Kit: Aoshima Datsun 720 Pickup (AOS27790)
Wheels: Aoshima Work Emotion CR Kai (AOS36914)
This build was inspired by a fairly impressively built King-cab version in Japan that I've seen a few pictures of. I tend to favor cars that have an OEM look, with serious modifications underneath.
I started with the Aoshima kit even though it wasn't a king-cab, but learned right away that those huge fender flares were molded to the body. So instead of trying to shave them off and trying to recreate the stock wheel openings I drilled holes to mimic the look of bolt-ons. I've got a soft spot for bolt-on fenders.
The other modifications included drilling out the "mesh" grill and replacing that with bars that gave a more stock appearance. Drilling out the other front end openings; adding some Pegasus brakes; and swapping out the wire wheels for some Work Emotion CR Kai wheels. The interior was tarted up a bit with Lamborghini seats, Cobra steering wheel and shift knob, roll cage, and a photo-etched hot rod cluster.
This was also my first attempt at replacing the glass with some thin, clear styrene. It was not entirely successful, but does look better than the awful kit glass.
One of the challenges I faced was the extreme negative offset on the wheels. This caused them to be set too far inboard and it just looked silly. I made a .085mm spacer using some styrene tubing and the kit poly caps. The poly cap stuck out of my spacer just enough that it still engaged the wheel so that when I glued the spacer to the wheel, everything lined up perfectly.
Apologies for the shoddy camera work. I'm between cameras for a while so the camera on my G1 is the fall back.
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05-22-2010, 11:32 AM
