August 23, 2013

BelAir | '62 | Low

The history of Lowriding started in the late 40's due predominantly to the White American Hot Rod culture. When heating or cutting the coils of your suspension, you could easily lower your vehicle to desired heights. These rides where sometimes call sleds. They sported 15” DIA. wheels with large white walls.
A low rider can have a restored exterior paint or an expensive one, consisting in several thin layers of transparent paint with metallic flakes or other kind of glitering particles. Also in LowRiding culture we can find son amazing paint jobs consisting in real paintings on the principal body panels (hoods, door panels and so on). The customization go further till the engine look, or even till the replacement of some serial components with aftermarket more performing ones. A must have in our days is the hydraulic suspension who gives a minimal ground clearance for having a better look (sometimes the look is spectacular).
Trying to reproduce such a car at 1@18th I chose a mythic base for LowRidding concept: Chevrolet BelAir 1962. The model is basically made by Maisto and it can be used very well as a base for the modifications. The paintings are some decals from a Revell truck at 1@24th. All the rest is custom paint.

August 05, 2013

ZIS | 110B



ZIS 110B (custom build) and 110 (DeAgostini) 1/43rd
ZIS-110 was a limousine from ZIL introduced in 1946. The 110 was developed from reverse engineering of a 1942 Packard Super Eight during 1944. The first 5 prototypes were completed by August 1945. It was powered by a 6-litre, 8-cylinder engine producing 140 hp and giving a top speed of over 140 km/h. It was made in both sedan and convertible versions. Production ended in 1958 with total of 2038 cars made. (ZIS-110. (2013, July 23). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10:10, August 2, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ZIS-110&oldid=565476358)

The convertible version was called 11o B. It was developed from the normal version by removing the roof structure and replacing it by a soft top.

DeAgostini reproduces the 110 at the 1/43rd in the limousine version (for door saloon with 7 places). The conversion I made reproduces a 11o B. There was reproduced the soft top and the interior was detaild (carpet on the floor, two tone seats, wood simulated and so on). The color chosen is Burgundy red. All chromed rods are simulated using Bare-Metal-Foil.

Please enjoy the limousine: