Cooters Tow Truck ?

[57peppershaker]

I know the DOH Cooters tow truck is an inaccurate, over priced & hard to find kit. So whats the best kit / kits to start with, for a better truck ?

If possible a more readily available kit ? Any pics of yours builds would be good too.

[martinfan5]

Maybe use the wrecker body from the revell 77 tow truck kit that was just released, you could do some kit bashing

[57peppershaker]

I did think about that kit, but dont know much about it. Not many reviews ect on here.

Also looked at Midnite Cowboys on ebay

[mikemodeler]

The wrecker parts from the Midnite Cowboy and a '72 Chevy pickup kit would get you close. The kit they put out back in the day was a re-pop of an old kit,IIRC. There might be a bit of scratchbuilding and Evergreen sheets needed to make it all happen.

[Longbox55]

One question would be this; Are you looking to replicate the kit, or build a truck like what Cooter actually used on the show? If you're looking to do the truck portayed by the kit (which is not based on any truck in the show), then really any MPC '67-'72 Chevy pickup would do, some even came with the same tow truck bed. It would just be a matter of making/aquiring the decals. The non DOH version should be fairly easy to get, and at a much lower cost (especially if you get a builtup like I did)

The Midnight Cowboy bed would be another option, plus it's a much better tow truck bed. You would need to lengthen it to fit the AMT/MPC Chevy truck chassis, as the MC was based on a short wheelbase truck.

If you're looking to be show accurate, Cooter actually had several trucks over the course of the series. Early on, they were mainly '67-'72 Chevy/GMC trucks, usually 3/4 tons, with a boom added to the otherwise stock bed. IIRC, there was at least a red one, and a copper one, plus perhaps a blue one. The other truck, which was featured later on, is a yellow late '70s Ford F350. It had an actual tow truck ben on it, the MC bed is very close other than length.

[57peppershaker]

Bill, planning on a more accurate tv show truck. After reading all the threads that say the Cooters kit is nothing like what was used, I wondered what everybody used instead.

I'll look out for a Midnite Cowboy for a start. Anybody got one they want to part with ?