Baja Buggy

[espo]

This is a close representation of a '67 Type 1 made into a Baja style I owned in the seventies.  The base kit is the Revell '68 Type 1, an excellent kit. I used parts from Texas 3D Customs on the body. These are also excellent parts. The parts from Texas 3D are the front hood and nose with headlights, and the rear engine cover also. Modified the kits fenders, the rears are reshaped to represent the way they were on my Baja. Tamiya TS-26 Pure White for the body. The interior uses various shades of flat and semi-gloss Black for the vinyl seats and door panels. The engine was modified with a homemade intake manifold to represent the Holly "Bug Spray" set up of the day along with a K&N Air Filter. Wired the kits distributor and made the exhaust from some black wire. The Buggy Bars on the front and rear are made of Plastruct #90861 3.2 mm plastic tubing. The windows are tinted with Tamiya TS-71 Smoke.  This vehicle roamed the sand dunes at Pismo Beach Ca. on many weekends and the 10x15 rear flotation tires never let me down in the soft sand parts. 

[redscampi]

Beautiful work on this!

[Rattlecan Dan]

Super job! Nicely done.

[Bainford]

Cool 1:1, and very nice replica. You captured the look of the original very well.

[ewetwo]

Nicely done.

[Yeah Nah]

Your mods made a pretty cool car David. Nice work.

[slusher]

Looks fantastic , David!

[ncbuckeye67]

That's such an awesome build,and a great replica! I love a 1:1 car recreated in 1/25 scale!

[Hi-Po]

Nicely done!

[Spottedlaurel]

Very nicely done, must have been a lot of fun to build something you had happy memories of at 1:1.

[karbuildr]

Very nice build. Excellent craftsmanship, looks like the real thing.

[shoopdog]

Great looking replica you’ve built!

[Zippi]

Nice little transformation.  Nicely done.

[Ulf]

Nice build, it's a bit strange that Tamiya hasn't released a 1/24 kit like that themselves as they have released both 1/32 toy and 1/12(?) RC Baja buggies that have very nice shapes.

[David G.]

Nicely Done!

David G.

[espo]

11 hours ago, Ulf said:

Nice build, it's a bit strange that Tamiya hasn't released a 1/24 kit like that themselves as they have released both 1/32 toy and 1/12(?) RC Baja buggies that have very nice shapes.

Revell offered a Baja style kit some time ago. The front hood is replaced with what would be a fabric cover of some sort and the fenders are all chopped. That kit is where I found the rear tires for this build. Plan on dueing the Revell kit maybe this year. 

[XYHARRY]

Cool replica of your original 1:1 there David, really well done. 

Cheers, 

David. M. ??

[ChrisR]

VERY NICE!

[Duddly01]

Great looking bug!

[espo]

On 1/22/2024 at 2:45 AM, XYHARRY said:

Cool replica of your original 1:1 there David, really well done. 

Cheers, 

David. M. ??

Thank you, David. I have built a few models of past vehicles I have owned, and this one had a lot of fun memories for me. 

[ismaelg]

Nice conversion and tribute down memory lane!

[crazyjim]

Very cool bug. I've had a couple of baja bugs and loved them.

[Steve H]

Very nice replica David. Fond memories while you built it I’m sure. Did you print your own license plate decal or order that from somewhere? I’m working on a replica now and plan on ordering some decals from STS, but curious what you did. 
 

Steve

[stavanzer]

On 1/18/2024 at 1:29 PM, espo said:

Revell offered a Baja style kit some time ago. The front hood is replaced with what would be a fabric cover of some sort and the fenders are all chopped. That kit is where I found the rear tires for this build. Plan on dueing the Revell kit maybe this year. 

Great Build!

You answered my question about the tires, too.

[espo]

On 1/26/2024 at 8:55 AM, crazyjim said:

Very cool bug. I've had a couple of baja bugs and loved them.

They are an inexpensive, relatively speaking, way to have a lot of fun off road and still have something that is usable every day. At the time I lived near areas that had sand dunes along the ocean and some Forest Service Fire Roads that were open during the off-fire season. Now the nearest Off Road Park is a good 2-hour drive and is primarily for four-wheel drive vehicles. This would be a good kit to base a build of your own Bajas and the Texas 3D Customs offers a couple of good body conversion kits to work with.