'27 T Highboy Roadster - Update 7-15

Ford ’27 T buckets are relatively rare in the scale model world. The main reason for this is because there are no kits and very few supporting parts for them. Virtually everything must be either kit –bashed or scratch built. This is ironic because resin re-pops of some mysterious and, as far as I’ve been able to find, undocumented donor model are commonly available from several different resin vendors. IMHO far and away the finest resin 27 T is made by Altered States Models: super crisp, styrene-like and with a very nice partial firewall detail. This is the basis for this project.

I’ve been wanting to build a ’27 T highboy for a long time. There are 3 influences that I’ll site, 2 I think are each exceptional in their own way, and one that is iconic and which I have never liked.

The icon is the George Barris Twister T, AMBR winner in 1962. For me this car is a bad dream with a sky high stance and countless details which crash into each other in a most unpleasant fashion. Unfortunately, like many bad dreams, this one remains firmly entrenched in my memory and has been since I have been a boy. Making a list of what needs to be corrected on this car will lead to a very nice 27 T highboy indeed.

The Barris Twister T:



Most closely related to the Twister T, indeed in many ways the Barris car “done right”, comes out of Roy Brizio’s shop in the early 90’s and featured in Volume 1, No. 1 of The Rodders Journal. Classic Brizio in every way, and an indicator of what was to be the “TRJ Look” in the years to come, it’s immaculate, period correct, and tasteful. Built for James Stroupe, pictures of it are virtually non-existent on the web, so these are scans from my copy of TRJ.

The Stroupe ’27 T Hiboy:





And finally, probably my favorite, the ex-Dennis Lacy car first made known to me by Dennis a few years back with a magical photo  of the car at Big Bear. The polar opposite of the Stroupe car, but a deadly serious period hot rod and no aRt Rod in any way. Loaded with authentic pre-’48 parts and a full house flattie, what makes this car special to my eyes is the perfectly balanced stance, a true highboy in character, but graceful and sleek nonetheless. These are the only pictures I was able to find remaining on the net that show the car to advantage. The stance of this car is where I would like to go, but perhaps with a somewhat later period in finish and detail.

The Dennis Lacy ’27 T Highboy:




So now to the job at hand. I’m trying not to let this project get away from me, so I’ve decided to let it’s Revell Deuce roots show through somewhat. The frame is Revell Deuce, and quite likely much of the suspension will be, too. The most difficult thing about doing a resin 27 T is that no interiors exists for the car. So if you’re going for a proper tuck ‘n’ roll interior you have a challenge ahead of you. In my case I’ve found a way to adapt the Revell side panels and bench seat from the original Highboy ’32 Ford issue. The chassis is z’d at the rear in an attempt to achieve some of the balance of the Lacy car. So far I have no wheels/tires or suspension on the build so we’ll see how that goes. I’m planning on a Deuce grille shell so my car will be quite different. I’m shooting for some sort of period OHV V8, probably with a fair bit of chrome to pay to my recurring Twister T nightmare. I’ve done a ton of Caddy powered rods so it will quite likely have to be something else..

Below are the initial build pics.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

The new Revell Olds engine is the obvious choice but I think we'll be seeing a lot of them in rods.
Nailhead?  If you don't have a styrene one The Parts Box do one in resin one which isn't bad.
Can't go wrong with an early Hemi either but if I were building this i'd go for a Y block or an FE.

Thanx Fred. The Y block in particular has been suggested more than once. I'm checking it out...

The interior pieces are now completed. There’s still a bit of smoothing and polishing to do but I’m confident the fit is good and it’s time to move on to the stance and chassis setup so I can get an idea of what I have going on here.

The bench seat and side panels are Revell ’32 Ford Highboy pieces radically massaged to fit the much smaller ’27T interior. The side panels have been shortened, sectioned, curved somewhat, and trimmed to fit the sides of the ’27 properly. In the photos they’re held in place with tape so the fit, especially at the rear up by the top of the seat, is not as precise as it will be during final assembly. The bench seat had 3 pleats removed on each side and 1/8th inch half-round stock added and shaped to conform to the side of the cabin. The dashboard is the custom part from an AMT ’37 Chevy coupe kit, narrowed down and squared up to fit the ‘27’s cowl. Using a tuck and roll dash is an indication of the direction I’m headed in. I think I’ll be combining some of the early 60’s show car aspect of the Twister with the more conservative vibe of the Stroupe car but with the sleek stance of Dennis’s roadster.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

Steering wheel appears to be on the wrong side...

  

Just in case I haven't mentioned it before, I'll just say it now...
I love Rod & Custom models... & this one is on it's
way to being a real "pearler" I reckon. Er sorry, Bernard (from USA),
that means I think this rod is going to turn out real good!.
I'm keeping an eye on this build.
 

Thanx guys!

I performed my usual fettling on the Revell ’32 Ford front suspension, a variation of the Tim Boyd Drop (Thanx Tim!) where you narrow the spring-mount tab to lift the front suspension closer to the crossmember. I also removed two spring leaves and notched the rails at the front crossmember to lower things some more. The rear suspension is essentially at the stock height, the lowering coming from the approx. 4 scale inch Z-job. Below are a couple of stance check photos with the tires I’m going to use (from Modelhaus, T-120 fronts and I-lost-the-label-on-the baggy-so I-don’t-know rears). There’s virtually none of the rake of the Stroupe car but not it’s not quite as low as the Lacy car.

The last photo compares the two bodies with the leading edge at the firewall flat to the ground. You can see the enormous difference in size of the two with respect to cowl height. I make the Deuce almost 8 scale inches taller in that dimension compared to the ’27 T. This will require a chopped grill shell to get a proper line from the cowl. I was planning on using a Moder Car Garage p/e grill anyway and they can be ordered with either 4” and 6” chopped shells, one of which should do the job. You’ll notice that the Stroupe car has a chopped shell, but I think I want a bit more shell showing between the front rails so I’m guessing I’ll opt for the 4” chopped version.

Now that the basic stance is established it’s time to fill the space in front of the firewall….

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

Getting there B.
A couple of observations if I may.
Firstly, the fact that the height at the cowl is so much less than the stock deuce makes the chassis look awfully chunky and emphasises the "perched on top" look.  IMO it'd benefit from a touch of channelling.  However, that will require either widening the body or narrowing the rails.
Secondly, I think it needs to be lower at the front.  Not much though.  Just the amount you'd get from cutting vertically downwards at the cowl with a razor saw, stopping when you have about 1mm of plastic left and then closing the cut by gently bending the rails upwards and gluing them.

Thanks Fred but it's going to stay on top of the rails. I'm looking for a pretty classic highboy look, somewhere between the Stroupe and Lacy cars. Not as much rake as the Stroupe highboy but with a taller look than Dennis' roadster. Despite the fact that his car sits on top of its rails Dennis took a lot out of the height when he z'd the rear. But I'll wait until there's more mass in front of the firewall and I have a grill shell to play with for any further tuning. As regards wedging the rails upwards, I'll keep that in my back pocket since there's still room to drop the front in the suspension if need be. Taller rear tires and/or lowering the rear are other options I've thought of as well.

Hi Bern, the Stroppe version always did it for me, as close to the perfect T on Deuce rails as can be achieved.

Love what you've done with the interior but readin this before I got to your interior pics, I was thinking the AMP Ala Kart interior tup may be easy to adapt and achieve the right look.

We both have very similar taste in cars, so I can't wait to see this one finished.

Think I will keep an eye on this one.  Looks interesting.

I'm keeping my eyes on this one too...
Lookin' real interesting!.

Thanx guys.

Carps, the Ala Kart interior is very different in shape to what is needed to fit the '27 T shell. It was one of the first approaches I tried. Fitting the Ala Kart, even if you accept the highly stylized details of it, which are generally recognizable whenever they are used, requires as much cutting and reshaping as any scratch building effort. I was surprised how relatively simple adapting the Revell bits turned out to be. I have been collecting cheap copies of the old 1/25th Deuce Roadster kits lately which has freed me up to work on some of these types of projects. Creating a proper interior has been the challenge all along with the resin '27s and the key reason, IMHO, why these body shells have never been more popular. I have been talking with a very reputable resin caster lately and encouraging him to produce additional parts for the '27 T roadster, notably a windshield frame and interior. With these as parts of a transkit, I think you might see more of them. I have an AMT 27 T Touring windshield coming which I am hoping will fit this shell and give me a basis for addressing that issue.

I have a mold for a 1927 Ford roadster but it is "just a bit big" for your car....  

I don't keep up with the 1/25 models anymore but I would have thought
more 27 'T'  kit stuff would have been produced.

An update at last! With no basic kit to draw on everything needs to be kit-bashed or scratch built so progress is slow with lots of “two steps forward and one step back”.

I have built the motor. I decided to go the “Ford in a Ford” route, something I virtually never do. I like the look of the Y-block Ford V8s with their well-defined valve covers, especially the look of a full-dress ’57 T-Bird 312 4-barrel. I was going to use the AMT version but didn’t care for the typically “soft” AMT molded-in detailing on the block, so, instead I made a fake-o Y-block using one of the countless small-block Fords I have left over from an equally countless number of Revell Deuce kits I’ve used. I added material to the block below the pan-line to create the Y-block’s characteristic shape, squared up the heads to fit the T-Bird valve covers and detailed the ignition and accessories based on research done on the internet. All the chrome bits except the headers are from the AMT ’57 T-Bird. But I just couldn’t go with the trademark “up-and-over” Y-block headers. Instead I used a set of “limefire” headers from the Revell Roth Tweedy Pie kit. They may have been for a small-block Chevy, but they have the correct paired center ports and they line up perfectly.



Also receiving attention was the bodywork. I’ve added a rolled pan at the rear to complement the line defined by the chassis rails. It was built up from styrene strip and quarter-round . I also fabricated a firewall using the inset part of a Revell Deuce firewall.




Next up is bodywork and paint, wheel choice, exhaust system, steering gear, and… Hopefully I’ll have an update sooner than last time.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

Bernard Kron wrote:...With no basic kit to draw on everything needs to be kit-bashed or scratch built so progress is slow with lots of “two steps forward and one step back”...

But that's part of the fun.
Do you build consecutively or concurrently?
I flit between many builds as I lose and regain interest in them or get stuck and then find inspiration.

Engine looks good.

zenrat wrote:...
Do you build consecutively or concurrently?
I flit between many builds as I lose and regain interest in them or get stuck and then find inspiration. ...

I tend to build consecutively, although I will put a project aside if it goes stale on me for some reason (either lack of inspiration or a technical/aesthetic dead end). I do a lot of mental building before I actually start to work in plastic. I also will do little test routines critical to a project to see if its what I think it will be. So the project I see to completion can be either totally new, like this one, or an older one whose time has come. Even after 6 years of modeling since I picked it up again I'm still in the "big steps" part of the learning curve. Hardly a project goes buy without some significant new technique learned or improvement in something I still don't do quite right. I suppose I should be grateful for that! And I guess if things stayed in one place I'd have dropped it by now...

While I’m waiting for my 4” chop p/e grille and shell to arrive from Model Car Garage I thought I would start on the paint. I’m going for an early 60’s show car vibe (the Barris influence in the project) so I thought I’d try my hand at a metalflake. I’ve experimented in this area before but this is the first time I’ve taken it all the way to an active project.

I often use Duplicolor paints and one characteristic they all share, regardless if they’re solids or metallics, is that they are fairly transparent and very sensitive to the color and texture of your undercoat. I actually have done candy-like paints jobs using Duplicolor metallics over a gold or silver base coat. Duplicolor makes a range of heavily flaked transparent paints  for the system called Metal Specks. I used  Metal Specks Silver as the base coat for my flake paint job.

The color coat is Duplicolor Medium Quasar Metallic. A bright medium blue. If you shoot it over a white base coat it is a very rich but brilliant medium blue, only a couple of shades darker than a French racing blue. But it’s so transparent that if you shoot it over a dark primer like a red oxide, or even a bright gold metallic, it will totally change color. Over red oxide it changes to a muddy dark olive blue green, and over gold it will show as a dark emerald blue-green metallic.

What I was looking for was a rich, deep medium blue with a visible flake and strong metallic highlights. After experimenting with various combinations I settled on red oxide primer, followed by a base metallic coat of Metal Specks silver. The Metal Specks paint is also quite transparent with no toner in it, just metal flakes in a clear base. So it shows a bit of the red oxide to it. Fortunately there is plenty of silver flake to it so it gave me the color I was going after.

Here are some photos taken in bright direct sunlight showing the progression of layers. The Metal Specks is quite coarse so I buried it in clear before moving on to the color coat. The base coat shot is the Metal Specks and three coats of Duplicolor Clear. Under artificial light the effect is a little more subdued.





Next up is detailing and painting the chassis which will be body color with a white undertray and body color rear axle.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

Coming along nicely Bern, I like the colour   

Thats pretty.  I think you've nailed the 60's show car look right there.

Thanx guys!

This project continues to offer up the kind of challenges I expect when I tackle a build largely outside the bounds of any one kit. While the core of the model is based on the Altered States resin ’27 T roadster and a Revell ’32 Ford chassis the radically more compact body shell and the early 60’s show car style I’ve chosen to depict demand a constant flow of adaptation and fabrication of various parts. But that was why I chose to do this subject and I’m very much enjoying the process.

The main chassis fabrication is completed and the chassis painted to match the body work. In addition I’ve selected the wheels. They’re chrome reversed rims from the AMT ’51 Chevy hardtop kit. I made a wash using Testors Acryl Ford Engine Blue and isopropyl alcohol and painted the recessed areas to achieve a Barris Kolor Krome look. I will be using the chromed Corvette style steering wheel from the same kit and plan to give the rim the same finish. The tires are from Modelhaus, T120’s at the front and (I think…) T193’s at the rear.

The interior panels are now painted in a two-tone combination of Duplicolor Oxford White with Duplicolor Wimbledon White highlights. The piping is .075” blue insulated hookup wire. The floor is finished in Wimbledon White. I’m still up in the air as to whether I will stick with the tuck ‘n’ roll dash or try something else.

And last but far from least, I have an exact-fit windshield from an AMT ‘27T Touring Car which I have cut down to the lower panel.

Here are some pics of the progress I’ve made. I also fabricated an exhaust system and installed it. Once I have the suspension pieces sorted out I’ll take some pictures of the completed undercarriage. That’s next up on my list. Final assembly can’t be too far away…

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

I love your work especially the way you can take bits from any and everywhere and cut and shut them so they look like they came from the factory that way. Inspiring stuff!

Looking migh"T" good. Love the paint and the awesome
custom building!... keeping a watchful eye on this one. 

I love the blue "Barris Kolor Krome look" on the wheels and the blue piping, it's looking awesome Bern. And those Modelhaus wheels are spot on   

Thanks again, fellas!

It’s been almost 2 weeks since an update on this car, so I thought it was time to show some progress shots. When it comes to modeling projects, I follow the 80-20 rule: 80% of the difficulties and flaws come during the last 20% of the build, especially during final assembly. This has been especially true of this one, particularly because so much of it is scratch built or kit-bashed. Therefore, I’m proceeding carefully and slowly to minimize the damage!

The interior is completed and the dashboard and side panels glue in place. I still have some adjusting to do to the side panels so I haven’t glued the seat into place, but the steering wheel, a Corvette-style piece from an AMT ’37 Chevy coupe kit finished in transparent blue wash over chrome, in similar fashion to the wheels, is installed as are the various other bits.

The chassis is completed and the suspension installed. The “donor kit” for the majority of this .project has been a Revell ’32 Ford roadster and most of the suspension is adapted from it. The hairpins were stolen from the recent Stacey David’s Rat Roaster variant. The rear radius rods were shortened to accommodate the shorter chassis, but since the chassis is stock length from the center crossmember forwards  no mods were required to the front end components other than removing 3 leaves from the front spring to adjust the stance. The chassis is body color and the floor pan is finished in Duplicolor Oxford White.

The major change has been to the exhaust system The motor sits well back in the frame, and while the fit is near perfect, requiring no adjustments to the fan placement or radiator mounting, the result is that the motor sits nestled back against the recessed firewall, just as it would on a standard Revell Deuce. For this reason I was unable to use the set of side exhaust pipes that Dale Verts had so generously contributed. Instead I pinched a set of block hugger tubular exhausts from a Revell ’57 Chevy Nomad kit and adapted the exhaust system to fit.

Below is a summary photo of the car in the process of assembly. Still to go are installation of the lighting system and front shocks, the windshield, grille shell and wheels. Seemingly straightforward stuff, but this is the point where things can go terribly wrong! Hopefully my next post will ,announce a completed car and that it will be clean and straight.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

So far, such an amazing build. Love the look of this car.