Hey Nick,

Have you looked at the lower hull from Imex? Just my opinion, but I think if I were just getting the hull I'd go with the Imex. I have the complete Mato all metal Panzer III and it's a great tank, but if you're not going completely metal I think the Imex has a couple advantages. First, I like their roadwheels a lot better as they're held in with posts and setscrews, which means you don't have to super glue the outer half of the roadwheels in place, and it makes getting them on and off a LOT easier. Second, the Imex has a lift off top system much more suitable to a plastic top. And the Imex sprockets and idlers are definitely much better than the Mato. Don't get me wrong, the mato is a good tank and Steve is cool, and I just ordered the mato TX/RX/Clark package for my PIII, it's just that the Imex is much better (in my humble, in-experienced opinion) and it's also a LOT cheaper. AND you'll get Erik and that's customer service like NO OTHER!

Anyway, here's my Mato PIII and you can see I changed the headlights and LEDs and added the cupola MG (that was a nice piece, just $10 for gun and mount, and very easy to install). I haven't painted it because I really like it in bare metal. Once I paint it I think it will be very hard to tell it from any other plastic tank on first look. I can see you have tons of experience in RC, but if you'd like to see how I ran everything on the interior let me know and I'll post some pix of the guts. It was running on stock HL electronics, now it's on Taigen 2.4 GHz and I've added lipos for power. Like I said, I ordered the clark package, but I'm still not 100% sure I'll put it in the PIII. I might put it in my favorite Tiger and order another package for the PIII. I think the clark package is a good deal at $149 for my first (because I already have a mato tank) and $199 after that but I've asked Steve if I can leave out the wires and switches and stuff and just get the RX/TX/Clark and how much that would cost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojWH099q6SQ