RoboCop Ford Taurus police car 1/25 AMT promo conversion

[polybius]

Finally getting around to photog'ing and posting some builds from the last year.  This was a spare parts project trying to salvage a badly yellowed 1990 Taurus SHO promo in white and some leftover Taurus police car bits and bobs.  Aside from the SHO being the wrong trim level of the Taurus to begin with, it's the hand AMT dealt us when they popped the Taurus police car kits without dealing with the obvious inaccuracies.  To make the long story short, I wanted to devote the build time to fabricating and scratchbuilding some of the accessories rather than deleting the SHO trim.  That process is already underway for another cop car project.    

With a few photos of the movie cars at the ready, the pushbar started as the unit from the Revell Caprice kits with scratchbuilt upper section.  It fit the contour of the Taurus bumper with surprisingly little modification.  The lights mounted to the pushbar were clear resin cast copies from the optional fog lights in the MPC/AMT 88-90 Silverado kits.  The Taurus police car kit's dash mounted radar unit was modified to include a clear resin lens, and it became the roof mounted search light.  The kit's Jetsonic lightbar was close enough, although not the screen-accurate Whelen strobes.  The chrome plated headlights were always a sore spot for the kits and promos, and since the movie car had some customized 'futuristic' looking units it was a great reason to mold and cast some clear lenses. 

Lastly, the body was destined to be an experiment in some different finish techniques.  After considering some typical flat and matte finishes, I took the liberty of assuming the 'futuristic' finish of cop cars might surely be something akin to today's Rhino Lining.  With all that said, it was quite a pleasure to throw my usual 'shiny and pristine out of the showroom' tendencies to the wind. 

[GLMFAA1]

Nice job on the robo cop car, Kudos to you for doing the jet sonic right. My easy fix was to cover the lenses with black vinyl electrical tape.

greg

[espo]

Looks very much like the movie car. I don't recall the finer details of the body on the movie car, but a couple of the local agencies where I was living used the Ford Taurus and the only thing I remember about the grill area being any different was a couple of horizontal slots on either side of the Ford emblem. 

[Jim B]

Cool looking Taurus. Well done. 

"Come quietly or there'll be....trouble."

[PappyD340]

Very nice!

[slusher]

Looks great!

[polybius]

On 2/10/2023 at 11:54 PM, GLMFAA1 said:

Nice job on the robo cop car, Kudos to you for doing the jet sonic right. My easy fix was to cover the lenses with black vinyl electrical tape.

greg

Thanks!  I'm fortunate to have a 1:1 Jetsonic undergoing restoration for reference.  Same process on the real one just scaled down for this one.  Next hurdle is making scaled down color filters for the lenses.  Cheers!

[polybius]

On 2/11/2023 at 12:09 PM, espo said:

Looks very much like the movie car. I don't recall the finer details of the body on the movie car, but a couple of the local agencies where I was living used the Ford Taurus and the only thing I remember about the grill area being any different was a couple of horizontal slots on either side of the Ford emblem. 

Thanks!  Indeed, the true police package was a base model L with the slotted grilles, black steel wheels with silver 'cop caps', and dual exhaust with the 3.8L "Essex" V6.  RoboCop was on the big screen before there was a factory police package, and they presumably used the then 'futuristic' looking new Taurus as hypothetical cop cars of the future.  These kits and promos were issued much later, but incorrectly with the SHO bumpers, trim, and engine so they require some hefty reworking to get them looking the part.  There were some resin casters in years past that popped some conversion kits and even station wagon versions.  The 3D print market is picking up the slack, at least.  Cheers!

[GLMFAA1]

12 hours ago, polybius said:

Thanks!  I'm fortunate to have a 1:1 Jetsonic undergoing restoration for reference.  Same process on the real one just scaled down for this one.  Next hurdle is making scaled down color filters for the lenses.  Cheers!

Don't have a JetSonic but an Aerosonic that is lights only.

greg

[carrucha]

Nice job replicating the movie car.

[spencer1984]

Excellent work, and I really like the idea of it having an exrta durable Rhino Liner coating!

[Gustavo Reis]

Nice movie car replica. 

I used a resin copy from Amt ECTO1A light bar and DeLorean wheels in my model.