Tilt Body - Funny Truck

The 1998 first edition Dairy Delivery milk truck is a nice casting with alot of potential in the hands of a creative customizer. In the old drag racing days of the early 70's my favorite cars on the strip were the "Ford Anglia's" with they're short stubby bodies and those huge engines billowing down the track. They were a great show for the fans. So I thought, why not try to recapture some of the nostalgia of those crazy race drivers and their machines that dared to negotiate the strip in a straight line.     Hope you enjoy..........EJ

I started with a stock Dairy Delivery truck. Then I removed the tampos  using lacquer thinner from your local hardware store. You can do this with the model assembled if you are careful not to ruin the plastic windows or you can dis-assemble the model first as shown below.

Phase 1 teardown >>>

<<<=== Phase 2 teardown

Next, the funnycar model needs to have a major chop job done to it. As you can see, about 60% of the body is discarded. The rear spoiler is removed along with the roof and windshield. The hood is cut at approx 45 degrees on the body sides starting from the "A" pillar roof support downward.

Close-up view showing the spoiler cut and side-wall cut. Note the scratch marks on the door panel, this is for silicone adhesion later. Then above the rear wheel you'll see some filing marks. The funnycar body needs to be shaved a bit here to fit properly into the Delivery-Truck's body.

Rear view showing the spoiler-cut <<<===

You can probably see why this has been cut the way it is by now. You only need the hinge portion of the funnycar body to support the milk truck body while it is hinged. Now the tilting portion can be final painted, I used silver testors model paint to blend with the base           ===>>>

Now you can really see the mounting detail on this bottem view. The funnycar base actually fits almost perfectly from front to rear inside the milk truck body. Why couldn't Mattel see this one as a possibility for mass production? Oh well, too bad for them and good for us die-hards. It's important to make sure that the fit is as best as can be at this point.

Frontal view of the "Tilt-Body" in action. Up to now if your slow like me, there is probably a total of 1 to 2 hours time involved. Now the milk truck body is ready for paint or dye for the final finish. DO NOT SILICONE yet. The final assembly should be done after all the finish work is completed.

Before and After

Well, what do you think? I like this one alot now that the rear wheels are close to the fender-wells. Also it has a vintage funnycar look that I was looking for. Finally, I scraped off the paint on the high spot under my thumb of the above pic to give it a clean line once the model is finished with paint or RIT fabric dye. Hope you enjoyed my little project and come back again. Give me some feedback.............EJ