Truckin' magazine 1/24th 1955 Ford phantom styleside: From the Vault, Chapter 8

[tim boyd]

Back in the day (late 1970's to mid 1980's), when I was doing work for Street Rodder magazine (monthly Modeler's Corner column and various 1/1 scale event and car features), the guys across the hall at McMullen Publishing world headquarters would occasionally run model car pickup features.  Here is one of them (I'll cover two others at a later time).  

This was a simple project combining Monogram's '55 Ford F100 Pickup and their 1955 Ford Panel Delivery kits. 

The idea was to show what a "Styleside" full pickup box might have looked like had Ford introduced it to the market in 1955 instead of as they actually did in 1957.  The pickup box fenders were trimmed from the Panel Delivery kit body and matched to the cab of the pickup.  The pickup bed itself also came from the Panel Delivery.  The inner walls of the pickup bed were measured and cut from sheet styrene.  

The rest of the kit was box-stock Monogram, except for the paint.  It was the factory 1978 (or 1979?) Ford Bright Green solid, as featured on the 1/1 scale Bronco, and sprayed from a Tempo brand factory color touchup can.  The graphic pattern was masked off on the hood, cab sides, and tailgate, and sprayed with a Paasche airbrush.  The entire model was then oversprayed with c. 1962 (really) Pactra Pearlustre paint from a can.  

Here are a few more photos from a recent photo session....thanks for looking.  TIM  

 

[stavanzer]

Wow, Tim!

What a great Time Capsule of a Build. Remember an article in SAE many years ago that showed one or two other builds of the '55 Panel turned into pickups. One was Metallic Brown, IIRC.

I always wanted to get the '55 Panel and do what you did here.

Thanks, for sharing.

[Chuck Most]

Nice! I've always avoided this kit because it always looked "off" to me, but looking at this I'm kind of reconsidering. I also like the phantom Styleside bed, though now I'm thinking about cutting the roof off a panel truck and swapping on the pickup roof and taking the idea a step further... F100 unibody six years before Ford did it. ?

 

[Zippi]

That's one sharp looking 55 ford.  I like the pickups some I'm really diggin this one.  Great detail work.  Nicely done.

[PappyD340]

Very cool!

[tim boyd]

On 2/16/2023 at 6:41 PM, stavanzer said:

Wow, Tim!

What a great Time Capsule of a Build. Remember an article in SAE many years ago that showed one or two other builds of the '55 Panel turned into pickups. One was Metallic Brown, IIRC.

I always wanted to get the '55 Panel and do what you did here.

Thanks, for sharing.

Alan....thanks!   And correct you are on remembering that dark brown one....but I think the article appeared in Truckin' instead of Scale Auto.  I do plan to post images of that one, along with a similar themed 1972 GMC project here on the board in a few days....Thanks....TIM 

[stavanzer]

2 hours ago, tim boyd said:

Alan....thanks!   And correct you are on remembering that dark brown one....but I think the article appeared in Truckin' instead of Scale Auto.  I do plan to post images of that one, along with a similar themed 1972 GMC project here on the board in a few days....Thanks....TIM 

I never bought Truckin', but you most certainly are correct.

[slusher]

Great cool build Tim!