Moonbuggy!

[OldNYJim]

I was watching the Space X launch a couple of weeks back and my wife came in and said “I have a surprissssseee for you!”.  I was hoping she wasn’t pregnant or that it was my turn to do the dishes again - but no!  Success!  

Moon buggy kit!  I have the best wife!  Or she figures I’ll be less annoying during lockdown if I have some stuff to do - kinda like how you give a kid some crayons if they’re being a nuisance ? 

I wanted to build one of these as I read that it was a showcar Barris designed for, I guess an English TV show?  Now, Barris made a 6-wheeled moon buggy called the Moonscope, which doesn’t look too much like this.  MPC made a kit of it, and then brought out this thing which is APPARENTLY the Moonscope modified by Barris for this show.  However, it isn’t IN the show, and I’ve been looking for a couple of weeks and can’t seem to find any pictures of the real thing.  Did a show in England really have Barris build a car, ship it to England and then never use it even once?  Or photograph it? And no one ever saw it since? Seems unlikely, but there we are.

So, building an exact replica is going to be tough if there might not even be anything to build a replica OF, so I guess I’m free to use some artistic license on this one.

First up, I spent some time figuring out that two piece body.  You have to assemble the body around the frame, and I was hoping I could assemble the body first to fix this gap between the top and bottom halves:

This gap is only on the passenger side and everything else fits fine - and after trying to do some ship-in-a-bottling to see if the frame and interior tub will fit into the body if I pre-glue it (nope) I figured out I need to make these parts fit now.

I figured I could just sand the two halves flat and it would work ok, but it’s only this one side that actually needs work - it’s snug as a bug on all the other surfaces.  So. I used a little heat to fix that bow in the top half, and added some little strips of 0.01 styrene sheet to the bottom to bring it up to meet properly.  Some sections needed three strips, some two, some just one thickness but I got it WAY closer anyway:

A little Bondo to smooth it all out and some primer and we should be pretty close on that.

Whilst the Bondo was drying I made a mould for some Richard Carroll style showrod tires for this thing.  Richard Carroll was a kinda big deal in the 60s with his wild models and range of super wide tires, and a couple of years back I had a 3D artist design and print some tires in that approximate style.  I wanted to resin cast them because the masters were kinda expensive so that was today’s project -  60s tastic!!

I like how it looks with those already!

More ridiculousness soon! 

Edited June 30, 2020 by CabDriver

[cobraman]

That reminds me I ordered 2 sets of those tires from Ma's resin years ago ( 4? ) and never received them.

[BlackSheep214]

I remember doing that kit back in the late 70s. Talk about a blast from the past. Looking forward for more.

[OldNYJim]

3 minutes ago, cobraman said:

That reminds me I ordered 2 sets of those tires from Ma's resin years ago ( 4? ) and never received them.

Bummer!  Someone on here had a set that we were going to trade, but I haven’t been able to get into my storage locker in the city since the lockdown to dig out the kit I was going to trade...sorry @STYRENE-SURFER!  I didn’t forget...

3 minutes ago, BlackSheep214 said:

I remember doing that kit back in the late 70s. Talk about a blast from the past. Looking forward for more.

Ira Dahm did a bunch of cool builds based on this kit - I’ve been wanting to make the whole series myself!  Figure I should build the kit stock-ish first though - but he had some cool alternative versions that were in one of the 70s magazines:

http://iradahm.com/AMS1.html

http://iradahm.com/AMS2.html

http://iradahm.com/AMS3.html

http://iradahm.com/AMS4.html

[Can-Con]

Um, no, that thing had nothing to do with the show any more than the "Barnabas' vampire van" had to do with the show "Dark Shadows". 

Just some thing MPC cooked up at the time to sell more plastic while that had the 1999 licencing.

 

,,, and no, the 1/1 moonscope buggy was never modified to look like this kit.

So, yes, definitely feel free to let your imagination soar !! ???

Edited June 30, 2020 by Can-Con

[OldNYJim]

7 minutes ago, Can-Con said:

Um, no, that thing had nothing to do with the show any more than the "Barnabas' vampire van" had to do with the show "Dark Shadows". 

Just some thing MPC cooked up at the time to sell more plastic while that had the 1999 licencing.

I think you’re right.  Which leads me to wonder, did Barris have ANYTHING to do with the re-design of this kit?  His name was on the box for one of the older releases of it:

But it’s clearly not too close to the actual 1:1 he designed (which was also a kit):

If they DID mess with the tooling to get out of paying him royalties then it’s odd that he allowed his name to be on the AMT box further down the line I guess - but also maybe he figured he might as well get paid for SOMETHING even if it wasn’t the design he had a hand in.

All of this is most irrelevant anyway seeing as I don’t have that original kit and I’m not even going to ATTEMPT to make a replica of the Moonscope out of what I have here, but curious minds are curious ?

[Can-Con]

1 minute ago, CabDriver said:

I think you’re right.  Which leads me to wonder, did Barris have ANYTHING to do with the re-design of this kit?  His name was on the box for one of the older releases of it:

But it’s clearly not too close to the actual 1:1 he designed (which was also a kit):

If they DID mess with the tooling to get out of paying him royalties then it’s odd that he allowed his name to be on the AMT box further down the line I guess - but also maybe he figured he might as well get paid for SOMETHING even if it wasn’t the design he had a hand in.

All of this is most irrelevant anyway seeing as I don’t have that original kit and I’m not even going to ATTEMPT to make a replica of the Moonscope out of what I have here, but curious minds are curious ?

Barrass has a long history of putting his name on stuff he's had nothing to do with.  The Monkeemobile and Green Hornet Chrysler come to mind.

[OldNYJim]

I remember one of the movie studios threatening legal action after he said he’d done the Back to the Future Delorean, KITT, the Monkeemobile as you mentioned and the General Lee too.  Oh, and the Ghostbusters hearse! ?

Edited June 30, 2020 by CabDriver

[absmiami]

Richard Carroll!!  
He was The Man ....

if I can’t find them - I won’t live this down ... but somewhere in the deepest recesses of one of my oldest parts boxes ...  ... I think I have a set of his custom rubber tires !  Would you like me to post a picture of I can locate them ???

[Spottedlaurel]

A very enjoyable bit of ridiculousness so far, I look forward to seeing it progress!

I don't have any recollection of seeing Space 1999 back in the day, and back then we only had three channels so it wasn't like there was much else to watch! I think I've seen odd clips of it since then, it looks vaguely familiar. Wikipedia says (so it must be true) that it was the most expensive TV series ever made for British TV up to that time - which may not be saying very much.....

The only vehicle listed by IMCDB for the show is a six-wheeled Amphicat, which looks to be pretty much standard.

The box art promises a lot, I love the surprised look on the face of the three-fingered character. Just as importantly, did the kit include the mini print and if so were you lucky enough to get one signed by Catherine Schell?

[OldNYJim]

9 hours ago, absmiami said:

Richard Carroll!!  
He was The Man ....

if I can’t find them - I won’t live this down ... but somewhere in the deepest recesses of one of my oldest parts boxes ...  ... I think I have a set of his custom rubber tires !  Would you like me to post a picture of I can locate them ???

I would love to see them!  Yes please!  Don’t go to any specific effort, but I’m always interested in seeing rare old model parts!

1 hour ago, Spottedlaurel said:

A very enjoyable bit of ridiculousness so far, I look forward to seeing it progress!

I don't have any recollection of seeing Space 1999 back in the day, and back then we only had three channels so it wasn't like there was much else to watch! I think I've seen odd clips of it since then, it looks vaguely familiar. Wikipedia says (so it must be true) that it was the most expensive TV series ever made for British TV up to that time - which may not be saying very much.....

The only vehicle listed by IMCDB for the show is a six-wheeled Amphicat, which looks to be pretty much standard.

The box art promises a lot, I love the surprised look on the face of the three-fingered character. Just as importantly, did the kit include the mini print and if so were you lucky enough to get one signed by Catherine Schell?

I’m embarrassed to say I had never actually heard of the show aside from it being mentioned on the box for this kit so I too must’ve missed that particular phenomenon!  I suspect the alien figure is surprised that the show producers have dressed him as a futuristic Ronald McDonald:

He looks equally surprised in the plastic too though in fairness:

I’m thinking he’ll be candy pearl green when I’m done maybe, or something a bit more visually pleasing than the McDonalds livery he’s in on the box.  I wonder what he’s holding?  Some kind of space weapon?  Flashlight?  Diagnostic tool to see why this thing is misfiring on idle?  Who knows ?‍♂️

I DID get the mini print, but alas it was not signed:

I know slightly more about Catherine Schell than I did previously now at least! 

No progress on this one yet today because I didn’t even eat my breakfast baconeggncheese yet this morning, but I did find this cool paint at Target when I was doing my early morning grocery run - I wonder if I can incorporate some of that flake and sparkle somehow into the paintjob?  

I don’t want it to look like a little girl’s unicorn toy, but I wonder if I can do something cool with this somehow?  More soon!

Edited June 30, 2020 by CabDriver

[absmiami]

Darn it. The tires werent where l thought they were. Will look some more. Apologize if I cant find 

them. We’ll see. ...

[Dave Van]

Ira Dahm did a lot of builds back in the day.....a number of them I tried to build. MS-1 was one I did finish and at the time I liked it. Sadly it was destroyed when a model shelf fell and I lost a bunch of build ups!!! 

I no longer have an original Moodscope kit but have all the different versions that followed! This will be interesting! 

What's left of MS-1 

[Rbray47]

Interesting kit. I saw one on the shelf at a hobby shop last week. I briefly contemplated buying it and putting some nice offroad wheels on it, like from the Revell Wrangler kit. 

Heck, if it's still there in a couple of weeks, I just might.

[slusher]

On 6/29/2020 at 8:25 PM, Can-Con said:

Barrass has a long history of putting his name on stuff he's had nothing to do with.  The Monkeemobile and Green Hornet Chrysler come to mind.

I believe he claimed the General Lee and had nothing to do with it..

[slusher]

Really looking forward to see what you build with this kit.  Your wife should put a coloring book on your work bench for a joke lol..

[Dave Van]

I went to Peterson Museum years ago and they had a display of American Graffiti movie cars. Somehow Barris had convinced the museum that he had built all the cars for the movie.......and we all know different. I was a little disappointed in both the museum and Barris. 

[absmiami]

Ding Ding Ding

Richard Carroll’s tires ...

here they are - something I built over.  Xxxxx years ago ...

you can tell that I was influenced by Richard Carrol’s models

 a wheel came off - I stuck it in a box - and almost Forgot about it - but I keep everything - so here it is. Wish I had another set of these ... 

[Draggon]

Just an FYI to everyone, Ron Olsen at 3D Model Specialties has the "Cartoon Tires" (his nomenclature) listed on Shapeways, albeit with a slightly different tread pattern. I just got mine this week and they look pretty good!

https://www.shapeways.com/product/9KXBUPXXA/cartoon-tire-set-1-25?optionId=165802150&li=ostatus

 

[OldNYJim]

On 7/1/2020 at 12:42 AM, slusher said:

Really looking forward to see what you build with this kit.  Your wife should put a coloring book on your work bench for a joke lol..

I’m not allowed to use crayons in case I eat them ?‍♂️?

On 7/9/2020 at 12:58 AM, absmiami said:

Ding Ding Ding

Richard Carroll’s tires ...

here they are - something I built over.  Xxxxx years ago ...

you can tell that I was influenced by Richard Carrol’s models

 a wheel came off - I stuck it in a box - and almost Forgot about it - but I keep everything - so here it is. Wish I had another set of these ... 

 

This is SO cool man!!  I LOVE it!  Thank you for sharing!  I love these crazy old builds!

On 7/10/2020 at 10:04 PM, Draggon said:

Just an FYI to everyone, Ron Olsen at 3D Model Specialties has the "Cartoon Tires" (his nomenclature) listed on Shapeways, albeit with a slightly different tread pattern. I just got mine this week and they look pretty good!

https://www.shapeways.com/product/9KXBUPXXA/cartoon-tire-set-1-25?optionId=165802150&li=ostatus

 

3D Scale Parts does a set too;

 

Had a delay on this build whilst I waited for a chance to pick up some paint - Michael’s reopened here but then they didn’t have what I wanted so I picked some up on Amazon instead - I wanted to try a metalflake silver kind of look for this one, for my own amusement:

Now, I KNOW this isn’t a scale flake, but the alien isn’t to scale either and neither is the moon base that comes in the box...just having some fun with this one.

Three coats over a silver base:

And some clear, to bury the flake:

Some Testors clear really helped level this out!

And a shot in the sunlight...more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Edited July 16, 2020 by CabDriver

[OldNYJim]

Wow, it’s been two months on this one already huh?  Because the chassis needs to attach inside the body I’ve been kind of stalled here laying up clear coats on the body to bury all that flake I ‘cleverly’ sprayed on it.  Then we moved, which stalled it a few more weeks...but it’s getting closer to being smooth and level and ready for polishing now!

Love the shimmer from that flake in the sunlight though - makes it all worth the effort!  More soon!