Charlie Aces Swing A Ling Van, Kingston Ja

[jbwelda]

i posted some pics of this some time ago in some forum, and its just now done. commissioned

jairus to do the graphics from some photos of the real thing that i gave him and man did he

outdo himself. i brought the just-painted car to my model car meeting and no one could believe

it (the graphics i mean, predicably they thought the car itself was pretty goofy).

this is a somewhat loose replica of a "mobile record shack" owned by one charlie ace, a record

producer and soul singer who lived in kingston jamaica. he would drive this through the streets,

selling his records (many on his own label "swing a ling records" hence the name of the vehicle)

He would set up in public squares (such as north parade, a place i once took some photos of the

vehicle in the late 70s) and blast his music, and attracting a crowd, sell his records out the back

of the van. the actual photos i used to model the car were not my own; a much better

photographer named adrian boot published a number of photos of the vehicle that have been

published in books, used as record covers, flyer art etc for decades now.

the replica is "loose" because the vehicle changed over the years it was used, as evidenced by

photos showing new body damage, a newly built and painted front bumper, different

graphics, hubcaps going missing etc and we worked from different era's photos for different angles. there were

some details too small to reproduce and also my build didnt allow the space to do a few others,

but overall this turned out very nicely.

this particular model began as a die-cast morris panel van. i tore it apart and cut the panel section away

from the fenders, raised the panel part up on stakes, and then built wood panels to enclose the

newly created space. just like the real one was done i would imagine, in some jamaican backstreet body shop. after gluing that whole thing together and

shooting it semi gloss black to make hand painting the graphics easier (i figured anyway), it got

sent off to the artist to do his thing and work his magic on. when it returned i put back together

the various parts, detailing a bit as i went along, and replaced the toylike wide small wheels and

tires with some proper lotus ones (tamiya lotus seven by the way), i whipped up the quick stand.

i plan on building a jamaican street scene base for it one of these days and probably a figure of

mr. ace.

please excuse the poor photos, i really really need to build a light box soon...and now one

of my desk lamps is kaput so its very unbalanced lighting.

first an overall look at the base and vehicle:

a bit closer look:

closer still:

heres a closer look at the photo we more or less used as reference:

Edited January 22, 2008 by jbwelda

[Tony T]

Very cool build! Love it!

[Hollywood Jim]

Oh man, That is SUPER..!!!!

I love it.!!!!

[Raul_Perez]

Very cool, Bill!! It reminds me of a small diorama I have of a 32 Ford Tudor sedan, (yep, the old AMT kit), that depicts a story my grandfather once told me about the time he and his brother tried to replace a cracked front cross-member back in 1940. He can't see very well anymore, so he gave it back to me a few years ago. It's one that I'll never part with.

Keep up the great work,