Hoffman

Helmut, well done! The colors are very close to factory offering cumberland green and colonial white. Looks great!

Bruce, you did an exceptional job on this Rolls Royce. Beautiful!

I Like it! ?

Gentlemen, thank you for all the nice compliments! ? Glad you like it. Jim B, this is 1/24 scale.

Pico, it looks great now! And I agree, the Kellner Coupe is arguably the best looking Royale of the bunch. I got to see it in person when it was still owned by Briggs Cunningham and on display in his museum in Costa Mesa. I was 18 at the time and just completely blown away by the car. So huge, yet so perfectly proportioned, elegant, stately, just amazing. This is on my list to scratch build. Getting back to my Italeri '33 Cadillac convertible coupe project now. Just finished reworking a Danbury Mint Hispano Suiza for fun, now it's back to body work. If I grab another die cast before finishing that Cadillac, Eric Macleod will punch me. ?

The idea with this project was to disassemble the model and repaint everything to better match some of the few full size examples still in the world. The Fernandez & Darrin cabriolet body appeared both on the J12 cars and K6 as well. Hope you enjoy the photos of the updated model and some prototypical Hispano Suiza's I looked at for inspiration. Exterior- Dark blue shade is original Danbury Mint color. Light blue is Tamiya Color for Aircraft, #AS19 Intermediate Blue, followed by Testors #1834 Wet Look Clear lacquer. Panel lines on the trunk and vent doors on the hood were done with Indian ink in a Koh-I-Noor pen. Chrome trim added to the beltline is a combination of Bare Metal Foil and Molotow chrome pen. The Sedanca style canvas top was brush painted a custom mixed tan color in water based acrylics, then sprayed over that with Krylon chalk clear coat. Added a combination spot light and rear view mirror from a Mercedes 500K, which is a match for what I’d seen on one of the full size Hispano Suizas. The license plate is a photo reduced copy of an actual vintage California plate. Wheels and Tires- Monogram classic series tires (Duesenberg, Packard, etc). Wheel back halves are modified Monogram Packard, front halves are modified Monogram Rolls Royce. Hubcaps are cut down Hispano Suiza caps from Danbury Mint. Tire walls painted with Liquitex water-based black acrylic. Treads are a mixture of gray/brown Liquitex. Interior- Monogram Rolls Royce Henley Roadster bench seat in place of stock buckets. Floor and door panels painted with water based acrylics first, then door panels painted with artist oils over that to give them the look of leather. Oils used to wood-grain the door tops and dashboard, then clear enamel for gloss over that. Engine Compartment- Model originally had a shiny chrome plated firewall. Experimented with Krylon clear Chalk over that chrome to make it look more like the aluminum firewall on full size HS J12's. Also, the model originally had large, square gaps in the engine compartment flooring around the exhaust pipes. Not correct. Added material to complete the flooring like a full size HS J12, covered that in chrome mylar tape, again over sprayed with chalk clear to make it look like aluminum. Detail painted the valve covers gloss black, mixed up a blue/gray/black color for the exhaust manifolds, painted the engine block a warm kind of cast aluminum color, painted the hood sides, added the fabric weather strips common on 1930's cars around the edge of the firewall and radiator.

The idea with this project was to disassemble the model and repaint everything to better match some of the few full size examples still in the world. It helps sometimes to dig up older photos. There's a tendency with modern restorations to put chrome wire wheels and white walls on everything, even if that isn't very accurate for the subject in period. Painted wires don't look quite as nice sometimes, which is a matter of taste, but frequently that's what these cars had to begin with. Hope you enjoy the photos of the updated model and some prototypical Hispano Suiza's I looked at for inspiration. The Fernandez & Darrin cabriolet body appeared both on the J12 cars and K6 as well. Wheels and Tires- Monogram classic series tires (Duesenberg, Packard, etc). Wheel back halves are modified Monogram Packard, front halves are modified Monogram Rolls Royce. Hubcaps are cut down Hispano Suiza caps from Danbury Mint. Tire walls painted with Liquitex water-based black acrylic. Treads are a mixture of gray/brown Liquitex. Interior- Monogram Rolls Royce Henley Roadster bench seat in place of stock buckets. Floor and door panels painted with Liquitex acrylics first, then door panels painted with artist oils over that to give them the look of leather. Oils used to wood-grain the door tops and dashboard, then clear enamel for gloss over that. Sedanca style canvas top repainted a custom mixed warmer tan color in water based acrylics, then sprayed over that with Krylon chalk clear coat. Exterior- Dark blue shade is original Danbury Mint color. Light blue is Tamiya Color for Aircraft, #AS19 Intermediate Blue, followed by Testors #1834 Wet Look Clear lacquer. Engine Compartment- Model originally had a shiny chrome plated firewall. Experimented with Krylon clear Chalk over that chrome to make it look more like the aluminum firewall on full size HS J12's. Also, the model originally had large, square gaps in the engine compartment flooring around the exhaust pipes. Not correct. Added material to complete the flooring like a full size HS J12, covered that in chrome mylar tape, again over sprayed with chalk clear to make it look like aluminum. Detail painted the valve covers gloss black, mixed up a blue/gray/black color for the exhaust manifolds, painted the engine block a warm kind of cast aluminum color, painted the hood sides, added the fabric weather strips common on 1930's cars around the edge of the firewall and radiator.

Very Nice, Dave! Love it. ?

Those are cool!

Outstanding!! With the right background, you could easily convince people it was a full size vehicle. Well done, Muldoon! ?

Skip and Kenn, whatever happened to this great SSK/710SS coupe project?

Very nice, Terry! It looks quite convincing. Love the interior colors. Well done!

That is Cool!

Guys, thank you for the compliments. I must apologize though. I should have posted this in the Diecast section. I don't mean to misrepresent the work here. This was just a fun, quick rebuild before I got back to serious body work on a plastic kit project. Following are photos of what a full size MB SSKL looks like, and what a Franklin Mint version looks like, typically on ebay for like $20. ?

This is an FM re-work to make it look more like the full size car and less like a toy. The biggest change are the wheels and tires from the Lindberg SSK kit. They feature carefully painted black spokes, molotow chrome locking rings at the outer edge, and copper brake drums behind the spokes. I kept the FM spares on the back, but painted the spokes black to match. The interior came with a black seat and red carpet. I painted the seat and sides of the cockpit red to match. The front axle and brake backing plates were repainted from black to white, and the edges of the drums painted copper. The outer rims on the back side of the wheels are from AMT '27 T wheels, just the rims with the spokes cut out. I used some black and gray artist acrylics to represent shadows in the lightning holes in the chassis, making them more three dimensional. That's about it. Enjoy!

Looks excellent, Dennis! Reminds me of a Steve Stanford rendering. Very cool.

Claude, that combination works really, really well together! Great job. ?

Testors jade green metalflake! Cool! I had built one similar to this, then rebuilt it in the 80's, using just the body. I've always meant to get back to it and build a nice stocker like the beautiful version built by John.

Outstanding!!!! ?

Beautiful work, Larry! Looks great. ?

Larry, super helpful tips on the fender beading. Thanks! https://www.albionhobbies.com/product-ranges/albion-alloys-precision-metals/

Larry, that really turned out great! The fender beading is a nice touch. How did you attach it without glue showing over the paint? I've been wanting to do this on another model. I've been contemplating gluing the wire down, painting over it, then scraping the paint off the wire. Not sure that's the best approach. What was your technique?

Randy, you made my day!! ? Thank you so much, and Happy New Year!

Oh, and I agree about the dull finish on the fender chrome. I bet it was bright when new, but dulling over time right under the clear. I went over mine with a Molotow pen.

Randy, I like what you did with this. I finished doing more of the same. I thought the front end sat too high, track too wide, and wheels too far back. So, I grafted in front suspension from a Monogram 540K. I adapted the better FM steering linkage to that suspension. I did paint the spare tires white, like you, but I replaced the other four wheels with Monograms instead. I wanted to be able to see the red painted brake drums through the spokes. I used artist acrylic oils to repaint the interior. Mine was missing the top boot and one spot light, so I adapted pieces from the Johan 500K kit. Their tail lights are better, so used them too. The front bumper brackets on the FM diecast were too clunky and put the bumper hanging out too far, so I made replacements from aluminum strip and pulled the bumper in closer. The chassis on the full size car I was looking at was body matching red, so I did that too. See what you think.