A chopping retrospective (part 1)

In the real world, "chopping" is defined as cutting out sections of a vehicle's roof pillars to lower the roofline for dramatic effect. But in the world of scale modelling the term somehow came to mean any kind of re-working of a model that involved physically hacking the bodywork in any way, or adding bits to it, to produce a modified or improved version, or even something entirely different. By that definition, I am a "chopper".

Why? Lots of reasons - models I wanted that weren't commercially available at the time, interesting facelifted versions of existing models, sedans turned into station wagons (or vice-versa), sedans converted to limos (or vice-versa) or sometimes pure flights of fancy.

I recently got around to looking at the things I've done over the years and sorting them into "themes", based on the type of conversion involved. This turned into quite a time-consuming job, and I thought I might post the results here because this forum is a natural refuge for the kind of geeks who might actually find the results of interest. And if any old Model Auto Review readers and long-time forumeers have seen some of this stuff before and decide I am just desperately re-packaging old material, they can smile and quietly walk away and I won't hold it against them. The ungrateful swine.

So, let us begin . . .

Once upon a time there were far fewer models available than in later years. Some cars I liked weren't modelled, or not in my preferred version.  The original "Mark I" car was modelled but a later face-lift wasn't. If Dinky or Corgi did a sedan I knew they wouldn't do the estate, or vice-versa. Corgi did the short-tailed Austin A50 but not the more shapely A55 version. I wanted the later Farina-bodied A55 Cambridge with fins but Corgi only did the de-finned A60 (and spoiled it with silly "Driving school" signs). I wanted a basic Hillman Hunter but Corgi only did the rally version. Dinky did a Triumph 2000 but not the arguably more attractive MK II. There were no models of the intriguing Spanish-built "booted" versions of the Renault 5 and the Austin 1100. And so on. . and on . . and on. To fill those gaps, and for something to do with my restless hands, I assembled some fairly basic tools and materials and got to work. Gradually the range of tools and materials increased, and I worked out a few little tricks for constructing new roofs, extending the basic structure, manufacturing new grilles and bumpers, etc. and discovered things like Bare Metal Foil, so the conversions got a little more ambitious over time.

Shown below are some examples of the kind of changes I'm talking about.

One problem I encountered with "facelifts "was that, almost by definition, they will have new grilles, and unless there was something suitable in the parts box (which was fairly empty in the early days, until I started ruthlessly cannibalizing cheap models) I needed to manufacture them from scratch. For the revised Vauxhall Victor F series, for example, it was a matter of finding thin strips of metal and plastic of a suitable thickness which could be stacked to give the correct number of bars and the correct grille depth.

The same trick was used for the Australian Morris Nomad.

ROOFER AT WORK

In some cases the main point of a conversion was simply to add a roof, even if other small incidental changes were involved. The Brooklin 1960 Ford Sunliner didn't need a roof, I just wanted to see if I could do it, the big rear window being an early experiment with heat-moulded glazing. New Ray's Chrysler Turbine convertible, on the other hand, was a nonsense and needed the roof to make it authentic. The Chevrolet Impala 4 door hardtop was done simply because the "flat top" roof was so dramatic (and that panoramic rear window forced me to have another go at hot-moulding).

CONVERTIBLES

Adding a new roof can be fun, but so is taking the roof off. I once knew a guy whose sole ambition in life was to turn every model in his collection into a convertible (Yes, it got a bit predictable but he loved chopping and this was the only thing he felt able to tackle).

The problem is that lots of earlier models had no interior, or the seats and dash were a flimsy vacu-form moulding not fit to be exposed to full view. So, chopping the roof off was the easy bit. Knocking together a reasonably plausible interior from scratch took a bit longer.

(To be continued)