leafsprings

Nice progress, chassis and wheels look great! When it comes to bodies and frames for light-medium duty type trucks, we really have to turn over every stone to find something that will work. Foreign kits. obscure American kits and resins usually come together to the rescue.

First photo '67, second photo '72. There was a chrome molding trim surrounding the grill added for '68 thru '72. Notice how trim lines up with edge of bumper. If Modelhaus was still around, I'm sure they would have offered the correct grill PLATED to their product offerings by now.

My biggest pet peeve is the grill, we did not get the grill shown in the photo below, the sides were never raked back at the bottom as the '68-'72's were. The grill used in the kits are closer to the one year only '67 grill minus the letters in center of grill.

Paint scheme looks great! Looks early 70's, when company fleets were proud to show off their unique colors.

An idea for converting the '53 Coke pickup to a '53 Coke flatbed.

I did pretty much the same on a F 350 conversion, flat panel with some putty work, but the back of '57-'60 cabs really have a lot of detail that is hard to duplicate.

The same Flareside bed ( stepside in GM ) was used from '53-'72. The problem with the stepside conversion is the '60 Styleside bed ( fleetside in GM ) was molded into the cab. The separation leaves you with no back of cab. Aftermarket never offered a resin back of cab panel for this, or a small back window back of cab panel, probably because there was not enough interest because it was a low production kit. That should change if it was re issued thru reverse engineering and they become plentiful.

Sorry to hear the news. Dave was a big part of the truck model hobby.

Nice job! Does it have a CAT too?

Nice job! A clear case of "form follows function". The spokes look very 70's.

Great kit bashing! The C cab is a natural for the pumper body.

Thanks for your input Tim. IMO, the 57, 58, 59, 60 would be a great series, improvements could be made with a frame and suspension, and cab and bed could be separate pieces. One other thing that could be improved, a separate bench seat not molded into the interior tub. I believe Modelhaus covered the 57, 58 and 60 in resin, but never did the '59. ( shown below) IMO, the best looking of the series.

Green headlights? I've heard about the green windshield and green side glass to represent the era tinted windows on this first kits, but green headlights too?.

Very nice job, the single drive sleeper version is often overlooked and underrated. Like the fender fill in work! A suggestion, painting over the chrome step box green, would, IMO, improve the look even more. Raisin27 did this recently on his CF build.

Thanks for posting afx. I'm not impressed with the grill, as with the earlier '69 grills, the headlight buckets seem much too large, possible the builder used too much black wash on the grill cant tell yet, however, it does appear we finally have larger tires, larger wheels and larger hubcaps. Bravo! These photos show 7.50-16 tires on 2 piece rims, 16" solid did not exist in this era. I will build with correct stance of course, not a 3-4" drop.

There is hope, they can reverse engineer from a complete old kit, as they have done recently with the IH 4070A. There is a strong market for it, old paint and glue bombs consistently sell for over $100 as long as I can remember. Maybe an insider can chime in if it's in the cards.

Thanks all. IMO, the old IMC flatbed, van trailer and tanker are good matches for the older pre 70's resin trucks that are out there. The load of pipe is from Keystone SHOP | Keystone Aluminum Model Miniatures | United States (kamodelminis.com)

Beautiful job on that factory type restoration. 4x4's and especially Broncos have really taken off in recent years ( right up there with muscle cars now). Why AMT never covered the 67-72's and 4x4's in the early 70's is sad.

Great job! Very nice vintage CF fleet truck! Hope my in progress WF SD comes out this good!

Thought there might be some "what's in box" photos from the insiders by now. Really hoping they do this one right, many of our aftermarket resin people, if anyone has noticed, our pretty much down at this time.

It's been a while, any updates on this kit? In particular, looking at the accuracy of the grill, correct 16" or 16.5" truck highway tread tires, 8 lug wheels and larger hubcaps designed to fit 8 lug wheels.

Nice job on your WF CF build. The single stack and short grab handles look the way CF ordered them. I like the way you painted the footsteps green, blends into the body nicer! Another oddity on CF's were the low mount driver side mirrors, are those in your plans?

Very nice work on the period looking rounded fender flatbed, looks old school. Wheels and suspension really set off the vintage look!

You are building one of my favorites, appears to be an early 60's version. Most of these resins are curbside, but it would be nice if the hood panels opened up. A Cummins ( NH-250 shown below-note non turbo center dump exhaust manifold) would be a much more common site in this type of vehicle. Great choice on lengthening the frame, IMO, most conventional frames in most kits are too short for western trucks. Were you thinking of a flatbed truck with short flatbed trailer behind it?

Very nice Mercury conversion, great choice going with the factory tu tone with correct period colors!