The Beetles

[Mr. Metallic]

"No, not those mop-tops"- To quote a DJ in the film That Thing You Do (love that movie)

This post is to bring together a few builds in my ongoing affinity for the early Monogram hot rod kits. If you recall, last year I built alternative molded in color versions of the big 4 kits. One of them was the Red Beetle, which was built by combining original Blue Beetle specific parts with the molded in red parts from a Boss-A-Bone builtup (the horror, I know )

Since then I have been intending to build alternative versions of the Beetle, using every color Monogram (later Revell/Monogram) offered kits based on this tooling in. That list is as follows: 2 shades of blue the Blue Beetle came in, Red (done), yellow, silver, and lastly the light blue that they released a few years ago as the Blue Bandito. I also have the obscure Japanese motorized knock-off of the Blue Beetle that is molded in an almost purple color. Since these will be mostly "box stock" builds with the kitbashing necessary to backdate the kits to the Blue Beetle configuration I decided to combine them all in one thread rather than a separate thread for each color.

For 2022 I challenged myself to try to put 12 completed builds on my shelf over the course of 12 months. that may seem aggressive, but I knew I wanted to sprinkle in a few on these Monogram hot rod based builds through the year, so it seemed fairly reasonable to me. The year started off well enough, but the summer has really put my behind on that goal. With 5 weeks until our Fall KKIM meeting I thought I would try to build as many of these Beetle variants as I can before then. Hopefully you'll come along with me for the ride.

[Mr. Metallic]

First up... The Yellow Beetle

For those that don't know the history on this tooling the Blue Beetle was the first version and debuted in the mid-60's along with the Little T, Little Deuce and Woody Wagon. It was released twice, and then the tooling was modified in the late 60's into the Tom Daniel designed Boss A Bone. Then in the 70's the tooling was modified again for the Early Iron release. It received yet another freshening in the 80's, and then was released in the 90's in the 70's street rod configuration. A few years ago Revell decided to backdate the tooling to the Blue Beetle configuration by retooling some lost parts as the Blue Bandito (Blue Beetle is now a registered trademark for another product, hence the name change).

Ok, now that I've set the scene here are the issues the tooling changes has presented me with the yellow version. Gone are the 6 carb intake and Cadillac script valve covers. Also gone are the great wheel/tire combo, and a few other BB specific parts. Most of this is easily rectified by stealing the parts from a Bandito kit (so the chrome brightness all matches), except the Cadillac valve covers. R/M didn't resurrect those for the Bandito. Fortunately I have a set from a BB to steal. The big issue is that the yellow version now comes with the interior and other formerly white parts now molded in tan plastic. Fortunately I have a decent molded-in-white interior bucket I can use, along with an up top. Once you take a look at the initial mockup photos you can see the problem with using all these different molded in white parts presents, they all have different opacity. Hopefully that can be rectified by painting them all white.  A necessary concession to these mostly No-paint builds I have going. My rules, I can break them.

Anyway, enough talking, here's the first mockup

[Oldcarfan27]

Which one's Ringo?

Seriously, I like the concept of making the original theme in all of the available molded colors. I never did understand the name for the kit in the first place. Even for the 60s, the Beetle already represented a certain charming little import, so using it on this kit is a little confusing. Top it off, the kit included skin diving equipment - swimming is not exactly a beetles forté either. 

Same goes true with the Green Hornet, which was not only a TV show, but a comic book series before that.

The Yellow Jacket, let's just say, had it's connections with the pharmaceutical community. 

Somebody at Monogram needed to be a little more creative in Identity labeling. 😁

[TIP-TOP]

I'm all in on following this! This was one of my all time favorites models back in 1966. I just posted a few pictures of my Blue Bandito "Surf'n 29" build in light blue with some of my updates I wanted. Yes the interior seats and caddy motor not in the last Bandito release. I had to wheel tub the bed to tuck under the big wheels and tires as well as lower the suspension to get the ride hight I was happy with in my build. 

I love this kit and look forward to your build!👍

[Dave Van]

Love all those 1/24 hot rods Monogram did in the 60's. Built many myself!

[slusher]

I like the red and yellow, pretty cool!

[Mr. Metallic]

Work has been continuing. I had a small delay while I searched for materials to do a real wood bed floor. Once I got those secured and worked out a technique I was able to move forward. It may not be prototypical to 1:1, but it looks good, and replicates something a builder could have done in 1965.

Here's the materials I ended up using. There are more prototypical materials (H or I channel strip, photoetch rails, etc), but these materials are what a builder in 1965 would have had reasonable access to, or at least be able to achieve similar results. 

I cut 5 strips of wood and 6 strips of plastic all the same length using my handy dandy Chopper. This is a great tool for repeatable cuts over and over. 

I hit the wood strips with a couple coats of Testors clear and then assembled everything together.

And just a taste of the finished product.

[Mr. Metallic]

Red stuff.

I have a question for you all. I've been using Tamiya brush paints for about 20 years, but mostly metallics and flat/gloss black. I'm new to their gloss primary colors, but I bought two brand new bottles (specifically red and yellow) and attempted to use them on recent projects. My question is, they don't seem to have a lot of pigment. They are thoroughly mixed, but to achieve full coverage it would probably require two coats, and successfully applying one coat with a tiny brush is nerve wracking enough, let alone a second coat. When I've used the black or metal shades in the past I don't have this issue. Has anyone else had this experience? I could go back to Testors I guess. I haven't been able to find the new Revell paints locally yet, but would like to try those. 

Edited September 15, 2022 by Mr. Metallic

[CabDriver]

Looking great so far - and I like that chopper!  I could really use one of those - can it handle styrene rod and strips too?

[Mr. Metallic]

On 9/20/2022 at 10:13 PM, CabDriver said:

Looking great so far - and I like that chopper!  I could really use one of those - can it handle styrene rod and strips too?

Sure can, the bed dividers between the wood slats are Evergreen .060 x .040, but it could probably handle up to .100 thick.

[CabDriver]

18 minutes ago, Mr. Metallic said:

Sure can, the bed dividers between the wood slats are Evergreen .060 x .040, but it could probably handle up to .100 thick.

Looks like I'm gonna be ordering one - thanks for the info Craig!

[Zippi]

That bed looks really nice.  Coming together nicely.