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Deuce Days July 2022 Victoria, British Columbia For over two decades Victoria has hosted the Pacific Nor’West Deuce Days every three years, first in the neighbouring community of Oak Bay it has now grown into a major show held in Victoria’s Inner Harbour downtown. It is greatest number of Deuces gathering in one spot anywhere! In conjunction with this Summer event our club, SPAM is hosting the third “Deuce Days in Scale” at the host hotel. For the first two events I built the “Blue Suede Vicky” and the “Red Hot Phaeton” and for this year I have settled upon constructing an East Coast Style 5 window coupe based on the R/M issue. Being under the gun with a short build period I’m attempting to limit the changes to the kit to a channelling job and some other rolling stock. East Coast rods were noted for keeping the stock heights while lowering the body over the frame rails. While stock fenders were eliminated they were often replaced by cycle fenders up front and bobbed ones on the rear. Magnesium wheels were just being introduced on the opposite coast in California in the late fifties, so steel wheels with or without hubcaps was the norm out east. Effort was spent on using one of the newer overhead valve engines at the time; Caddy, Olds, and Nailheads were often used, while the early Hemi was a more exotic choice. It was often the interior mods that drew the eye with a complete make over with tucks and rolls done in bright colours. The exteriors remained rather conservative compared to their west coast brethren with low key enamel schemes rather than candies and metalflakes. In this case I’m looking at LP 27, German Grey with a gloss coat overall. I began the build by tackling the channeling job first. The R/M kit has separate rear wheel wells that I installed first and carefully outlined the required cut by lining the frame to it and drawing the new profile. It was then a case of careful trimming out to fit. The chassis itself required a bit of tweaking to reduce its overall width near the leading edge of the wheel well. Once satisfied with the fit I moved on to the interior mods to reduce the overall height of the assembly allowing it to fit into the lower confines of the body. This was done by cutting away the lower edge of the door panels and the rear bulkhead. For the frame to fit the lowered stance it required the removal of the gas tank and a shortening of the rear frame rails. A new crossmember was fashioned to fit in the rear and a round spreader bas was added to the front end of the frame. In addition the front cross member where the front spring sits in was deepened and the top leaf from the spring was removed to lower the front end somewhat for that typical hot rod attitude. Having gotten rid of the fenders and the fuel tank in the rear left a sharp ridge to the coupe’s body below the trunk. To improve the look I fashioned a small rolled pan to complete the body lines at the rear. It was an easy modification using quarter round shapes across the rear and small sections at the ends to complete a smooth transition at the rear. More to follow, thanks for looking in! If you are anywhere near Vancouver Island in July, do drop by, and even better bring along a scale Deuce… Cheers Misha