AMT '40 Ford Tudor Sedan Box Art Build

AMT ‘39/’40 Ford Tudor Sedan Trophy Series Box Art Replica

This project started in response to 1940 Ford 75th Anniversary with a Group Assembly Scheme. Deadline was this month so I’m in just barely before the Holiday Season.  I decided to build a replica of the custom on the side of the original Trophy Series release of the classic AMT 1940 Ford Tudor Sedan kit. It features a unique set of scallop decals and the early AMT “Bottle Cap” moon discs. Here’s a composite of the box top, box side, a close-up of the custom version, and a photo image I created representing the box art using my completed model.



The build is, as you would expect, very much out of the box. Unfortunately my “box” consists of various modern re-issues with many of the original parts long gone. Luckily somewhere along the line I had acquired a set of the original AMT “bottle cap” Moonies (which don’t faintly look like Moon discs) and, through the generosity of Johnny Stäveborn I obtained a set of the original capped exhaust dumps. The box art Custom image is based on the stock version on the box lid and many of the stock details are included, such as the full stock trim and door handles, and the roof mounted aerial. Also, the rear fender illustration consists of a pair of decals, one on the skirt and another wrapping around the back of the rear fender. The actual kit decals, when issued, only had a larger single decal to cover this area. So I decided to draw my own rear decals based on a scan of the original decal sheet which was provided to me by Ron Savoie (fordrodnkustom).

As you’ll see, I landed up making some small changes from the original box art. The most important one is that my decals have a green edges instead of s=white. This is because I landed up printing my own decals from my bit map art created in Photoshop  using my inkjet printer. I investigated having custom decals printed but this would have required vector graphics art drawn in a program like Corel Draw of Adobe Illustrator. It turns out that printers that can print white (such as an ALPS printer) don’t play nice with bit map images. Neither time, budget, nor learning curve allowed me to entertain this option, however, so I  made the command decision to make the change.

Other than that, as long as I was departing from the box art image, I decided to lower the car about 3.5 scale inches all the way around by shaving the kit dropped front axle and front cross member, and recessing the rear spring as far as it would go. In addition I did the running boards and engine bay, as well as the undercarriage, in contrasting white. The interior is a bit more elaborate than in the drawing as well.

Other than that it’s Out-Of-The-Box all the way. Paint is Tamiya TS-16 Yellow and Tamiya TS-65 Pearl Clear sealed with Duplicolor Clear once the decals were applied. Modern techniques such as Bare Metal Foil and wiring and plumbing the engine we also used. Special thanx go to Ron Savoie and Johnny Stäveborn, and also to John Goschke (froghawk), who showed me I had the rear decal upside down and who shared with me his technique of building up the chrome trim surfaces with .010” x .030” styrene strip. The originals are infamous for how shallow and difficult to foil they are. Thanx John, the BMF went much better this time!

Also a special Thank You to Cal Wood whole taught me the ins and outs of MicroDry printers. Next time Cal, I’ll be drawing vector graphic art, you can count on it!

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

Looks good there Bernard, nice rendition of the box art too.

Gorgeous B.  You really nailed it.
Now build the green modified...

Thanks guys! Big fun to research, build and photograph. Box Art is quite the relaxing diversion. I can see where people could get into this sort of thing!

This has turned out great, got one in my stash of kits to build.

Thanks Allan!

Perfect.