alan barton

Wow, I really didn't expect such a strong response to this little car! Thank you everyone for responding, it means a lot. As frustrating as the sub-par paintjob was to me, I guess the street brawler nature of the build helps carry the patina'd paint, if you will. As resin doesn't lend itself to paint stripping, it will just have to grow old gracefully, scars included! Cheers Alan

I think this model will be the benchmark for hot rod modellers world wide, for a long time to come. Congratulations on achieving such a superb result, Martin, it is, as everyone has said, truly amazing! Cheers Alan

This build started with a Jimmy Flintstone resin body of a chopped 29 Model A Tudor, bought through stiffkitty on eBay many years ago. The thick body discouraged me from going full bore into detailing the interior and now that it is finished, you can hardly see anything in there anyway. The resin body has scratchbuilt firewall and wheel wells from aluminium printer's plate. The chassis is an almost stock Deuce hiboy frame from the Revell Model A coupe and roadster kits, using the blown small block Chevy that comes in the kit. I did add a fabricated X member using Evergreen rectangular section styrene.The rear wheels are from a first issue Double Dragster kit and I think the Firestone slicks came from a first issue 57 Chevy kit. The front wheels are also from a Double Dragster. The rear axle and spring are from a Red Baron kit. I chose a cheap auto shop spray can enamel ( Aussie Export brand) purely for the colour but it has taken years to dry and I can still leave fingerprints on ( not in) the surface way too easily. Tis not a great paint job and it has rubbed through in spots so I will call it patina and move on - but I won't be using that can of paint again! The style is traditional but in all likelihood it is a contemporary fairgrounds type cruiser. Most of this chassis was built from the parts remaining after building the channelled version of the Revell 1930 coupe. The rear axle and radius rods, rear shocks, wheels, tyres, Moon tank and seats came from the parts box, illustrating just how easy it is to get two cool models out of the one box if you have a decent stash of parts. I'm really glad I bought about ten of them! Cheers Alan

They are indeed, as is the engine itself if I remember correctly. Cheers Alan

Thought I might bump this old thread as I have finished a few MPC Switchers based models since I last posted. The green sedan delivery is a forty year old survivor from my early days! Cheers Alan

Beautiful job, Luke, you really have done it justice. And ShaunS, thanks for the comparison views, that does it illustrate the difference very well indeed. Funny how a line out here or there can have so much impact on style! Cheers Alan

Thanks everyone for the kind comments. Thank you Craig and Pete for adding your models to the post. The more the merrier! Cheers Alan

Yes, Michael, I was aware of the diecast connection. I have wondered about the significance of that. When you see DDA diecast in a hobby shop, they look pretty good but they are all painted nice and shiny and you are seeing them inside a box generally. They also have a bit of a Jada D rods look about them as well which is probably quite acceptable to a diecast collector. I guess what I am hoping is that DDA will be more fussy about their diecast moulds so that, in turn, the plastic models are more accurate! Cheers Alan

To my eye, the rake of the rear window is not quite right. When built and painted it can only possibly be an XW or XY Falcon and Aussies have waited half a century or more to get our homegrown cars manufactured but I just wish they would take that little bit longer to get them right. Dan, you are correct about it being an XR and having a different roofline to the XY but sadly the XY is still not quite right to my eye. I had a dear friend in Sydney who was somewhat of an oracle on toys and models of Australian manufactured cars. He had quite a lot to do with providing reference information for the first ever modern range of 1/43rd diecast Australian cars. Some of these didn't quite look right and the owner of the company confirmed that one of the biggest problems he had was that a Chinese designer or pattern maker had never seen any of these cars in real life and thus was unaware when a line or a detail was just a smidgen off, as with the XY shown above. I just wish the Aussie owners of the companies who HAVE seen real Holdens, Falcons and Valiant were just a bit fussier on getting the proportions spot on. Nonetheless, I have bought four of DDA's products so far and just hope that they will improve with time. Cheers Alan

A clean build of a rare and nice kit. You have solved a mystery for me - I had that expanding luggage rack for years but never knew where it came from - now I know! Cheers Alan

Great news, my Issue 222 turned up right after I made this post and then my issue 223 turned up earlier this week. Back on track at last! Thanks to the crew that continues to put this great publication together. I hope everyone else around the world who have been waiting patiently as I have will see their copies soon. Cheers Alan

Now April and still nothing for me in Western Australia. Do the postal authorities just chuck this stuff in the bin? I mean, where would they have big enough facilities to store stuff for four months before they get around to sending it? Is it now a case of " You can pay for postage but we will deliver it if and when we feel like it?" And surely it is not just this magazine. It must be putting people out of business! Cheers Alan

What a nice subtle custom! The T-bird wires really give it a lift and like Ace said, the silver paint is a perfect fit for the body style. It's been really interesting to see all the 41 Plymouths on here lately! Cheers Alan

Thanks everyone. Have been a bit distracted lately but did get some colour on the chassis yesterday which revealed some flaws that I should have noticed so a bit of sanding and repainting before I have something to show. Stan, I am aware of th4 car but haven't looked at the photos in ages. I recently purchased a Drag City Castings chopped 32 window so you never know! Would be very cool to have on the shelf. Tamiya TS 51 Racing Blue. I suspect it is darker than the original car but there are so few colour photos of it, it is difficult to tell. The original body that Jim restored for the GArlits museum is also darker than the photos I have. Plus, I like the colour and I doubt whether anyone in Perth Western Australia ever saw the car to be able to tell me I am wrong!!! Cheers Alan

Thanks very much, everyone. I hope to have my black version finished shortly. I am going to use the factory trim decals but prepared to scrap them if they don't look good enough! Cheers Alan

Thanks to all of you who enjoy these models. Here's the last three - apparently I didnt hit "Submit Reply "the other day - dohhh! These ones you may have seen already as they were all done this year. The original Son of Ford was given to me by a good friend and only needed a light restoration and polish. The orange Son Of Ford 2.0 uses a white kit but has genuine Son of Ford parts including pipes, rollbar, headlight bar, injection, fuel tank and firewall and hood. A Boothill Express straight axle gives the right attitude at the front. The Little Deuce 2.0 was built from a yellow 1985 issue with a white interior and the carbs and valve covers from a Monogram 30 Ford touring. It was completely inspired by Mr Metallic's similar build last year. LAstly, a long stalled project that needs to get finished this year I reckon! It's a channelled 32 roadster using the interior, floor and frame of a Lil Coffin and rear fenders from a Blue Beetle. Channelled roadsters were enormously popular in Australia during the sixties and early seventies so I'm aiming for an Aussie feel, including the FE motor from a Mysterion and heades from an AMT 32 Vicky. Cheers Alan

In 2023 I built my third hiboy. After seeing Bernard Kron's hiboy with a big seat roll I knew I needed one for my collection. The top of the Monogram seat was built up with a filler piece from a Lindberg T bucket and then puttied and sanded to shape. The windscreen is a white metal Duvall that changed shape every time I touched it! I covered it in Vaseline and moulded it to the cowl with automotive body putty them gently pulled it out and sanded the cowl to shape. Wheels are Revell 37 Ford and the engine is a from a Monogram Pie Wagon. The headers are cut down from those icky things from Revell's 427 SOHC found in the Willys pickup, Henry J and Austin gasser. It has a 40 Ford dash, RHD of course, and the gear shift knob is a skull cut from the radiator of a Hot Wheels Rigor Motor toy - this is the one that looks like Grandpa Munster's Dragula. There's two on all the earlier issues, some white, some chrome, some gold and some black. Later issues do not have the skulls - time to hit the Bin of Death at your next toy fair!

In early 2022 I decided to try once again to do justice to Fred Nilan's Dixiebelle. An AMT 57 Fairlane Y block was installed with the correct T-Bird rocker covers this time. Fred had the manifolds done in black ceramic so this time they are painted gloss black - the white was correct when I built the first two models. I modified the roof to match photos and used a white plastic body that had the correct headlight bar location. I fabricated a coil sprung rear end to match what Fred had built way back in 1970. This time, I think I am happy! As a side note, I was using an old drag racing newspaper called Rodsports to get some reference shots. You can barely see my model tucked near the back tyre in the photo. As I read the article, I noticed the publication date and it was exactly fifty years to the week of when I originally built my first Fred Nilan roadster. Spooky stuff!

Next up, probably mid nineties, is my second attempt at a hiboy. The body was a yellow 85 issue that was a short shot so I had to reconstruct the bottom of the cowl on the driver's side.This time I added filler strips of flat styrene, front and rear, before cutting away the fenders from the frame and leaving a lip that would become the reveal of a Deuce chassis and also ensure a snug fit on the fender wells, The motor is a Monogram 40 pickup flathead with a resin Ardun setup that I must complete one day! I had a broken windscreen frame from the red Little Deuce so I cut the posts down to look like a dry lakes racer with the windscreen and posts removed. Front wheels and tyres are AMT 40 Ford while the rears are Monogram 41 Lincoln.

I made my first trip to the USA in 1992 and found myself at Chimneyville Hobbies in Pearl, Missouri. A great old guy ran the place which was actually his home! Built up survivors (we didn't call them that then) were going cheap so i grabbed this original Little Deuce. I don't know if any one recognises the colour/? It is a very translucent red, Pactra perhaps? I had good intentions of stripping and redoing the red paint but I'm kinda glad I didn't now.

I think my next build is this almost box stock roadster from the yellow 1985 re-issue, built when it was near new. I was definitely one for following trends! It is lowered by drilling and filing out the top of both crossmembers and has my signature right hand drive. Probably the simplest version I have built of this model. The last photo shows the difference in headlight bar location between the first two issues and later ones. An odd mistake to make and even more unusual that Monogram made the effort to fix it!

Aha! Let the Kiwi-Aussie sledging begin!! All jokes aside, I am really impressed with the fabrication work you have displayed so far - this is going to be a very special model! Cheers Alan

Fast forward about six years and I am living in a Single Men's Quarters in the remote Pilbara mining town of Paraburdoo. Time to get back into building models. I removed the fenders from the frame of the first version of Fred's roadster and sanded them smooth to make a hiboy. On my later hiboys I would cut the fenders off away from the frame to create the distinctive 32 reveal but I wasnt that sophisticated back then. The motor is a Revell blown 427 with 409 headers, because I had them! Front and rear ends are from a MPC Switchers 32, the rear wheels and tyres coming from an MPC Galloping Ghost that I wish I still had! This model had one of my first ever spray jobs and I learnt that different colours of primer affect the final tone of the top coat. It is now over forty two years old - and I have never changed it other than adding a driver for a club diorama.

Another top car in West Coast Rod and Custom Club was the Lime Green roadster of Lyall Newland. It had a very hot 289 in it with a fair bit of Shelby gear on it. It drove across Australia including about 300 miles of very rough gravel roads to the 1st and 2nd Australian Street Rod Nationals in Narrandera, NSW. Despite the tough drive, it won Best Roadster at the 75 Nats, an amazing feat. Another Son of Ford was purchased and it was built basically box stock. Monogram reckoned it had a 302 Ford motor in it so I went with that - it was years later that I discovered it was actually the old Pontiac! At least I had a Shelby air cleaner for it! The model was actually sprayed GMH Lina-Mint Green at the same time as the hood for Lyall's Deuce was painted. It came out smooth enough but with almost no gloss. It got chipped and scratched over the years so I repainted it, with a brush, in Dulux Lime green and that is paint is still on it today. At some point in time I fitted 5 spoke mags to the model but I really should replace them with the chromed rims and baby moons it had when I first built it.

Hi everyone, On any forum or Facebook page, you often see the question - "What is your favourite model kit?"or similar. For me, it is a no-brainer, the Monogram 1932 Ford roadster that started life as the Little Deuce in the early sixties. I haven't owned every re-issue but have owned two Little Deuces and five Sons of Ford. In all I own fourteen of these kits with eleven built and three to go, so I thought I would share them with you with a quick description of each model. Feel free to add a photo of your Monogram Deuce to the post - but let's keep it pure - no Revell, AMT or MPC roadsters please. Not that I don't like them, I have built all of them but this is a tribute to the Monogram Deuce. The first hot rod kit I bought with my own money was the Son of Ford in 1971. I had just joined our local hot rod club and wanted to build a model of Fred Nilan's beautiful Dixibelle. Fred started building the car as a very striking hiboy but completed it as a black full fendered roadster with a 292 Y block Ford engine, the only readily available OHV-8 available in Australia at the time. I used the Y block from a 57 Fairlane mode. l I brush painted the model in Humbrol black and my Mum helped me cover the interior in red velvet ribbon which looked very plush. I made a cardboard roof for the model by copying and enlarging a 1/32 Lindberg roof. This was painted flat white repeatedly until the cardboard didn't show. I showed it to Fred and it was displayed alongside his car at the '72 Car Spectacular at the Pagoda Ballroom in Perth Western Australia. I was very proud of it! In my late teens, I decide to purchase another Son of Ford and recreate the model completely. I re-used the red velvet interior as well as the Y block exhaust manifolds but fitted Chevy finned rocker covers and a tri carb manifold from the Monogram 30 Phaeton kit to look closer to what Fred was running at the time. Yep, those parts were fitted on top of the Son of Ford Pontiac engine but with a bit of paint, who was to know? Instead of the baby moons and chrome rims that I used on the first model, I used Riviera wires just because I liked the look. It was and still is brush painted but I did a lot smoother job the second time around.! By now I had been given a glue bombed Little Deuce so I finally got a proper roof for the model and I also used the Little Deuce tailpipes. The original model was stripped to bare plastic and was re-invented as a hiboy that you will see later. These photos are of the second version.