A car boot model car.
I don’t know about any of you, but I’m not an ardent car booter. That isn’t to say of course that I never go to them. On the contrary. Many’s the time I’ve been dragged screaming and kicking to such events by ‘er indoors on a bright Sunday morning when I’d rather be working on my latest kit project.
You’ve possibly even seen me, or others like me at such events that are surely only created by the fellow who wears a red suit, sports big horns, wields a trident and sits on an uncomfortable burning sofa composed of sulphur and brimstone to torture the unwary.
Mind you, maybe I’m being unfair.
It’s altogether possible the sofa isn’t that uncomfortable.
However, we’re the ones who mope slowly round behind the ladies, (not too far away mind, and don’t wander off to look at anything as paltry as something you may actually be interested in…) and we are always the ones laden with second hand carrier bags filled with other peoples cast-offs, just waiting for us to repair and fit in place in a new location in the shed, awaiting the next visit by the bin man.
I’m sure if someone invented an ‘E-bay’ type website where you could flog car boot rubbish, (merchandise is often too kind a word) in car boot fashion, they would be multi millionaires within a week due to a membership of 99% women.
Yes, E-Bay comes close at times, but that isn’t what I meant. Even if car boots were online, I’m sure that the good ladies would devise a way for the shackled husbands to stand beside them at the computer, not too far out of reach and never quite getting a good look at the bits they want to see, just so that the poor sods could carry the virtual plastic cyber-bags around with them.
I digress, however.
There was actually an occasion some time ago where I was carted to one such event. After an hour or so of staggering round laden with tatty polythene receptacles sporting such titles as ‘Tesco’s’ and ‘Asda’, but actually containing items that these stores would be sued in the high courts for ever daring to retail, I noticed something on one stall of definite interest…
An unbuilt white metal car kit. Even better, an Aston Martin DBR1 – one of my all-time favourites!
The odd thing was, the stallholder was actually a merchant of Turkish shoes, (?) so why he was selling an old white metal kit was anyone’s guess.
He was actually even Turkish.
Of course, these days half the population who escape from high school or even university, often babble so incoherently they sound as if they were from Turkey, or any country other than Shakespeare’s own, so maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps he was from Scomfyhorpe or a few miles north of Potters Bar.
And while we’re about it, why is it that all car boot salesmen have an accent that would even raise the eyebrows of anyone from west of Romford, and are equally capable of drowning out a 747 on lift off, and are usually tattooed in every visible place, having the epithet ‘mother’ emblazoned on the end of their tongue.
Can’t they be more imaginative than paste tables?
And why do they all have grubby yellow bed sheets spread on the ground, half buried in faded copies of ‘Friends’ video’s?
I’m rambling again…
The model car.
There it sat amongst the dubious leather shoes which were actually all the same shape, (No left or right foot in Turkey? One wonders if Turks have two big toes on each foot, one per side, and three long skinny toes in the middle…)
A faded yellowing card-wrapped plastic bag proclaiming the model was by one ‘John Day’. There was also a strange model of a British post box nearby, but this was a bit too big for 1/43 scale, even allowing for those modellers who don’t count rivets beyond the digits of one hand, or even a Turkish foot.
I was interested in the Aston.
Four pounds was the asking price, so two pounds later I was the owner of a nice John Day model. OK…. These models are pretty old-school compared to the current offerings, but don’t knock them. With a little bit of care, a nice model will result.
The kit only comprised around ten parts, INCLUDING the wheels, and the main body casting had a good few pin holes to fill, as well as wheel arches that looked as if they had been shaped using a hacksaw, but with a fair amount of filing, filling and sanding, a nice body finally emerged. It was coated with a metal primer, two coats of Humbrol grey spray primer, and sanded smooth after a few days drying time. There weren’t any extra body components to fit, so then it was on to the topcoats.
I spent a good few hours ‘Googling’ for pictures of the DBR1, and believe me, there are plenty to be found! Finding a good match for the famous Aston metallic light racing green proved difficult so in the end I mixed my own using ordinary racing green, silver and touches of blue, yellow and white. The end result seemed to match the multitude of pictures I had acquired, as well as the images in my own Aston Martin book collection. The paint was applied in 5 or 6 coats through an airbrush, allowed to dry for around a week and then given the ‘Micromesh’ treatment. OK, so 50’s Le Mans cars weren’t that glossy, but I like my models to have a semi-gloss finish.
The interior parts, (a seat and steering wheel) were brush painted and fitted to the floor and body respectively after the interior was detailed. This literally comprised painting it light grey, scraping the steel tubing framework back to metal, and adding some dashboard and wooden floor panel detail.
The body had no actual lights or detail as such, so these areas were also scraped back to metal and polished. The end result is actually pretty good, if somewhat basic. Final details such as tail lights, front grille, headrest and side grilles were brush painted in and I resorted to creating my own waterslide transfers for the roundels and numbers as the originals were so badly yellowed.
The wheels…. I contemplated replacing them with my favourite BBR wire wheels, but in the end used the kit wheels as they were actually quite good, and fitted in with the rather ‘old’ look of the model anyway.
The last part to be added was the vac formed screen which actually fitted fairly well, only needing a thin ‘filler’ of adhesive (Clearfix) to fill the small gaps around the body.
Fitting the body to the one-piece base was simplicity itself.
However…
I found to my cost, that cyanoacrilate isn’t a good idea here, unless you really want to spend the rest of your life waving a little model car about on the end of your digits every time you try to give someone directions when they ask the way to B & Q.
After detaching my fingers from the lower edges of the chassis, it was stuck in place with a thin bead of araldite.
I added a few extra details of my own, such as bonnet catches from chrome foil, door catch detail and a nose badge, before the little car joined ranks alongside my other Astons. And very good it looks too.
Now. I needn’t remind you that this particular kit is no longer available, but there is a fantastic DBR1 model by a more recent company (no names here) that isn’t actually that different. It just happens to benefit from newer casting methods and a lot more detail in the way of etched parts and many of the assembly methods used on my old JD kit still apply.
Also, I would definitely invest in the BBR wheels if the ones in the newest kits aren’t quite up to current standards – they really are the mustard, and very few of even the best new kits have wheels that can compare!
So. The next time you are dragged along to a car boot sale, look out for a Turkish shoe salesman with two left feet, or bearing a severe limp from ill-fitting shoes, yelling very loudly ‘Git yer luverly bernarners’, from somewhere possibly east of Cricklewood.
He may just be selling model cars as well.
Don’t pass anything by as an old fashioned toy novelty.
You really never know what you might find.
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