Detailed Kamtec 'Series' Land Rover SWB

I bought the basic shell from Kamtec about 2 years ago (I'm not sure if he still makes them!). They were originally made to be mounted straight onto a Stadium Raider chassis - I have a TL01 Focus, but I decided to use my Baja Champ TL01B chassis for a bit more ground clearance (it now has CVA oil shocks and a Carson/MTroniks 20-turn ESC, both bought cheap during my trip to Intermodellbau 2004, along with the Carson tyres).

The shell is reasonably Land Rover SWB-shaped, though it has elements from the Series 3, Lightweight and even Defender in there. It's a bit devoid of detail though, so I decided to improve it. I started off by cutting out all the window panes, to be replaced by clear ABS glazing later on. The thin hard top and cab pillars were strengthened by gluing round and square styrene tube stock inside (this also provided a 'frame' for the glazing). I decided to mount the hard-top by gluing M2 nuts onto the inside of the cab top and sides, and made a working tail gate handle on the back of the hard top to locate the back end.

I wanted a roll bar, so I glued some brass tube under the slope behind the cab flush with the bed, cut the elliptical holes in the top of the slope, and sealed the bottom with thick plastic card, glued to the tube and truck bed for strength. I widened a Brat roll bar with brass and plastic tube sections, and added balsa wedges to the stays to make them flush with the bed. The indicators, brake lights and side lights were moulded poorly, so I drilled and sanded them back to holes, and found some panel-mounting LEDs to represent the lenses (I couldn't get clear ones the right size though). I engraved the panel lines for the doors and tailgate, and made templates to cut the pockets for the door handles and fuel filler. These were built up on the inside with plastic stock, and sealed with plastic card. The handles, number plate light and filler neck/cap were scratchbuilt from plastic stock and bits from my scrap box.

I drew a Series 3 grille on my PC, transferred the design to some very thin plastic card, and used this as a guide to glue on some plastic-coated wire to make the grille bars. I also used the thin card to make the box for the Land Rover badge. I made some wing mirrors from tube stock, plastic card and filler, and used the plastic-coated wire for the arms. Now it was time for paint, so I used cans of car paint in typical BL blue/old english white of the period, gave it a polish, and then masked off and painted the aluminium and black sections. I drew the decals on my PC, printed them on adhesive paper and covered them with thin vinyl (the Land Rover plate at the back reads 'SOLIHULL WARWICKSHIRE ENGLAND' if you look closely!). The number plates were stuck onto thin plastic card as a backing. I then glued all the windows into place, bolted in the roll bar and screwed all the details back on (all the parts were attached using tiny 1mm self-tappers). Finally the decals were added.

If I can find headlamp units the right size and clear sidelights I would like to get all the lights working. The chassis is really a bit too wide, so maybe a (modified?) XC chassis might work better. When I get round to it I'll add a cab interior and driver too.