tomsheehy

From the deep storage, comes a resurected project that I put away about 6 years ago. I started working on it and got pretty far along, but I hit a wall when it came to gettin 'er done. I started with the Trumpeter Bonneville convertible with some intererior parts from the hardtop kit. I grafted a resin sedan roof that was made for me by Tom Coolidge (Promolite). The body work is all done, and the chassis is actually 95% complete, too. The interior was more of a challenge, as I was trying to duplicate the correct Catalina trim on a 4 door sedan (I know the seats are "Ventura" trim, but that's as far as I'm going there!). I made new side panels from sheet stock and used vinyl tape in making the inserts. I have since toned down the white sections with a flat light tan acrylic paint. I still need to paint the body and get the final details done. The finished project will be a replica of a very historic fleet of police vehicles as used by the LAPD in the 1960s. In 1960, they launched a "Freeway Interceptor" Program. They had around 8 cars that they purchased specifically for enforcement on the growing Freeways around L.A. This was also prior to the CHP taking jurisdiction of the Freeways; that occurred around 1969. These cars were different from the standard patrol cars, which were mostly Mopar mid-sized cars during this time, with a couple of years of Fords. In 60 & 62, they purchased Pontiacs for this detail. These were specially equipped with heavy-duty everything and the largest engines available. The interiors sported roll-bars and seats with high headrests and racing harness seatbelt systems. From 63 to 68, they purchased Oldsmobiles for this assignment. Here's some shots from 2006, plus a couple of the real car (last one is actually one of the Oldsmobile's interior. I'll post more as I go along and get this one off the bench...

Great job Dave. Saw plenty of pics of it on another site. Lots of good work there.

My latest vintage State Police cruiser is now complete. This is a replica of a Tennessee Highway Patrol 59 Ford Custom 300 2 door sedan. The kit is a resin production from Promolite 2000 (Tom Coolidge). I built it 'curbside', but I substituted the kit chassis with one from an old AMT 57 Ford Fairlane, which resulted in a little more underside detail and poseable front wheels. The body is fantastic on this kit. It is cast so nicely and matched the color of the THP so close, I just polished the bare resin to a high gloss, and added Tamiya gloss black on the hood, roof and trunk, as per THP specs. The interior is finished in an array of grays and gunmetal, as the 59 Custom only had one interior color available. Police goodies came from my parts box, the decals are from Pursuit Plastics and the roof light is a clear resin unit detailed with BMF and clear red paint.

WOW...one of the best I've seen of any build...congratulations.

Spectacular.

Great conversion, great color scheme...in a word, great!

This is a great kit, and you did it justice. I just took a first in box stock with mine at Masscar last weekend. Almost the same color, too.

Love these unusual rare kits, especially built as a clean box stocker. Great job.

Let's see your high beams!!! Another great build.

Very, very nice. Looks stunning. Another lost kit that needs brought back...or a new tool! Did you alclad the bumpers? They look very good, realistic.

Now that's well done!

Holy Thing of Beauty. Great job, among the best. But, the Resin caster is Tom Coolidge, not Hoover.

Truly nice. Great job.

Very nicely done. Be proud of that one!

Great job, love the detail.

OK, I'll play: Torino/aluminum foil; Mustang/BMF; Olds/foil What did I win???

Great job. You do wonders with your models.

Very nice. The model manufacturers missed the boat by not kitting the B model.

Looks real nice from here Rich.

Now that's sharp and different.

Excellent job...very clean.

Very nice. How does he see behind him? LOL

That really looks good. Nice upgrade.

The Hobbycraft kit is a Hughes 500 in 1/24 scale. They sold it in several versions, including a military and a police version. I have one of the police kits on my 'some day' list to do. It was a very popular chopper in the police biz back in the 80s/90s. CHP had several. The Revell chopper is the same one, only 1/32 scale. The 1/24 kits do pop up on eB every now and then.

Excellent. Love it with the police caps.