Tonda GAZ M1 with a twist.

[FAUST]

Ola Guys

I landed my a$$ in a campaign over on Armorama called Jurassic Plastic where one needs to built a model that was created before 2000. I decided to dig into my stash and unearthed an ancient Tonda Vacu Form kit of a GAZ M1. Which I decided to built. But since the GAZ M1 was nothing more then a License built Ford Fordor I decided to built it as a Ford instead. Not just any Ford though... A depression era Ford... The one belonging to Bonnie and Clyde.

Ok below are some picture showing the progress up till now.
A pic of the "kit"

And then I quickly cut out the biggest parts to see how that was going to look.

With the vehicle showing it's lines to me I finally had enough confidence to continue.
Sooo Chassis beams, The bottom side of the engine and transmission, Strengthening bars, Bottomside of the fueltank

And then came the daunting task of creating the leafsprings. 5 slats built up each spring.

And after some hours of tedious work the 4 leafsprings were finished and all the major detailwork of the chassis was finished. Only thing left is the exhaust and some small bits n' bobs and then it is off to the Carriage inside out.

More to follow. Any tips and tricks are welcome and I would love to hear any kind of feedback.

With friendly greetz

Robert Blokker

 

[noname]

That's a good idea. Are you going to put the bullet holes in it when finally met their doom?

 

[FAUST]

Thanks for the compliments.

I was first planning to do that but it was kinda what you expect. So I decided to read some background history about the couple. And I decided to do a scene depicting what they did best. So I wanted to do a scene where they come running out of a bank with bags of money. Spilling bills over the street. Clyde whielding his favorite weapon the BAR and Bonnie aiming her weapon down the street. A little action scene. Also gives me a nice possibility to sculpt 2 figures.

 

[spud]

Faust you are a Brave man indeed, Never the less i am so looking forward to this

 

[hooterville75]

Love the scratch built leaf springs. Very good job so far, keep the photos coming. Love looking at eye candy.

 

[FAUST]

@ Spud
Hehehe Naah it is not that bad really. It only requires a lot more testfitting to make sure everything is right.
And making sure everything is the same, length/width/allignment etc is a bit of a challenge.

@ Hooterville
Thanks a lot for the compliments. They were not half as hard as I thought they would be.
And will not dissapoint you. The next batch of pics is right under this reply.

Time for a new update. The sad stuff is that this is the result of about 4 evenings worth of work and if you look at it, it is really only a small step compared to the earlier update. Still I want to show it off here. Detailing the interior has been started. Inside the vacu for kit you only got the dash, the firewall and the 2 benches. And that's it. Since I want the 2 frontdoors opened and most of the windows in the opened position you can see everything which means Some scratchbuilding is needed to fill the sides of the empty shell.
Left is door without detailing, right is with detailing

Top is interior side without detailing, bottom with detailing

Next up. more detailing the other sidewall and the scratchbuilt seats.

 

[spud]

very cool Faust.

 

[dazed1]

Incredible amount of work you're doing. Very ambitious project. FWIW Fords of the period had transverse leaf springs. No matter what, this is a fantastic project.

 

[FAUST]

Ola Dazed1
Thanks for your reply and Thanks for pointing out the Transverse leafspring issue. I did not know that to be honest. When I started working on the leafsprings I did not have any walkarounds of this vehicle just the pictures of the original Bonnie and Clyde car and because of the lack of this info I decided to stick to the instruction sheet from Tonda. There is another thing that differs from a ford of the era I'm depicting and that are spoked wheels. The B&C Ford had spoked wheels. But since that is way beyond my scratchbuilding skills and not to mention patience and sanity I decided to omit that as well and go with the Wheelrims as they came in the kit.