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Posted (edited)

What's a Warszawa? Well, the Warszawa is the first Polish post war automobile. Built under the license of the Russian GAZ M20 Pobeda in Warsaw from 1951 the first cars were basically the GAZs with very few differences (logos and so on), by 1957 the cars were altered a bit, today you'd call this facelift I guess...

This is it:

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If you live in Poland, and had some 30 bucks monthly, then you could subscribe to a magazine and with each copy, you'd get a piece of the model, like a wheel, left front suspension, and instructions how to put it together. After 2 years you ended up with a 1500 pieces model that is mostly die cast, which makes it weigh baout 30 pounds when done, with workling suspension ("real" leaf springs in the back!), opening doors and windows(!), opening hoods and lights...

I don't live in Poland, and got mine from a friend who bought the whole subscription second hand on polish Ebay or so.

The kit itself doesn't leave much room for improvement in terms of detail, but it was ment to be put together without painting or gluing. The body was laquered in gloss red, a color that I hate on cars, and so I decided to improve the kit where needed, paint everything, strip the body and paint that using the car above as my main inspiration.

I began small with the carburettor. What you see here is 15 pieces, and an afternoon of painting...

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Then I altered the head, the wiring harness was a mess, so I built my own using the kit pieces and scratchbuild sparkplugs and leads. Now the ignition works exactly like on the real car...

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From there it kind of snowballed, and after three weeks of painting I had an engine bay that would fool people owning the real car... I changed just minor details, like the readiator hoses with clamps, bits of wiring, stuff like that.

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I painted the trunk area too. The car on my pics is this petroleum/aqua greenblue, but it seemed to have been repainted at some point, and you can see the gray underneath. Therefore I opted for gray on the surfaces you wouldn't touch while respraying a real car. Mostly because I wanted to have it more interesting in terms of color, and on the other side I felt the gray gives me more room for painting scratches and damage.

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The mess... I was sent to the garage with the model, as it's big and heavy, my wife doesn't really want me building it in the kitchen.

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This is where I'm at right now. Today I successfully painted the hood and the trunklid, this week bit by bit I will have the whole body done.

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Thanks for looking, have a great day.

 

Edited by Mr.Zombie
Spelling mistakes...
Posted

I'll be back to take a closer look at this one. It is a really exciting project of a very unusual subject and an unusual source for a model. 

Posted

I can see Harry P drooling now.

I can't exactly get excited over the subject matter.

Now if they did that same thing with, say, a 1/8 scale Superbird or Daytona... B)

Posted (edited)

I can't exactly get excited over the subject matter.

Now if they did that same thing with, say, a 1/8 scale Superbird or Daytona... B)

Or maybe a '33 Packard, '35 Auburn, or '40 Cadillac.  This model is awesome, however.  Looking forward to more!

Edited by bbowser
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

I got myself a set of colors to build the real car I linked first, and it was a complete fiasko. Therefore I rethought the colors, and that's what came out of it. Of course, this is just the beginning, there will be more grime, dirt, rust and so on...

Posted

The weathering is incredibly realistic! Awesome!

I remember riding in these (as taxi cabs) in Poland in the 70s.  I remember the very soft back seats and the smell of cigarette smoke.

Posted

Fantastic!!! The rust, patching, primer etc, not to mention little details like the wear on the door lining from the window crank - all in all about the best grunge look I've ever seen on a model.

  • 2 weeks later...

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