As I mentioned Bill kindly gave me this battered bundle of plastic fun to mess with last week.
I started with the Marx Police Car bottom left.
Its based on a Ford Zephyr Mk.II Farnham from the early 1960's. Originally remote control, this poorly example was missing its remote cable and unit, its light, a wheel arch and wheel. The POLICE decal at the front was worn too.
Most of the grille support was missing as is the entire front bumper. The POLICE decal is virtually gone. Lots of faded chrome parts and the white trim of one tyre more or less gone too. The windscreen top left frame was partly missing. Oh and no aerial.
The rear POLICE blue decal was worn and overall the car was very very grubby.
So what should it look like? Here's a superb example I saw on Ebay. You can see the front bumper and so on.
So, with a view to displayability rather than perfection, I set to. I gave the car a thorough clean, stuck a strip of tape across the windscreen frame top, all chrome parts brushed with new chrome silver and a new front undergrille and wheel arch made from white card. A new wheel was installed at the front.
The front bumper was made from a plastic packet edge cut to shape and silvered. The new POLICE decal was Letraset rubbed onto clear sellotape.
The rear POLICE decal was touched up with paint.
A new red 'light' and washer base were glued on and a plastic needle made a decent-enough aerial.
I then cleaned the whole thing again with lighter fluid and a Q-tip to get any final marks off.
eh voila! Watch out bad guys!
This is how it looked before I started.
Keen to catch slippery baddies the spruced up Ford began its beat early.
Hope you like what I've done. It was a lot of fun!
I've just realised I've forgotten a front licence plate. Doh!
You can see the actual car itself, the old Ford Zephyr Mark. II Farnham Estate Police Car in this You Tube video clip:
Fabulous work! Z-Cars will be recruiting you! Bill
ReplyDeleteCheers Bill, thanks for the donation! Such fun!
DeleteLetraset on clear tape to simulate old toy stickers is a good idea! That's definitely the same model I had as a kid. Does it have a radio telephone in the cargo area?
ReplyDeleteCheers Looey. I'll have a look.
DeleteAnother great restoration. You just keep getting better and better at this.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much Paul.
DeleteGlorious! SFZ
ReplyDeleteCheers SF!
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