A chopping retrospective (part 3)

Sunday. A day of rest for some, but I am on a mission so I will press on, tidy up this latest instalment and send it off into the outer darkness where in a few years (or centuries) it may be picked up by a carbon-based intelligent life form which will examine the contents briefly, shrug its shoulders (all 18 of them) and go back to watching cat videos. Ach, why do I even bother? Anyway, on we go . . .

Big limos can be quite eye-catching and impressive - albeit sometimes a bit OTT - so stretching a standard sedan into something a little more dramatic is a tempting target. The Imperial Crown Ghia and the Rolls Phantom shown below are real, the others are invented.

If you are feeling industrious, or the donor model is quite expensive, you can slice open a single model and construct a new mid-section (body, floor and seating unit). And do try and make it look like all the bits actually belong together, there's a good chap.

Or, if you are feeling lazy or extravagant, you can buy two models, cut them up and glue the required body sections together, then the leftovers can maybe be used to make something silly but fun.

I might just say in passing that in the case of the Gaz, the "joke" rally car ended up with so much added detail, inside and out, that it took about ten times as long as the limo which was the original point of the exercise.

That's how it goes sometimes. Get a simple idea and it can tempt you into all kinds of unintended, heart-pounding complications. All part of the fun, and an amusing alternative to banging your head against the proverbial brick wall, although the sensation is not all that different.

And of course you can always chop the middle out of a limo to make the standard car, if no model of that happens to be available.

Some chops were just upgrades of models that needed a bit of improvement. The two Sabra models shown below were pretty rough, so I tidied them up. Corgi's Impala was a nice enough toy but I gave it better glazing and wheels, an improved stance and some extra Bare Metal Foil brightwork. I'm not quite sure why I even bothered doing a civilian version of the Road Champs Chevrolet Caprice. It may have been an early experiment with flush side glazing (which isn't even visible on the small photo. Just take my word for it). And yes, the whitewalls may be too wide - a sin punishable by death in these forums. Forgive me, I am only a fallible human being. Honestly.

Other projects ventured a bit further, to the point where the original was almost unrecognizable.

Turning the Ford Escort into a Hillman Avenger was an early claim to fame in Model Auto Review. it made people sit up and say "This is a man to be watched". Preferably by personnel trained in community care.

 I have a few more examples in this "total transformation" category which will be covered individually later.

(To be continued)