Beetlemania ! Tamiya 1/24 VW Beetle

[tigersteve]

My first ever car was a 1966 'D' Reg VW 1300cc Beetle .
There was quite a story with the car , first bought by my Dad new, in Bright Red .
However , My Mum hated red cars , maybe that was why he bought it, as they divorced a few years later!
Dad was in the Welsh Guards Band for most of his working life and whilst touring the USA and Canada in 1967, (which lasted 3 months) Mum had the car repainted Porsche Yellow ! Dad returned none the wiser and was not impressed.....
However, it remained our family car for another 8 years, nearly written off in a bad crash and took 4 of us on 2 major touring holidays, to Spain in the early 70s , towing a caravan and with a Mirror sailing dinghy on the roof!
When I passed my test it became mine for a couple of years .
I thought I would try to recreate the old thing, in of course, Porsche Yellow.

[john i am]

One of my neighbours had a yellow one back in the 1970s. Look forward to your build. Herbie will be pleased also.

[Tim Marlow]

Cool....it’s great when the model has a story behind it.

[yak face]

Great story steve , i can just imagine it , towing the caravan ,groaning under the weight of four people , all their luggage and a sailing dinghy! As you were kids in the back I bet you were sat there with your feet red hot , the heater never really turned off properly did it ( well it didnt in the one my brother had , a 1967 1500 !)

[tigersteve]

Great story steve , i can just imagine it , towing the caravan ,groaning under the weight of four people , all their luggage and a sailing dinghy! As you were kids in the back I bet you were sat there with your feet red hot , the heater never really turned off properly did it ( well it didnt in the one my brother had , a 1967 1500 !)

The heater was always a source of annoyance, in fact the 6 volt electrics were a pain , poor lights wipers that seemed to come on at random times, not at all sometimes when it was raining....
There was no fan on the ventilation/heating system, it worked through heat exchangers using exhaust to warm up the air , but only worked when on the move, and yes cold in the winter and hot in the summer !! ( Oh and the windscreen washers used the spare tyre air pressure to fire the water :tears-of-joy: )

[tigersteve]

Two problems , one I'll have to live with is the kit is Left Hand Drive , shame .
The other is paintwork . I live mainly in other peoples houses, looking after their pets and property whilst they go on holiday, so tend to work out of the box the kit comes in on a kitchen table with a small collection of brushes,tweezers,craft knife etc.
I couldn't find an Aerosol the right colour, so resorted to a Car Touch Up paint to brush paint the body. This is proving horrible stuff to work with as it dries in about 5 seconds literally, making brush strokes impossible to avoid ......
The under body will be mainly hidden, so will have to work hard on the shell to make it acceptable.....
The build is pretty straight forward so far !

[Tim Marlow]

Looking good so far Steve. Just out of interest, if you are using car touch up paint to paint the body, why can’t you use car touch up spray from Halfords or such like to spray paint it?

[tigersteve]

I couldn't find the correct colour anywhere in a can!

[yak face]

Steve if its porsche speed yellow you need then a reasonably close match would be Fiat broom yellow , which should be readily available in an aerosol either halfords own or Hycote

[Tim Marlow]

I see what you mean Steve....had a quick look myself on the zero paint site and the only way you can get it is to have some made up at a motor factor....bit pricey for a model!

[tigersteve]

Thanks for your interest , I will be going with the touch up and lots of polishing I think !

[tigersteve]

Have got the body about as good as it is going to get ......

[Tim Marlow]

Looks really good from here Steve.

[scottie3158]

Looking good and a great story, I will follow along.

[tigersteve]

Finally finished this little project , I have been moving about a lot lately!
I will leave it on my Mum's living room shelf to help remind her of her wild young self, now she is sadly suffering with Alzheimers Dementia.......