Blue Beetle Model A Restoration - FINISHED!

[Tom Geiger]

It started back in September when I found this old built up of the ancient Monogram Blue Beetle Model A pickup.  I've been on a tear with this series of Model A's so I grabbed the bag o' mess for $10.  

And here we are today!  Sorry for my dark indoor photos, it's snowing outside!  And I promised people pictures last week and didn't get time to take proper ones!

I reused as much of the original kit that I could restore. The main parts, like the frame, body, fender units, interior, pickup box and engine are all originals.  That was supplemented with both old and new parts.  I do have a recent Blue Bandido kit and stole the scuba gear, wheels, tire white walls, roll bar and a lot of small parts. I did find that the old and newly retooled parts did not play nice together. 

Another difficulty in restoring the original is that the chassis, fender unit and pickup box were solidly glued together. I had to clean them up and paint, restore etc it all as a unit.  Fortunately the body and interior did come out and apart.

 

The interior is an original and was tough to mask.  The seats had multiple curves and no good separation line to scribe tape against.  I did these a couple of times and they still aren't perfect.  They are originals.  The original bed had a bad tire burn in it and I managed to disguise it with strategic painting and placement of scuba parts.

The  engine is original and the Cadillac script isn't on any of the subsequent releases, including the Bandito.  New parts include the radiator shell, alternator (or is it a generator?) and headers.  The air cleaners and original valve covers were done in Alclad. I wired the engine with a prewired distributor.

Roof is original and took a bunch of work to get ancient glue stains off of it.  The body also had a lot of glue and mess on it.  I did the best I could to clean it all up and it was primed a few times with Duplicolor gray.  The final color is Testors Extreme Lacquer  Star-Spangled Blue which really pops!  

 

The original tail pipes had flared ends, but were not usable.  All of the newer ones I had did not, so I added the ends myself.  

And the group photo.  My ROG phaeton is not in the photo.  As I've worked on this Monogram series the past few years I've tried to make each one completely different, with different kit accessories and options. I've had fun with these. 

Edited January 18, 2020 by Tom Geiger

[slusher]

Great.looking Blue Beetle, Tom!!

[ChrisR]

Nice restoration Tom!

[PappyD340]

Awesome save!

[ewetwo]

Looks beautiful Tom.

[larman]

Nice rescue! The motor looks great!

[Mr mopar]

Nice save I always like the Monogram 29' ford .

[89AKurt]

Wow, that came out great!  People like you inspire me, when it comes to restoring and fixing models.  I always skipped looking at the bagged built kit stash at swap meets, but have learned that some kits are rare, so worth the effort.