Eric Macleod

Here is a long overdue update on my project. I have a color scheme pretty well worked out for both cars. For the actual TROG car, the chassis is in paint and I am beginning the detail painting. Typically, I would paint the engine and chassis separately but with this being a "pulled from the junk pile" project, the chassis and engine were already glued in place and I decided I would do more damage trying to split them for painting. So...they are forever wedded. I am now in the process of adding details to the chassis and engine which is my favorite part of any modeling project. Here is the progress so far. There is quite a lot more to do. For some reason I brain farted and painted the transmission silver even though it should be a maroon color, though candidly, for a project like this, authenticity is a non-issue anyway. Comments are always welcome.

I like where you are going here and may steal your idea for a future model project. Great work so far.

I am interested to see where you are going with this one. You certainly have generated some questions with this one.

Can't wait!

I like your wheel tire combination. Where did you get them? Looks like a very good model.

I cant waitt to get this one!

This is excellent. I too enjoyed the build photos and the end product looks very real. Great work.

This is one of my all time favorite movie cars. Yours looks great!

Now this will be cool. I will also be interestedin watching your progress on that Pyro/Lindberg/Monogram (soon) Lincoln in the foreground.

It is coming along. I am planning to get the interior wrapped up tonight and I hope to get some paint on everything else over the weekend. I am trying to sort out a color scheme. Duesenberg racing cars were often white (my least favorite color on a car...but I digress) with dark red or dark blue chassis. That might not be too bad on one of the cars. The other, perhaps I will be a bit more conservative. While I recognize it is unlikely that one car would have been repainted two times in three years, but this whole thing is fiction so I can have a bit of fun with the process. I have been sort of kicking around a darker color scheme. We'll see.

And here is one more shot of the engine. The car is a model of Duesenberg J 567 (car 2595) commonly known as the Gable car (even though Clark Gable never actually owned it). At the time the model was built J 567 was owned by Al Ferrara of Gates Mills, OH. I always intended to build a model of the companion car owned by Gary Cooper. Someday I will. Instead I built a model of J 431 (car 2425) which was his Derham Tourister. This one was a bit of a bummer. I built the car as close as I thought I could get using black and white photos as reference material. I later saw the car in person at the Heritage Plantation Museum in Sandwich, Mass only to discover my colors were off. Such is the risk of using black and white reference photos!

Here is what I did years ago. This was my first attempt at building an alternate body style out of a Monogram Duesenberg kit. It is clearly looking long in the tooth with shrunken putty and dull paint. Despite that, I have always liked this model simply because it was a real labor of love and was my first successful home-made modified Duesenberg.

I like this. In fact, I like it enough that I have built one myself. That was my first "good" model that was built in a manner that was not strait out of the box. I will try to track down a photo of it.

I continue to plug along with this project, which actually is coming together very quickly (especially by my standards. I have both chassis pretty well ready for paint and have shifted my focus to some details. For the first car, there will be a simple painted radiator but I decided to go with a LeMans Bentley look for full race version. Candidly, I like it well enough that I might make a second for my first car. Moving on, I also mocked up a set of wire wheels and have a photo of the transition from out of the box, to better tires, and finally with the Firestone narrow whitewalls (very similar to period correct Lee tires that were factory equipment on Franklins in the late 20's and early 30's).

I tried my hand at one as a teenager. I remember it fought me every step of the way, but turned out well in the end. As a side note, only the rich kids had a big IMC collection!

Here is the latest. I have both bodies pretty close to being done and now I am working up chassis. My fictional "back story" has been revised again. Our wealthy but uninformed hero took a model SJ Torpedo with cut down fenders to a TROG event. Prior to attending he had a Monel exhaust fitted and added a dual carburetor setup. He added some knock off hubs to be Budd wire wheels and he folded down the windshields. Brunn did a bit of work on the fenders and reshot the paint. They also fitted some custom step plates in lieu of running boards. He got in the car and went out to go racing. We now know the rules did not allow for formal racing of this car but man did it look cool. Next, he will get serious about some real Duesenberg speed.

I really like this. It reminds me of the car my high school cross country coach drove. His was not in the fine condition of your model though! Great job and thanks for the memory.

Larry, You are right on with the Murphy convertible coupe. I built that one about 18 years ago and would like to take a crack at again some time. I think my color choice was totally wrong. My guess now is the car was something very dark, black, blue or a very green perhaps. Really i should tear it down and repaint it. Thus far other projects have prevented this course of action. I thought the car would look good in my Duesenberg speed shop. Thanks for noticing it. Eric

Now that the '34 Ford is done I am back on this project 100%. Last night I did some things that probably don't look like much but will pay dividends later on. I am working on wire wheels and I got the second body sanded out. Perhaps more importantly, I dug through the parts boxes and found a few important detail parts.Here is my progress, such as it is.

I like the Porsche and the Duece. Thanks for posting them.

All done at last. See it under glass.

Wow. Nice clean build with great detailing. I always enjoyed the show so I'm pleased with the reminder. Are you going to do Tubbs' Cadillac?

This has to be one of finest racing models I've seen here. Stunningly beautiful it is.

I would be proud to display this one at my house. You have done a fabulous job with this one. A round of applause for you!

Oh, fabulous. I like this one a LOT.