Russell C

As I mentioned in my intro, I built trucks exclusively from the late '70s to the late '80s. As one popular adage from the internet goes, "show pics, or it never happened", so here's one old project I finished in May 1982 that doesn't require me to rummage far in my scanned image collection. I just had to take the one photo below with three pics in it since my scanner isn't functioning lately. Basically, an Ertl Great Dane with a reefer engine modified to be a Crown 500, with a kitbash of a Chevy Astro cab and lots of sheet plastic and semi-scratchbuild bits, painted up in blue/silver in my own stripe design, and having a Double-O 92 Detroit Diesel. The grill material was the chromed plastic stuff in the Revell Custom Parts for Pickups box. Originally, it was supposed to have a whole electric light system in the trailer with fiber optic lines going to all the lights and some means of making the signals flash, high & low beams, on or off fog lights. But, that ended up being way over my head back in 1982. Later when I really needed cash, I sold it to one of the Albuquerque Model Car Club guys, I hope he still has it. It didn't turn out half bad, but it could have been a lot crisper... but what does one expect from a 17 year-old builder?

Fascinating. That appears to me to be a '60s vintage one-off custom that was probably inspired by the much more famous Bob Nordberg 1964 Revell-Pactra contest winner. Phil Gladstone at the International Model Car Builders' Museum allowed me to take the photo below from the Dec 1964 Car Model Magazine which showed more than one photo of it. Prior to that, all I'd ever seen of Nordberg's model was a side view of it in a 1964 Rod & Custom Models magazine.

I used to think ordinary automotive store brands were pure junk, but when I was in somewhat desperate need to a quick yellow coat for this model a couple of years ago .... (borrowing somebody else's photo here) .... I was amazed how well an ordinary can of Ace Hardware Premium Enamel Sunshine Yellow Gloss flowed out, hardened up, and polished out to look like a metal painted surface. No clear coat needed, it shines up quite nicely.

I have a particular weakness for mix 'n match illustrations à la Harry Pristovnik. It's the main reason why I switched from building only semi trucks to a bunch of mix 'n match cards like my BMW Cadillac and my Lambo 300, I wanted to see my ideas in 3D. Those of mine were done prior to my getting to computers and graphic arts. Now I can butcher cars in PhotoShop in moderately convincing manner (or lately in CorelDRAW since my newer computer can't handle my old PhotoShop 7 and I can't afford a CS3 upgrade). Such as the section I did to this unfortunate '59 Fury... Or transforming what I consider the 'worried look' of factory Jeep Libertys into something more retro... Can't wait 'til when I can get into the sort of virtual 3D drawing as seen in this 3D drawing blog.

My model railroader brother bought this Sierra West Scale Models 1:48 scale milling machine kit to build as a Christmas gift to my machinist dad, but due to his free time constraints, he asked me to finish it. Taking some license with the appearance of it, I upgraded it to include its own electric motor/transmission power source.

For a while, I had these two. Tough economic times forced me back to having just the GTI. It's an '86 with a few assorted upgrades, and around a quarter million miles on the odometer. The other was my '77 Blazer Chalet, an impulse purchase that was supposed to turn my Colorado tent camping vacations into 'farther backroads' adventures. But, not enough money to devote to further restoration, and the thing only got around 10 mpg when the price of gas went to $4.50 per gallon.

Ditto on the creative use of the aerodyne sleeper. But, having once owned a Blazer Chalet, and being the current owner of the blazerchalet.com web site and nutcase researcher on all things pertaining to the Chalet and the GMC Jimmy Casa Grande (that's my former rig at the top of this April '09 Hemmings article), I'd recommend going the scratchbuilt route to replicate the camper unit. If anyone is ambitious enough to undertake such a project, I can probably point out where the nearest full size one is for reference purposes. I'm kicking around the idea of doing this myself as a killer factory replica stock contest entry, but I'm not sure how much work is needed to correct the usual shortcomings found in the various Blazer kits.

Yes, actually, to entice folks to build a full size one. Alas, the fates have instead been not so generous with me ever since, where the lack of money never allowed me to pursue such ideas. I also thought my BMW Cadillac combo was a viable full size project (perhaps on a less collectible Caddy coupe with the roof sawed off), along with a full-sized altered Lambo kit car based on my Chrysler 300 / Countach which had its 15 minutes of fame on the cover of Model Car Journal in 1994.

For those wondering about my avatar pic, that's the 911 Porsche Turbo woody wagon I built back in 1992. It's just a curbside, mostly Fujimi-based with corrections made to the rear fender openings with help from a Revell slantnose kit. Wish I could remember which kit provided the Dunlop tires, I could use another set for a current unrelated project....... The wood is nothing more than a cut-up magazine photo of the wood in somebody's cherrywood bar. The roof is a narrowed portion of a Monogram '39 Chevy Sedan delivery. To see if what I had in my mind's eye, I first did up a drawing of it using tracings out of a Porsche brochure.

One of those things I've never gotten around to, I guess. Been building model vehicles since 1975, especially liked the AMTs at first with the straight metal rod axles since I could play with my cars in the carpet. Built exclusively model trucks from '77-ish to the late '80s. The first contest I attended outside of the local state fair was the 1989 Southwest Challenge in Dallas, with my BMW Cadillac. June 1990 SAE magazine, click to enlarge. Perennial attendee to the Greater Salt Lake International Model Car Contest non-stop since 1990. I'm the guy with the running joke in the "Group" category where I build the vehicle as a yellow 3-wheeler, as in this year's Group 13 1949 Ford. (borrowing somebody else's Fotki photo here) The fun 'bookend' concept to that is the '64 Caddy bumper (now narrowed) on my Ford is the leftover one from my BMW Caddy project Slacked off in building recently, but I should get back into it. No reason not to. Gregg " the Kahuna" knows me, probably says I'm a nut. - Russell Cook