Final word on the Norman E. Timbs Streamliner updated 6 17 2015

[Peter Lombardo]

Some of you may remember the build I did of the Norman E. Timbs special......if you do, I will spare you the gory details, if you did not see it, just look it up....it is in the forum somewhere.

After the car was complete, and I thought I was "done" screwing around with it an idea popped into my head one day. During the research for the build I read many stories and saw many pictures on the life and almost death and finally the rebirth of this unique vehicle.

Well, the idea was that I could "replicate" the different stages of the car and bring the static pictures to life in a diorama, well, actually three dioramas depicting three distinct stages in the life of the car.

Picture one is the birth of the car. I had viewed the picture of the Timbs special sitting on the trailer out in front of Norman Timbs house as it was being taken over to the metal fabricator who was about to form the aluminum panels over the wooded buck he had built of the swoopy shape he has designed.

In the upper left you see the actual picture of the buck on the trailer. We "airbrushed" out the buck from the picture, blew it up and added the actual model I made from balsa wood of the buck. The model was painted in tan and gray tones to match the black and white photo of the buck. The model "Pops" out of the scene giving it a three 3D look.

In the second diorama, I modeled the car the way it looked as it was found abandoned in a California junk yard. Again you can see the actual picture in the upper left and not yet visable below it is the model.

Here is the model of the car as it was in the junk yard.

And finally in scene three, here is how the car looked as it was presented in 2010 in the Amelia Island

I designed, and my brother created the artwork for the grill and front and rear bumpers that was photo etched for this build.

Not visible here, but under the long back of this car is the complete chassis and resin Buick Straight 8 engine, This diorama has a motor hidden in the base with a remote control unit to raise and lower the back of the car, just as the real car has........but the batteries are currently dead, and I am out of fresh ones, so if you want to see the engine and chassis, all scratch built, look up the other posts of the car and you can see it is excruciating detail.

P.S....if you look at the old postings and your eye are sharp, you will notice that this is a different body to the original model I built. I was not happy with the windshield and the interior color, so I rebuilt the body and made a better windshield and used the correct color for the interior.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Peter Lombardo

[SCI-FI]

...

Yowza.

Great model of a gorgeous car.

[cobraman]

Sooooooooooooo cool !

[59-Desoto]

Holly Smokes, now that is one cool looking car. Well done love it.

[slusher]

Cool and beautiful ..

[vintagercr]

Peter, I saw it last year at NNL East and it was amazing!

[DumpyDan]

I agree Steve, what a model

[Dominik]

Wow. very impressive work.

[Pete L.]

Great work, super project planning and execution !!!

[MAGIC MUFFLER]

What a great and beautiful build you did here!!!!!

I worked on this car many time preparing it for the shows. It actually has real gold ground up and mixed

in the paint - about 3oz's to be exact. It's a wonderful story and resurrection. Gary just called me a couple

weeks ago to come over and prep it for a museum exhibit.

I've been very fortunate to work on many great cars in my career and I'm excited to see some builds on this

forum that builders are doing of some of these cars.

Here's a couple other shots - me prepping it at a show for example, pic at Pebble Beach and misc ….. Enjoy

[bobthehobbyguy]

Very nice work. Love the idea of displaying the car in its various stages.

[curt raitz]

Great Job Peter!

​I had forgot about this model and you definitely did it justice!

good to see you still building!

c'ya

[SCI-FI]

I read the other "workbench" series, but it seems to have ended abruptly.

Can you expound on the photoetch work?

[jjsipes]

Looks great. Love the looks of the car and the model. Awesome.

Here's the wip for anyone that wants to see it. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=49174

Edited June 16, 2015 by jjsipes

[Peter Lombardo]

Well, so much for the "Final Word" on this car.....It appears that I can add a little more.....First, thanks for all the kind words from you guys, I really appreciate it, and thanks Curt.....come to think of it, I kind of forgot about it too.....after the car was built, it sat in a box for months and months waiting for me to do something with it. One day, the thought occurred to me that I had seen many, many pictures of the car and they showed the car in various stages of its life. The thought popped into my head that I could actually bring many of the photo's to life by inserting the model into the picture. My brother is a graphic designer and sign maker. He is very adept with computer drawing programs so I asked him if he could "photoshop" a few pictures that I had of the car. My plan was to have the picture of the car removed from the scene and have the model replace it. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea, so I knew I had to create two additional models of the car, one being the buck, made out of balsa wood and one being the run down version from the junk yard. And lastly, the finished model would be displayed as it was in the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance in 2010.

Each base was built from black foam-core material with blow ups of the photos, without the car, glued to the bases.

In the last post, I mentioned that the car has a motor under the base (of the finished car ) and I didn't have any batteries for the system.....well, I picked up a few and opened the back and took a few photos so the engine, spare tire and gas tank are now seen. You can now see the bracing under the rear body panel and the spare tire behind the fuel tank....also visable is the rod that raises and lowers the back.

Here is a better shot of the interior with the re-do interior and windshield on the second version of the finished model I did.

Here is a shot of the back of the car....we created a replica of the actual license plate on the car.

You can notice that the left side of the rear bumper is a little as-cue..9 leaning down )..it was missed in the picture, but is fixed now.,

Here is a photo of the description of the model that is attached to the finished car. It has all the information you would need to contact the company in Scotland that did my photo etching. They are great to work with, very in-expensive and do fantastic work. I would use them again in a heartbeat.

So Charles, these are the guys to do the photo etch and here is the actual sheet as it came back to me. We created the artwork in a computer drawing program and sent the file to Scotland. I had a lot of space to fill, so we added wipes of various sizes, '32 and '34 Ford grilles and a few sets of Timbs special parts.

and finally.....I really mean FINALLY.....here is a short video of how the rear of the car opens and closes with the remote control motor. ( well, I think the video is here)

https://www.flickr.com/video_download.gne?id=18868300492

If the video doesn't work, let me know so I can try and fix it.

Again, thanks for looking guys.......I really appreciate the interest in this build and the idea of bringing the photos alive.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Peter Lombardo