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Posted

I'm posting this under glass but I think after a while I will be taking this back off the shelf and doing a rebuild.

The car is based on an AMT 34 Ford Tudor body, fenders and frame with an AMT Parts Pack Allison engine. The rollcage, bellhousing body mounts and front of the exhaust is scratchbuilt.

It has been a very challenging build for me.  The body, which I am now quite happy with, took a lot of work to get the chop right.  I actually chopped it twice! The side windows in particular took a lot of reshaping to get them close to photos of the time.

Like I said in my W.I.P, I changed the colours a bit, for different reasons.  The darker blue body is similar to what I remember of the restored car in Garlits museum back in 1992, and I really like the colour.  The real car was lighter and it wouldn't be hard to repaint but for now I am keeping it in the Tamiya Dark Pearl Blue colour. 

The engine should be black but I was blown away with the detail that AMT engraved into this mould back in the sixties.  It is a wondrous thing and I couldn't live with hiding it in black. Instead I used some hardware store Eucalyptus Green Colorbond paint that gave a nod to it's aviation origins and I like it a lot - you can see all the detail as it deserves.

Finally, the frame. It is bright red in the photos from Hot Rod Deluxe magazine but it looked a bit too loud for me so I went for a maroon instead. 

The reason it might get a rebuild is because of the frame.  There is a lot less reference material on this car than you would expect and I had to guesstimate a lot of things, imagining how I would do it if I had built the real car.   Reference material stated that it was a '34 Ford severely narrowed at the rear.  I now believe I should have also narrowed the front crossmember as well and tucked the centre of the rails in much closer so that the engine mounted to the top of the rails, not inside them.  I did try to correct this but it has introduced a twist into the front crossmember and the wheels no longer sit accurately in the front fenders.

I found it very challenging to mock this car up prior to paint so final assembly has revealed a lot of problems.  The biggest being that despite three attempts, I could not fit the Moon tanks alongside the blower or even in front  of the engine and still have the body fit over them. I also had to do some carving on the exhausts and body to allow them to fit and it is very tight.

No-one will ever mistake it for anything but Big Al ll but after several decades on the bench I wish it would have finished up just a little closer to the real thing in regards to the frame.  If it turns out that I have a spare frame I might start a new one sooner than later.

I owe a huge amount of gratitude to Vern Scholz of Calgary, Alberta, who provided much of the reference material and inspiration to build this car.

Cheers

Alan

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  • Like 4
Posted

Oh wow!  I wouldn't change a thing.  I think the green engine and maroon chassis give it a more vintage vibe.  This is an amazing project.

  • Like 1

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