1935 Auburn Speedster - The Abysmal Lindberg/Pyro Kit Completely Reworked

[BERT100]

Outstanding work. Thank You for showing us your accomplishment .

[1959scudetto]

You hope it's acceptable? (Jürgen is just a bit modest) It is a museum piece, just an incredible transformation.

Absolutely - I NEVER had the patience to spend 900 (!) hours on a car kit!

Harry P. would have loved the result of your work!

[Classicgas]

Truly unbelievable work of art!

[Steven Zimmerman]

Good job ! I worked on this; ended up cutting the rear deck lid off and using it as a hood on a 41 Willys !

 

[Plastheniker]

Thanks for the recent replies!

 

All I can say is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!    -I think that this is the most reworked build I have ever seen, its not the usual "hack job....fill it with whatever, and smooth it out" job, it looks like plastic surgery -pardon the pun. that convertible top looks REAL!!....how'd you accomplish that?

Dann, I found a top in my parts box that looked a bit like the Speedster's top. After some pondering I am rather sure that it was a leftover from Heller's Mercedes 540K I built decades ago.

Though it was too wide, too long and didn't follow either the curvature of the body nor the angle of my windscreen the necessary modifications were less effort than starting from scratch. Finally the right shade, however, is the most crucial factor for a convincing look of any convertible top  IMO - I had to repaint this top twice. 

[Lovefordgalaxie]

THAT IS NOTHING SHORT OF AN WORK OF ART. 

Amazing. 

[Chuck Most]

Acceptable? Acceptable? Brother, you pole-vaulted well past "acceptable" and ended up somewhere in the neighborhood of "unbelievable".

 

[waynehulsey]

Great job on that.

A few months ago I got the urge to see if I could do a reasonable job with it. Still hacking away at various parts to match the drawings I found. Knowing what I do now, think I almost would have been better off starting with a block of wood. But got too much work in it. If I ever finish it hope it comes out within 3/4 of yours and I'll be satisfied.

[Spex84]

Absolutely spectacular. Wow. Thanks for the WIP shots showing how it all came together!

[Eric Macleod]

In my opinion,  this has to be the very best Auburn 852 Speedster model in the world. Absolutely stunning.  By any chance did you do anything to create a corrrct drivetrain?

[Modelbuilder Mark]

Stunning. Got to stand next to a 1:1 scale version of one a couple years back.  I was shocked at just how magics they are. 

[John Goschke]

Beyond brilliant!  Beautiful from every angle and surely captures the character of the real car.  Love your color choice, too!

This is modeling at its best!

[Impalow]

This is absolutely amazing.. Fantastic work resulting in a beautiful model.

[randyc]

This is a kit that I would love to have in a usable form.  I'm a reasonable builder, I don;t mind having to fix some things, but as the original post said, this kit OOB is completely unusable.  I think this is the only kit in my life that I have ever thrown the entire thing away.  Absolutely nothing of use in the box.  

This build is beautiful!  Outstanding workmanship and the patience involved to create it!  

[PeeBee]

Hi,

 

Though the Auburn Speedster is one of the really iconic cars of automotive history there never was any usable styrene kit.

Whatever you hear about the Lindberg (former Pyro) kit don't believe it - everything is much worse. The kit parts are crude and mostly out of scale. Fit is disastrous. A lot of important parts aren't replicated at all. Worst of all OOB the finished kit is so ill-proportioned that it looks rather like a caricature:

 

 

After 60 years of modeling and several hundred built kits I think this is the poorest kit I have ever seen. Lindberg's claim on the box "Authentic Scale Model" is a joke even if you consider the age of the kit - Revell's kits of the same era are still usable.

 

After comparing the box content with an excellent scale drawing found on the web it was clear from the start that this would be a challenging and very time-consuming project.

 

As expected I had to convert almost every spot of the multi-piece body:

 

All the rest of the kit was completely useless because it was so poor and so incorrect that it couldn't even be modified. Finally the finished model was half conversion and half scratch build, and my sacrifice of time exceeded 900 hours.

 

Since the proportions are now very different some more pictures than usual in my topics may make sense.

I hope the result is acceptable:

 

 

Outstanding work, as usual!  May I ask how you made the top?  Never mind.  I found the answer.  Sorry

Edited August 21, 2017 by PeeBee
Found the answer to a question.

[Plastheniker]

Thanks again!

 

Absolutely magnificent - the beautiful Auburn Speedster finally gets the tribute it deserves.

Do you have photos of the engine and chassis?

And if you ever take on an ITC '40 Mercury, I'll be watching!

In my opinion,  this has to be the very best Auburn 852 Speedster model in the world. Absolutely stunning.  By any chance did you do anything to create a corrrct drivetrain?

I use to build almost all my models as curbsides because IMO not perfectly aligned bonnet parts or varying gaps spoil otherwise nice models. When I want to show a detailed drivetrain I display it separately or build an additional detailed chassis.

Here, however, that question didn't arise at all. As shown on the WIP pictures I made the body shell separated from the chassis. A shut bonnet was essential for the stability of the whole body shell. Moreover I needed the engine bay for some massive (invisible) reinforcements.

 

Because the kit's floor pan was no longer usable due to the new proportions of the body I was compelled to make a new chassis. As in 1:1 it is very simple (rigid axles and leaf springs front and ear) and IMO not very interesting. That is why I didn't dare to turn the model upside down and possibly damage anyting, particularly the fragile windscreen frame.

 

I hope you are not disappointed.

[Zoom]

Wow, this was great! Fantastic work!

[Eric Macleod]

I agree with your approach 100%. I was simply curious if there was more magic behind the curtain! I also agree that you can only do just so much to make an old ladder frame with leaf springs look interesting.  The whole point of an Auburn Speedster is the body anyway. Again,  fabulous work.

[Ack! Ack-ack!]

I know this terrible kit, incredible achievement. What did you use to chrome your parts? They look perfect.

 

[GerN]

Incredible!  Beautiful!  It takes superior skill to make something so bad look so good.  BTW, here is a four-way from The-blueprints.com, a free source.

[Plastheniker]

I know this terrible kit, incredible achievement. What did you use to chrome your parts? They look perfect.

 

I used the new Molotow chrome paint.

Spraying the Molotow paint from the refill bottles gives even better results than using the pens, the larger the area to be painted the more obvious the difference:

- Spray the paint directly from the refill bottle without any thinning
- Use the same air pressure as always when spraying any other paint with your airbrush
- Opposite to Alclad there is neither a primed nor a polished surface necessary, Molotow even fills tiny scratches (600 grit or smaller)
- Spray generously until a shiny and smooth coat appears
- Clean your airbrush with water, if necessary with alcohol  
- In order to avoid finger prints do not touch the sprayed parts for at least one week

 

The refill bottles contain 30 ml and cost € 19.95 here in Germany (appr. $ 23.00). 30 ml is a rather large amount sufficient for many kits even if building chrome loaded vintage road cars.

 

Try it, I am sure you will be delighted!
 

 

[Dave B]

Jurgen, you are an artiste ☺

Dave B

 

 

[Plastheniker]

Incredible!  Beautiful!  It takes superior skill to make something so bad look so good.  BTW, here is a four-way from The-blueprints.com, a free source.

I found the source of a similar drawing I used for my project:

Line drawings of the Auburn 851 speedster made by Gordon Buerig in 1968 from original data in his files dated July 1934.

It is larger and shows some chassis details. It is obviously the template for the mirror-inverted The-Blueprints.com drawing.

[f1ford48]

AMAZING Build- great to  see one with the top up and the colors are great.   how did you do the wheels?  

[Platerpants]

Wow! VERY NICE