Projekt TeeVee/Berry Mini-T

[Snake45]

AMT's TeeVee dune buggy (rebodied Manx kit) never claimed to be a Berry Mini-T, but the influence and inspiration are unmistakable. I started one of these as a kid and never got it finished. I ended up resurrecting its chassis and engine a few years ago and finished it off as a bare-bones pure off-road dune buggy. (I tried to build the body into a front-engined V8-powered rod 50 years ago, but that's a story for another time.)

As I never got mine done, I'd never seen one built until some of the reissues started showing up here and elsewhere. And a big problem with this kit became apparent: The steering wheel would be just about exactly where the driver keeps some of his favorite and most important internal organs. In other words, the cockpit is too short front-to-back. Even mounting the steering wheel so close to the dash that you could just barely grip it, you could still only barely get into the car, and would be driving it from a MOST unusual position. Ouch.

Last week I was reading some ancient East Coast car rags and found a pic of the Mini-T that looked to be about 1/25 scale, so I laid the AMT body on it, and it's DARN close to scale. Comparing the AMT body to the photo and measuring, one problem become obvious: The dashboard is about 9 scale inches or so too far to the rear. AHA!

There's another problem that isn't so obvious, too. The kit uses bucket seats. Notice that on the real Mini-T, the seat back is just an upholstered panel that sits right up against the cockpit's rear edge. The bucket seats waste several precious inches of “chest room” in that tight cockpit.

So I'm gonna try to alter the TeeVee body to, first, give the driver some living space, and second, try to look a bit more like a real Mini-T. It looks like the whole hood area might be a bit short top to bottom. Hmmm, I'm gonna let the back burner of my brain stew on the problem for a couple days, and then maybe bring out the razor saws and sheet styrene.... As a Famous President likes to say, “We'll see what happens.” Thanks for looking, and comments and ideas welcome.

[stitchdup]

Cool project, I'll be watching. I've had one of these on my search list for a while now so seeing your fixes will help when i find one