the field. So our next visit may be somewhere in the limited open country that Hong Kong has to offer. May be he'll let use drive next time. For now -- I think it's safe to say that the King is back, King Tiger that is, and it lives in Hong Kong.

MAA out!