Growing up along the Central Coast of California it was common to see Woodies for all types throughout town, at the car shows, school parking lots, and definitely at the beach. They were as familiar as the Volkswagen Vans and Chevrolet Corvairs. Not as frequent as Volkswagen Bugs or Ford Mustangs. I always thought of them as beatnik wagons as those that drove them seamed a little disheveled looking.

AMT Round 2’s re-release of the 1941 Ford Custom Woody is a valued addition for those modelers who prefer the quieter and more functional hot rods of the time. Face it, not too easy to haul 2 surf boards 30 miles up the coast to your favorite break in the back of a Ford 1929 T bucket. Panel wagons and Woodies were the main ride for the surfer beach bums of the 60’s and 70’s.

For those of you who might be skeptical of building a snap tite kit (too easy, not detailed enough, kids toys) this would be the perfect opportunity to put your uncertainty aside and try one out. I had some reservations myself but after watching my 18 year old son bang one of these out in a weekend and it looking purely awesome on the shelf, I though I could do no worse.

I chose to build mine as a representation of the Las Vegas Metro Police Departments Ford F-150. Truthfully they do no currently have any Raptors in inventory but I thought this would make a great fantasy vehicle that is oh so close to the real thing. Included is a picture of the patrol unit I was trying to emulate. Being as such I need to add a few things to the model like light bar, radio, shotgun, push bumper, donuts, etc. The decals I made for the unit where done on the laptop and printed with an HP printer on clear decal stock. Obviously none of these items came from the Revell kit.

The kit I assembled here is the 1/25th scale version of the 1940 Ford Standard Coupe. This car in real life was available in two designs ,the standard ( built here) and the Deluxe. This version was the least expensive but more popular in it's day. Building this kit was a unique experience for me . I had a lot of fun building it .The vintage engine among other things was a great chance for me to work with parts that I'd never built with before. As far as the engine goes it is a Ford Flathead V8 with 60 Horsepower. It's a very nicely detailed vintage engine. I seen that these engine had blocks painted different colors. I chose to go with Ford Engine Blue.

In the early 1960’s, plastics were the wave of the future. The Marbon Chemical Company believed that plastic could be used for the structural parts of automobiles, and to demonstrate this they decided to build an entire car out of ABS plastic. The folks at AMT were so taken by this concept that they not only released kits of the car, but also committed to build a quantity of the full-scale vehicles. The most famous of these was used on the TV show “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”, where it served as the car driven by the main character and his sidekick, a pair of international spies.

The full-size cars never caught on, but the kits were popular, and Round 2 has recently re-released them. The first one out is the “Original Art Series” version of the “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” car, with original box art and a booklet full of color photos of the original vehicles, including the recently restored car from the TV series.

There was no flash on this kit with lots of chrome parts.

Engine

Eighteen pieces make up the little 4 banger engine that is very well detailed with all the parts fitting extremely well.

Interior

The interior is a one piece tub that the steering column gets glued into. Very basic.

Body

The body is really small. I mean tiny, but it’s molded very well. I painted the body with HOK chrome yellow.

Chassis

The chassis glues together in 4 pieces and then the tiny little chrome parts get glued to it. Some of those chrome parts are extremely small and that made it difficult for me to put together.

Included in the kit are the tiki hut that is extremely well engraved. I used several different colors in an attempt to make the palm leaves come alive. The “Big Daddy” figure was pre-painted by Revell. The decal sheet has several Rat Fink decals that can be added to the figure.