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50th Anniversary Duel truck.


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9 hours ago, James Maynard said:

Got a very early start on the truck from the movie Duel. Still a long road ahoy but got a start. Doing some more weathering, fading the gold paint. Aging the chassis. I have to order the hood from AITM which I plan to do soon.

Then you'll need a model of the Valiant Dennis Weaver was driving.

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10 minutes ago, Kromolly said:

Here's one that was in progress:

 

I'm not sure if I could pull that off. I may just dig my Duster out and paint it red. If I still have it. I was just in the tote it should be in the other day and don't remember seeing it in there.

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1 minute ago, James Maynard said:

I'm not sure if I could pull that off. I may just dig my Duster out and paint it red. If I still have it. I was just in the tote it should be in the other day and don't remember seeing it in there.

That is a lot of work.  I don't know that I could do it, or would have the patience to see it through.  Good luck with your project.  Looks fun!

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Thanks. I'll probably just build the truck. I may not even do a trailer for it. The weathering and aging is hard. And another problem with this one is they used 2 different trucks in the movie and they were slightly different colors. One is gold and the other is more of a champagne color. Tough truck to replicate. 

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I'm gathering parts to do one myself.
The primary truck for most of the outside scenes and the one crashed at the end of the movie is the one most do, a 1955 281 with Cat 1674 engine and a yellow air cleaner from a Cat loader and Page & Page 60/40 single drive tag axle suspension.
The backup truck was a 1960 281/351 with Cummins engine and it's still with us owned by Brad Wike, allthough it's changed some with different four leaf suspension dual drive, repowered with a newer Cummins engine and a a Cat air cleaner was put on to more resemble the primary truck.
The tank trailer is available from Keystone Aluminum Model Miniatures 3D Printed, I have one and it looks great, AITM also have a kit with the correct cab and hood and most of what you need to do the Duel truck.

Edited by Force
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7 hours ago, Force said:

I'm gathering parts to do one myself.
The primary truck for most of the outside scenes and the one crashed at the end of the movie is the one most do, a 1955 281 with Cat 1674 engine and a yellow air cleaner from a Cat loader and Page & Page 60/40 single drive tag axle suspension.
The backup truck was a 1960 281/351 with Cummins engine and it's still with us owned by Brad Wike, allthough it's changed some with different four leaf suspension dual drive, repowered with a newer Cummins engine and a a Cat air cleaner was put on to more resemble the primary truck.
The tank trailer is available from Keystone Aluminum Model Miniatures 3D Printed, I have one and it looks great, AITM also have a kit with the correct cab and hood and most of what you need to do the Duel truck.

I'm doing the one with the red oil cooler on the driver's side. I am going to order the hood conversion from AITM thanks for the info on where to get the trailer. I didn't think one existed. The decals can be found on Model Truckin.

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The Dual Pete is always an interesting subject.  Back in '71, it would have been difficult to recreate it with only using the AMT California hauler. The cab would be the same for the 3rd truck they used for the add on scenes, but would require a narrow nose front end. Most of the movie used the old style cab which was not available then.  Luckily ATIM  now offers the '59 Pete, and it would be the easiest for us with not so good fabrication skills to use. Then it comes to the details, the biggest detail, IMO, is using the correct wheels. The older Petes and the trailer used various style lock ring Budd wheels. In the 10 years later photos of the '60 Pete, the right front, it has the diamond style disc wheel, and on the left front,  it has  the D shape style wheel. Rear wheels of tractor and some trailer wheels are not correct, they have been swapped out to one piece rims. 

duel01.jpg

duel07.jpg

Edited by leafsprings
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36 minutes ago, leafsprings said:

The Dual Pete is always an interesting subject.  Back in '71, it would have been difficult to recreate it with only using the AMT California hauler. The cab would be the same for the 3rd truck they used for the add on scenes, but would require a narrow nose front end. Most of the movie used the old style cab which was not available then.  Luckily ATIM  now offers the '59 Pete, and it would be the easiest for us with not so good fabrication skills to use. Then it comes to the details, the biggest detail, IMO, is using the correct wheels. The older Petes and the trailer used various style lock ring Budd wheels. In the 10 years later photos of the '60 Pete, the right front, it has the diamond style disc wheel, and on the left front,  it has  the D shape style wheel. Rear wheels of tractor and some trailer wheels are not correct, they have been swapped out to one piece rims. 

duel01.jpg

duel07.jpg

I thought the wheels always looked different in several scenes. There are so many factors that still make this one tough. Like the hood ornament. The colors changed from one scene to the next too. I knew there was 2 trucks used but there was actually 3? Another thing that keeps changing are the colors of the fuel tanks. Sometimes they're black sometimes they're faded chrome. As can be seen in both of those pics there. This one is harder than I thought it would be.

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Its probably best to study photos when the movie was shot, instead of my 10 later photos which aren't 100% accurate. Here a photo from the  actual film, and shows the diamond style wheel on left front. This must be the '55 Pete, due to the way the mirror head bracket is shaped around the mirror.

vlcsnap-2011-11-26-14h09m11s121.jpg

Edited by leafsprings
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The photo above is most likely the 1955 truck, and also shows it's a single drive 281 as the hub on the rearmost axle is not showing because the tag axle hub is smaller than the drive axle hub, and it's clearly visible in other shots in the movie.
The cab is earlier and has even smaller windows than the California Hauler "small window" Unilite cab 351 and AITM has the correct cab.
I actually watched the movie on youtube last night for the first time in many many years and you can see the mishmash of wheel styles used on the rig, there are even one five hole Alcoa aluminum wheel on the drive axle on the drivers side and another one on the tag axle on the passenger side on the main truck, the rest looks to be different lock ring style steel wheels, all wheels also has different tire treads and wear.
Appearently the original 1955 truck was starting to act up from time to time under the filming so the 1960 281 truck was built as a backup if it would break down completely, I believe both of the original trucks had a red luberfiner and the most noticeable difference between them is the air cleaner, there are also some other differences between them.
As I have read the third truck wich was a 1964 351 was built for and used in the extended and re-shot scenes for the theatrical 90 minute version (the original was 74 minutes intended for TV), like the extended gas station/laundromat scene, the school bus scene and the railroad crossing scene and it's easy to spot as it has tubeless five hole front wheels, dual drive, different swamp cooler, different air cleaner and a pogo stick,  they also used a 1972 Valiant for these scenes as the original 1971 was destroyed with the original truck in the final crash.
There was a look-a-like truck built for the Incredible Hulk episode "Never Give a Trucker an Even Break" where some of the Duel footage was re-used, that truck was used for near shots of the actors and was a shorter wheelbase 351 with centerpoint steering and a larger tank trailer.

If you are going to do the tank trailer, remember the original movie trailer did not have landing legs, Brad Wike has landing legs on his trailer most likely to be able to uncouple easier, but they were not originally there.

Edited by Force
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  • 2 weeks later...

 

      James,

                  I have always liked that truck . But I have never been crazy about the movie .

As for what you have going on her. I like what you've done so far. I'll be looking forward to further updates on your progress.

 

    Be Well

     Gator

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17 hours ago, gatorincebu said:

 

      James,

                  I have always liked that truck . But I have never been crazy about the movie .

As for what you have going on her. I like what you've done so far. I'll be looking forward to further updates on your progress.

 

    Be Well

     Gator

Thank you Gator. I have about 5 projects going at the moment and put my Duel truck on the back burner. I just got my Mack Superliner in the mail this morning from AITM and put it in primer. 

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Was watching Emergency from season 2 which would make it around 1973, there was a gold tanker  that looks like it could have been owned by the same company that owned the Duel Pete. Both in Southern Calif, both TV  show and movie were created by Universal Studios. With some creative weathering by Universal Studios, maybe this was the source  company for Duel's trucks. The tractor has a tag axle as well.

IMG_1251.JPG

IMG_1252.JPG

IMG_1253.JPG

Edited by leafsprings
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The truck looks similar to the one used in Duel except for some details like it's missing the fuel tank on the drivers side between the cab and tandem and no swamp cooler box, the tanker trailer is not the same type as they used in Duel, it was a late 40's early 50's Fruehauf 33 feet trailer with cabinets on the sides in front of the tandem.
I read somewhere the Duel truck/trailer was owned and operated by Union Oil before it was used in the movie.

Edited by Force
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2 hours ago, Force said:


I read somewhere the Duel truck/trailer was owned and operated by Union 76 before it was used in the movie.

Maybe someone from So Cal. remembers who operated these gold tankers. The "TYCO" name on the side is obviously  fictitious, but fleets generally use the same paint scheme for many years.  I see no evidence of Union 76 dark blue and orange on the duel trucks, but do see evidence this gold color.

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