Der Beetle Bus XL-Pressing Forward-01/05

[mustang1989]

I picked this kit up a couple of weeks ago because it was IMO just too dang cool. This one will be a sideline build when I either get stumped on or waiting for paint to dry for my current aircraft project, in which right now I'm waiting on paint to dry and trying to figure out some fit issues with it so I figured I'd start this thread. I'm not going to get as crazy as I did with my '54 Chevy just because I don't want something that in depth. But I do want to have some fun with this one so here goes.

Der Beetle Bus:



Now when I opened up the box I looked at the body and knew right away that this body was not going to fly at all. The wheel base is ridiculously short for my tastes and it would look more like a cartoon van than an actual vehicle. Here's where we start:



and I just couldn't leave it like that so I bought another kit and went to work:



Cutting the bodies at just the right points yielded a wheel base that I could live with



Top view of the difference it made:



and the side view :



and so it starts. Here's the set up I want to go with. Slicks and skinnies with my favorite kind of wheels. The ol' Weld Draglites:

This..................is more like it.







Body work and smoothing things out will commence shortly. I have to lengthen the roof and the chassis to follow suit with the body so stay tuned..............

[Thomas_M]

How is this called in the scene: re-chopping?

A remarkeable difference, the bus looks much better now and less like a toy. How much is such a kit in the states?

[KSaarni]

You did the right move, the original version does simply not look good!

Looking forward to many enjoyable moments with this WIP ! :-)

- Kari

[mustang1989]

Thomas: Thank you sir and it's called stretching. The kit originally costs about $30 from Hobby Lobby but with the 40% coupon I got it for around $18.

Kari: I appreciate your comments as well. I've got some more cutting and stretching to do but so far so good.

[Thomas_M]

18 bucks? That´s nice! Sadly, our hobby shops in Germany don´t do this coupon-thingie...

[mustang1989]

Sorry to hear that. Well, if it makes you feel any better I had to buy two of them so it was actually $36 for me.

[mustang1989]

Started on the chassis this morning. Here's what we had to work with OOB:



A couple of cuts and some trimming later yielded the correction:



Again, clean up will happen soon but I've gotta make sure this all works before any cosmetic work gets done. I did, however, get rid of those bumps for foot pedals. I think I can come up with something better than that.

[mustang1989]

Ok. That extra long rectangular opening in the floor is gonna mandate an engine that'll fill it. Don't think I haven't "been there" in thought. I'll be using Rick Dobbertin's blown, turbo'd and nitrous fed small block 350 for this using the Revell Pro Street J2000 kit:



The engine looks somthing like this:

[Thomas_M]

Wow! This is such a cool and good looking engine! Amazing!
Is this a little red "Stop" switch on top?

[mustang1989]

Thank you Thomas and that is no stop switch. It's an NOS sticker for the nitrous oxide. This thing is blown, turbo'd AND has nitrous. I wanted something wild for this one.