1930 Packard 734 Speedster Runabout (boattail) By Egilman- Monogram- 1/24th Scale- FINISHED!!

[Egilman]

Ok this will be OOB, and with only what I have on hand for supplies. I built one of these 30+ years ago and the wife took one look at it and claimed it... It sat on her shelf in the living room for 10+ years with a halogen spotlight shining on it.... And she was proud as punch when she was telling people that I built it for her...... Unfortunately, it didn't survive the trip to the new digs 20 years ago, and since I'm at a place I can't finish the truck till parts get here, I'm going to occupy my time re-creating something she loved.....

 

I'm starting with the Monogram # 2311 The Metal Master kit....

And yes, that is exactly the way Monogram thought we should build it... Soft Chrome & Gold.... The instruction have no painting suggestions or table of colors... I am on my own... {chuckle}

You know it doesn't look all that bad in reality, it's not real  of course and saudi sheiks weren't buying cars with sterling silver bodies and solid gold trim yet..... This was the 1930's, the middle of the great depression Ford Model "A"'s were selling for just over $250.00 Henry Ford was paying his workers unheard of money so not only would they stay but be able to buy his cars... this Packard was selling for $5,200.00 decidedly a car for the well heeled...

 

But one must understand what one was buying when they bought one of these, THIS, is the original muscle car.... Two generations before Carrol Shelby started the ponycar/musclecar rage, this was the car to get if you wanted to go fast in style...... It has an up-tuned Packard Straight Eight that boasted a whopping 109hp, it was sold as a car that would do 109 mph when everyone else was barely getting to 80.... (road tests easily demonstrated that it would peg the speedo at 120 and eventually break the cable)

Yep, 120 mph stock....... some 120 Packard speedsters were built, in five different body styles, of course the most popular was the runabout, but they had a phaeton, a coupe, a sedan and a touring car as well, all built on the speedster chassis. (some 50 or so were runabouts of which 30-35 still exist, the sedan is the rarest of them all, 15 were built and only two known vehicles remain)

 

They can sell for up to 2 million dollars for a particularly well documented showroom car, or 50-60,000 for a decdntly maintained driver.

 

Anyway... as with all vehicle kits, they start you out with the engine......

First lets take a look at the real deal.....

Packard Green and a nice polished aluminum crankcase trimmed in black.....

 

And my feeble effort to replicate it....

 

Frame coming up next.......

 

EG

Edited April 8, 2020 by Egilman

[Jack12477]

45 minutes ago, Egilman said:

it was sold as a car that would do 109 mph when everyone else was barely getting to 80.... (road tests easily demonstrated that it would peg the speedo at 120 and eventually break the cable)

I think the Auburn and the Cord were guaranteed from factory to also top 100 MPH.  The Auburn Boattail Speedster was powered by a 4.6L straight eight that, with the popular supercharger option (150 hp), could top 100 mph (160 km/h). And The Cord 810, and later Cord 812, produced by the Cord Automobile division of the Auburn Automobile Company in 1936 and 1937 was the first American-designed and built front wheel drive car with independent front suspension.  

 

My Dad's mechanic, whom Dad insured, bought a Cord (don't remember which model or model year), restored it and drove it around for years. When he bought it the idler gear was cracked, so he had to make a new one from scratch.

 

This is going to be a fun kit to watch. 

 

BTW that is a beautifully restored model in those photos.

Edited April 8, 2020 by Jack12477

[Egilman]

Yeah Cord bought Auburn to try and rescue the brand, he then set about revamping the lineup by creating the Auburn 8 in '24 and built a few cars to fit it.... He knew about the Packard speedster and tried to compete by creating the Auburn Speedster (the boattail was a direct response to the Packard) then redesigned the eight to produce the speed and power. But it was the depression, and not a lot of car companies made it thru... Auburn didn't....... It's a darn shame I believe the Auburn speedsters were also very fine automobiles....

 

There are a bunch of pics of Packards online some of them absolutely beautiful and the resto work is above excellent....

 

This was a fun kit to build back then, didn't take too long and I did a few tricks with it.... going to replicate them here.... the kit falls together amazingly well and good detail..... they still show up on evilbay as there is usually a couple of them for sale... they did a whole series of the metal master kits mostly of the antique cars. they didn't sell well cause back then most didn't know how to deal with the chrome very well... the whole metal masters thing was viewed as a gimmick so they didn't go over well with the modelers....

 

I have the V-16 Caddie metal master in my stash also.

[Edwardkenway]

Yep I'm in EG, gonna be a good looking car whatever colour you choose 😁👍

[Kurt Johnson]

I always liked the boat tails. Here’s an Auburn I saw this past summer in the town next to mine. Cars had a lot of class then. I’m going to enjoy this build.

Kurt

[Canute]

I'm in, too.

 

Looks like a car show day there, with the custom job across the street. Where was that, Rutherford?

[Kurt Johnson]

Ken, Are you a transplant?

 

It’s Somerville, Somerset Co. They have a car night every Friday from May till about August. Not sure what this year will bring.  Usually a lot of classic hot rods and a ton of Vettes. It’s really nice, free, there are lots of sidewalk resturants, but crowds of people so this year is anybodies guess. If you look across the street you can see some of the Hot Rods.

 

Kurt

[Canute]

Kurt, I am.

 

I've been in Somerville a time or two, when I worked NJ emergency management, out of Piscataway. Used to be a good BBQ joint with a blues club attached, I vaguely remember.  Grew up in Bergen County.

 

We do a similar Friday night drill here from April to mid September.. And dancing to a variety of live bands. We're pretty touristy around here, so the precautions are really crimping the whole scene on our Main Street.

[popeye the sailor]

sweet looking engine.......yup.......definitely have to go back a few years to find truly sculpted cars.  it was a sad day when we went into our 'square days'

[Kurt Johnson]

I always thought the stream lined locomotives like the New York Centals Hudsons where really cool looking too.

 

Kurt

[Old Collingwood]

Gonna be a great kit.

 

OC.

[Egilman]

Well Thank you everyone for pulling up a seat, comments advice and explorations of history are always welcome.... 

 

Sit back and enjoy the journey......

 

EG

[Egilman]

WE have an engine, now we need wheels for the engine to do its job.....

 

Wheels and Tires.....

 

I normally don't partake of wide whitewalls, but in this case, on gold rims, they really look the part.....

 

But the point is to put the engine power to the wheels and for that we need a frame.......

For this edition, I stripped the chrome off the frame and running gear, the previous one I didn't and had to deal with constant touch ups cause paint doesn't stick to chrome that well. Paint adhesion here won't be a problem. Now this car had a frame that the engine crankcase was an integral part of the structure on the forward end. here I've inserted the engine between the frame rails to align the two sides so the rear cross members are assured of being square. It was removed for painting..... Overall semi-gloss black.......

 

Assembled....

 

Next part, the lower body pan & fenders....... (dressing out the underworks)

 

EG......

 

 

[popeye the sailor]

chassis looks really nice  

[yvesvidal]

EG,

 

How do you remove chrome from the sprues/parts? Do you use some chemicals or do you sand it away?

 

Yves

[Egilman]

51 minutes ago, yvesvidal said:

How do you remove chrome from the sprues/parts? Do you use some chemicals or do you sand it away?

I use a product called Super Clean, takes the most stubborn chrome off in three hours, overnight, it take off the electroplating lacquer also... Then rinse in water.....

[Egilman]

A demonstration of chrome stripping.....

 

The next part is the Floorpan/Fenders/Underside. the part that connects the body to the frame and adds the distinctive fenders to the chassis....

OOB, it is completely chromed both sides.....

 

Top... (sitting in position on the chassis)

Bottom.... (showing the underneath floor details)

The top has to be shiny gloss black, the bottom of course has to be flat black.....

 

Super Clean..... (I get mine from Wally World in the automotive section)

For some reason the camera turned the bottle blue it's actually very medium dark  purple......

I pour some out in a tray.....

And at 9:30 am I place the part in the super clean....

 

It's not deep enough to completely cover it cause I want to show how easy it really is..... so the high spots will remain chrome while the rest will be clean dark green plastic...

 

As it works, I will take photos without disturbing it util it's done....

 

EG

[Egilman]

Short time update....

 

Ten minutes....

You can already see it working on the recesses and running boards........

 

20 minutes......

Running boards and recesses are almost clean, beginning to clean the wide flat surfaces.....

 

40 minutes.....

Foam is forming around the wide flat floor as it attacks the chrome, at 1 hour, I will give it a swirl in the cleaner and take a look at the underside.....

 

It works amazingly fast....... way better than bleach or oven cleaner without any elbow grease needed or the smelly odors from oven cleaner.....

It's my go to for stripping chrome.....

 

And it's bio-degradable so it is safe.......

 

Great stuff...

 

[Egilman]

One hour in the Super Clean.... I gave it a bit of a swirl and tilted it so you can see the effect.......

 

All except for the hard edges, (which take a lot of plating during the plating process, it is clean) and in another half hour the hard edges will be clean as well....

 

The undersides, 1 hour in....

Almost completely clear.......

 

Another half an hour or so to get the hard edges and then flip her over to do the parts that were out of the solution....

 

This is the chrome stripper everyone should be using.... and besides, diluted 5/1, it makes some the best household cleaner around.....

Put this in your tool kit you will not be sorry....

[Egilman]

At 1 hr 40 min, she was done on that side....

So we flip her over....

And 40 minutes later....

Almost done.... we will be right in at three hours for a complete strip and that was doing it in two stages, If I had completely inundated it in Super Clean,  it would be done already....

 

I have no affiliation with Super Clean or any of it's parent or subsidiary companies and no financial stake at all in this product... My interest is solely in that it works for modeling better than anything else I have ever seen....

and I would recommend it to any one needing to strip electroplated chrome off of plastic without damaging the plastic underneath....

 

Now when this is done in a few minutes I wash it off, dry it and now, in three hours, it's ready for paint....

 

EG

[Shotlocker]

Greetings,

 

I'm wondering if that Super Clean will remove old paint from plastic as well, any experience with that? I've used brake fluid in the past

but that stuff is iffy and nasty to work with.

[Egilman]

10 minutes ago, Shotlocker said:

Greetings,

I'm wondering if that Super Clean will remove old paint from plastic as well, any experience with that?

Greetings to you as well!!! thanks for looking in...

 

No I haven't tried it on paint, but I do know that left to soak overnight / 24hrs, it separates/removes the dielectric lacquer they use to get the chrome to stick to the plastic in the first place.... All I can say is give it a try, it isn't going to hurt it...... And yes, stripping paint in brake fluid is a nasty process.....

 

Thank you for asking...

 

EG

[Shotlocker]

Thanks for the response! I guess I'll add the Super Clean to our shopping list for when we dare to venture out again and give it a try.

Seems like if it will remove lacquer it should remove enamel as well. I'll certainly let you know the results. I have an old Monogram

'59 Cadillac kit that needs a horrible paint job removed.

 

Great work you're doing on that Speedster, by the way.

[Fright]

She's a sweety! Wonderful job on the engine. So much that catches the eye on older cars. Your certainly off to a great start!

[Egilman]

28 minutes ago, Shotlocker said:

Thanks for the response! I guess I'll add the Super Clean to our shopping list for when we dare to venture out again and give it a try.

Seems like if it will remove lacquer it should remove enamel as well. I'll certainly let you know the results. I have an old Monogram

'59 Cadillac kit that needs a horrible paint job removed.

 

Great work you're doing on that Speedster, by the way.

 

My pleasure, and stay tuned there's more coming....

Thank you for the compliment......

 

27 minutes ago, Fright said:

She's a sweety! Wonderful job on the engine. So much that catches the eye on older cars. Your certainly off to a great start!

Back then they really had a sense of style, not so much nowadays....

 

Thank you...

 

EG

[Canute]

EG, very nice tutorial. May give it a shot for paint stripping

[Egilman]

Thanks Ken,

 

I wish it was a tutorial more a demonstration... pour in it something, and drop the parts in.... For most parts I use a pint mason jar with a lid, every so often I just give it a shake stir it up a bit, I use another pint jar with lid full of clear cold water for the rinse, same thing leave it soak for a bit giving it an occasional shake.... when done lay them out on a paper towel to dry them....

 

The super clean in the jar last for several kits before needing changing, the water bath I change after every stripping job.....

 

The floor pan/fenders on the packard is the largest part I've ever had to strip chrome off of.... seems to work fine there also....

 

Hopefully it does work on paint.....

 

EG

Edited April 10, 2020 by Egilman

[Egilman]

It's now 4 hrs later, and one completely clean part.....

 

No chrome anywhere and ready to paint.....

 

Nothing advocates better than the end result....

 

Thank you for your patience..... (and indulging me by following along)

[Edwardkenway]

That's fantastic stuff EG, I wonder if it's available over here?

Motors looking fine 😁👍

[Egilman]

58 minutes ago, Edwardkenway said:

That's fantastic stuff EG, I wonder if it's available over here?

Motors looking fine 😁👍

Amazon.co.uk lists it but says it is unavailable due to high demand.....  (right)

I don't think it can be shipped......

 

Thank you for the compliment....