Wild Willy M38 Mk1 SWB Restoration

I needed a decent set of tires for running on my Blazer (as and when it's restored - another half complete project at the moment). I have a set NIP but they're too rare now to run with so, like most of the older kits I have, I keep two sets of wheels and tires with one for running and one for show. Hadn't really thought about owning a Wild Willy prior to that as it always seemed to me a bit too far on the 'toy' side.

I saw this pop up on eBay for around £100 with decent tires so snapped it up. It looked in reasonable condition in the pics, but turned out actually to be in great condition, with hardly any scratches to the plastic parts, and the body was unpainted with stickers applied direct. And as I was looking at it, the WW finally started to really grow on me due to some nice detailing (although how can you have a jerry can without a back?! - that had to be fixed).

This one is a short-wheel base, I've since found out. I think that makes them slightly rarer, although seem to be plenty about nonetheless.

Anyway, should be nice and easy resto right? Wrong! A previous owner had mistaken 'threadlock' for 'strongest glue in the universe' and accordingly every single thing that's meant to be screwed or bolted to something else had been glued as well. That meant for a lot of drilling out of screws and some careful sawing. Turned out to be one of the most difficult restos I've ever done, taking about 20 hours I would estimate in total just to disassemble.

I didn't paint the driver. I had bought that a long time ago as I always liked the figure and this one was an impulse eBay purchase as I thought it had been done well (and it has). Was, and still is, intended to act as a kind of guide for me doing my own. But for now I felt he deserved a vehicle to sit it.

I filled the back of the jerry can with plasticard and finished it flat with P38 and some sanding. I made up the strap continuation also with plasticard and continued the indendation around the top with a needle file.

The jerry can colour is my only variation from what is otherwise a pretty stock box art finish. I've never seen a yellow jerry can in the UK, they're normally green or black. So I did this one in green. Photos miss the contracts and show it as looking like the body colour, but it's actually Tamiya XF dark green.

I fixed up the few scratches on the body and primed/sanded it. Hit the difficult to get at inside edges and corners with my airbrush and XF62 Olive Drab from a bottle before giving it two coats with Tamiya rattle can Olive Drab. Normally I'd wait a couple of weeks before rubbing down, but flat paints are pretty forgiving and it looked great straight out of the can so I just finished it off with a couple of coats of flat clear to protect it.

The wheels are Tamiya Metallic Gray which was the closest I could find to the box art wheel colour and that was airbrushed on. I used some old Tamiya Japanese blacked hex screws (off an old SRB I suspect) for them as they were in my box of bits and I think they work quite well. The original tires from this will go on my Blazer as planned and these are the old Blazer ones. They're starting to crack, but they held up just enough for me to get the tire lettering done and to look at you wouldn't know. I think they'll last fine as long as they've never run.

Masking up and painting the silver metal parts on the roll cage for the box art look is time consuming to say the least - and fiddly. I also gave it a couple of coats of matt clear to take the shine off the black plastic. That shine is one of the things that otherwise makes it look a bit 'toy' to me.

I've left the windscreen hinges bare metal for now - might paint them later. The decals are repro but so far I've only put on the main US army star. I'll probably add the clubs and leave it at that. I quite like the less is more look on this one.

I'm after a set of runner tire/wheels for it now so will pick some up and take it for a spin, as I've never driven one of these. I suspect with an 8 or 9 turn motor and a slightly larger pinion it should wheelie quite well on 2s Lipo.