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Long Range Desert Group

Two Chevrolet trucks from the Matchbox LRDG-set

(Model finished 2012)

One truck was converted to the same version as the 1/35 truck from Tamiya. I added the radio and made a sofa instead of the separate seats in the kit.

I put them on a simple base just to keep them together.

Dodge WC52 Truck

I was inspired to bring out a sleeping project that I started back in 2013. I had built another many years ago straight out of the box but this time I was going to address the problem with the chassis sitting to high on the springs.

(Model finished 2020)

At the time when I started on it, I noticed that the recesses with the side markers were misaligned.

I cut the parts loose and moved them down.

This put them in the same height on both sides. I had also managed to assembly the front of the body before it all went to sleep.

Now seven years later I started to look at pictures of real cars to see in what height it sits I noticed some things.. Looking at the front fenders they touch the air louvres on the kit while on the real thing they are lot lower. The cargo bay on the kit seems to sit to high on the chassis. The top of the cargo bay should sit lower than the lowest part of the louvres on the hood.

I decided to do some work on the body to see if I could lower it. I used a chisel to work on the bottom of the cargo bed floor to make it thinner. I also sanded down the top of the chassis a little.
I found a second unstarted kit in the box and if this works it will be much easier to sand the floor thinner before starting to assembly the cargo bed. I also thinned the front fenders and removed the line were the fenders were going to me mounted so that I could mount them lower. I also bent the fenders tomake them rounder.

With the cargo bed placed lower I shouldn't need to alter the springs to much.

I was wrong. Now I removed the pegs on the axles and the springs to be able to mount the axles directly on the springs instead but I think that it still rides to high but better than the original. The wheels look rather good but they are missing the wheel nuts.

First coat of paint, a very faded green. I thought that it was an ex. US Navy truck as it looked grey but an owner of a real car told me that hes green had faded and was almost grey.

Still sitting to high but there are other kits to build. I don't know if there were two types of cargo beds on the WC52 but this one had a lower front so I removed some of the bottom in front of the wheel so it became the same height as behind the wheel.

Svensk Flygtjänst operated target tugs and used some WC52 trucks to tow the aircraft's. After WW2 lots of surplus material was bought by the Swedish armed forces. The WC52 were among that material.

Later a few of these seems to have ended up with Svensk Flygtjänst and I'm building one of those. This one had the outer parts of the brush guard mounted upside down so I had to cut them off and swap sides.

Scania Vabis 324

I found that First To Fight had a Fiat 621 truck and when I was looking at pictures of the real truck I thought: it looks like an old Scania Vabis. Looking at the data of the Fiat and Scania showed them to be very close in size. With some modifications I should be able to use the First to Fight kit so two kits were bought.

(Model finished 2021)

I find the FTF plastic to be very soft and since there is no top of the window frame one door had been bent.

When I got the kits and started to look into the Scania I became confused. The nose looked shorter on most of the pictures but reading more I found that there were a four- and six-cylinder trucks so that was why some pictures were off. So I started on the six cylinder Scania Vabis 324 as the nose in the kit looked as it had the right length.

I found a picture of a truck with a slightly larger cab, so I moved the rear wall back further. The door will be smaller, so the rear line was filled. I looked at some of the surviving trucks and most of them had a 3700- or 3800-mm wheelbase and I opted on the longer one for this build, the front axle had to be moved so I rebuilt the front of the chassis. This will not be an exact model, more of a "look-a-like"

The front fenders have a different shape, so they need to be rebuilt.

A new cargo bed was made with some parts from the Esci Opel Blitz.

I started to put some paint on it as I needed to see if any more putty was needed and as expected, it did. While looking at the 324 standing on the table in front of me, I found that I didn't like the look of the sides of the cargo bed, so I had to fix that.

Some wood gasifier parts has been scratch built.

I had a set of H0-scale (1/87) louvers that I hoped to use but they sat to tight so it would not work. Instead, I found a set of O-scale (1/43) that had louvers with the height of 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 mm. I bought it and hoped for the best.

If the louvers had been a bit thinner and 4,5 mm high it would probably have been perfect. Now I have 12 louvers instead of 13 on the long bonnet but it has to do. I think the louvers look OK now that they got some paint.

I scrapped my plan of adding a wood gasifier for the 325. As the truck is a bit old, I started to build a coal gasifier instead. As I understand it, they were less efficient than a wood burner so most coal burners on trucks were quickly replaced with wood burners leaving the coal for smaller vehicles.

Something I dreaded was mounting the front fenders, but I finally had a go at them. Now only head lights are needed before I can paint the lower part of the truck.

I don't like the nose being so low. So, the springs were altered on the front axle to make the truck sit level but I also need to move the axle forward.

I have almost all parts of the gasifier in place, so it is close to finish.
I used thin solder for the tubing of the coal gasifier. Easy to bend and I got a metal look without painting it.

The Scania Vabis 324 is finished. I added the rear mirror and turn indicators from a Roden Opel Blitz.

I marked it as a civilian truck presssed into military service during the war.
I know that the Scania Vabis logo on the doors probably is too modern. It should have a red griffin head in the middle.

OK. It is not 100% correct but at least I have something that look like a Scania Vabis 324.

Scania Vabis 325

The other kit will be a Scania Vabis 325. It was the four-cylinder truck so I had to shorten the nose.

(Model finished 2022)

I choose a different way to alter the chassis in the front. The front axle had to be moved on this one as well. I will keep the cab without any big changes. As I will build this with the shorter chassis, I can use the cargo bed in the kit as well.

I thought that it would be a minor job turning a Fiat in to a Scania Vabis but it was more work than expected, but I don't mind when it comes to a conversion. I don't find it as much fun when it comes to fix big faults on a kit.

I used the same Archer louvers on this one.

This one also had a nose down attitude.

So the springs were altered the same way as the other kit.

and I think that I have the 325 ready for paint finally.

But I got too much overspray doing the camouflage, so I need to get a new nozzle for the airbrush.

I finally decided to finish it. This one became an army truck.

It has the pre war registration plates. Before 1973 every region in Sweden had their on motor register. The first letter on the plate shows the region.
If you mowed the car had to be reregistered at the new region with a new registration number. This also applied to the military if a vehichle was transfered to another regiment.
During the war the miltary vehicles was lifted out of this system and they had their own register. The military numberplates became black with yellow numbers. Previous the military plates were like the civilian but they had the three crowns added to it.

I like the First to Fight truck. Not only because I could have some Scania Vabis trucks. I have now started on a Polish Fiat truck.

Ford AA

Ford AA with a long wheel base

I think that I never managed to finish a MW-kit so buying another might be a bad idea but I needed a truck with a gasifier and this looked like it fitted my needs.

(Model finished 2022)

But as I turned out the gasifier was of a type I never seen and didn't meet my need so the kit was set aside for a long time and would probably ended up as spare parts but then I got an idea.
I have for a long time needed (wanted is more correct) a long wheel base Ford AA so I had nothing to lose experimenting with the MW-kit. I found drawings and measurements of the chassis and decided to try. It looked like a cargo bed from an Opel Blitz would fit. Compared to my earlier Ford AA the wheel base is clearly longer.

The kit wasn't as bad as I expected. I think it turned out OK.

I found that the cargo bed leftover from my Scania Vabis 324 conversion fitted perfectly so I have the same type as on my military Scania Vabis 325.

So I can add another transport for my Swedish WW2 era Army.

Ford AA in France

A truck from FFI, the French Forces of the Interior or the French resistance fighters.

(Model finished 2003)

A GAZ AA kit from Fort but now a Ford AA. I built it straight out of the box.

Opel Blitz

While in truck mode it was just as well to continue. I wanted an Opel Blitz with a wood gasifier so I opted for a kit from MAC

(Model finished 2022)

But as it would be a civilian truck pressed in to military service I needed another cab for it. An old Esci wreck was stripped of paint ad adapted to this kit.

The green that I intended to have on my Volvo truck ended up on this one instead. Some debris got stuck in the paint so I needed to repaint the cab. I was not happy with the red on the wheels. First, they didn't come out red and second I think that black would look better.

With the main parts put together, next to do was the gasifier.

I decided to keep the red wheels and the rest was then finished.

Another civilian truck pressed in to military service,

and just on like the Scania Vabis I used thin solder for the tubing to the gasifier.

Another Opel Blitz. This time from Roden. I had to rebuild the front wheel hubs as Roden made the wheels for a 4WD truck.

(Model finished 2023)

It has been started and painted for a long time so I have forgot much about it. I painted it in Swedish WW2 colours after seeing a photo where an Opel was partly visible. I added an engine heater to it.

Terrängbil m/42 M Klöckner-Deutz A-3000

The truck looked really looking awful after the first coats of paint. I wanted it to look hand painted but I'm not sure it was a good idea. Well, the colours were to bright and to clean so tried to tone everything down a bit. It is a Swedish Army Klöckner-Deutz truck from SMA with an Airfix Bofors AA-gun in WW2 camo. I used the cargo bed from an Airfix Opel Blitz since the resin part was damaged and it didn't have a canvas top.

(Model finished 2007)

I was thinking of a dark wash but decided to try something else. I laid a grey filter (or something between a filter and a wash) and then another but with grey green. I think it blended the colours together and the green doesn't stand out as much as before.

I have decided to use another green on my other Swedish objects. Many years have passed since I built it and the front axle seems to give in so I'm considering a rebuild of the truck. '

I think that I have to build a completely new cargo bed. The Airfix bed fits just fine since the SMA kit clearly is based on the Airfix Opel kit. But the dimensions are wrong for my truck. I need a lower bed and I shouldn't have used the rear fenders either. There is something else that irritates me about it. It just look like an Opel Blitz with a new front.

Stockholm October 5, 2021 Updated October 09, 2023

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