Revell 1/48 Pickup Truck (repop)

[gbritnell]

Here's one of the Revell 1/48 pickup trucks done to today's standards. The original kit which was issued in the late 50's or early 60's was a basic kit to say the least, snap on wheels, no window glass and a pan type undercarriage. I still had the one that I built from that era but is was pretty crude. When they reissued it a number of years ago I bought a couple of them and figured I would do a build with some impovements. With this one I wanted to build a mean street machine. I started by cutting out the center of the wheels and building my own Cragars. I turned the plastic rod with a taper and then filed one side flat and glued them to the center section. Once the spokes were assembled I mounted them to a fixture to get each spoke the same length and then glued them to the wheel/tire. The rear tires/wheels were split in half and a piece was added to give some extra width. The wheels were finished with Alclad chrome. The front axle was dropped and new steering arms and tie rod were built. I threw out the stock rear axle and fabricated my own 9", copying the 1/25 piece from a NASCAR model. This is tied to the frame with a 4 link setup. A completely new dual exhaust was built along with the driveshaft. Now for an engine. The tiny representation of a 'Y' block had to go. What to build? How about a SOHC engine? Now you have to keep things in perspective. This engine is only a little larger than a dime. I took my son's large scale cammer engine and scaled it all down and built it from plastic stock. The round bits were turned on my lathe and the basic block was a glue up and then milled on my milling machine. I tried to get as much detail in it without going blind. Now on to the interior. I cut the bench seat in half and made 2 buckets. I added a console with gauges and shifter and although the dash is quite simple I added a radio and detail painted it some. For the body I built a new firewall and added to the inner fenders to get a nicer fit. I also crafted a wood buck to shape a piece of clear plastic for the windshield as the original kit never had windows. It's painted with Testors candy apple red with Testors silver for the fenders and bed cover. The trim and emblems were finished with BMF and then a little paint in the middle of the emblems. I am posting several pictures and the link to my Photobucket account so you can look at the complete build if you like.

gbritnell

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v43/gbri...0Ford%20Pickup/

[mr moto]

Wow! That's great stuff. I have one of those 1/48 kits unbuilt but I never imagined it like that. You've really opened my eyes to the possibilities!

[lizardlust]

Incredible piece of craftsmanship!! I would love to see the faces of the folks who cut the tooling if they could see what you have accomplished with it!!!

[Robert81]

My god, you must have the hands of a surgeon. I, too, bought one of those. I tried to build it as a kustom roaster pickup, but I never figured out what to do with the interior. I did leave the wheels, they paint up to be some nice "baby moons".

[HotRodaSaurus]

Hi, just thought you may have been interested, I posted a thread in the General heading section caled 'Oldest Model Contest 1957' earlier Sunday eve. The kit you built was the most popular to have been built at this show.

Thanks, J