1953 Redex Rally Diorama - finally finished

Well, it has taken a while, but it's finally complete. My first "3D" old-style diorama. The subject is the 1953 Redex Reliability Trail, and the imagined scenario is that the Trial's eventual winner, Ken Tubman in his Peugeot 203, is crossing a creek, while the Cinesound film news crew (also driving a Peugeot 203, a wagon) captures the action. Behind Tubman on the road is AL 'Possum' Kipling, in a Holden 48/215.

As for how I did the diorama, there are six postings prior to this one outlining the modification of the cars, and the other work undertaken.

It's been a lot of fun doing every last little detail, and as it's my first diorama I am happy to think that there's a lot of room for improvement, but it also hasn't worked out too bad, either.

1953 Redex Trial diorama, pt 6 - update

Bit of a milestone for the diorama build this week. The cars are basically finished. All they need now is several fine coats of mud and dirt and dust, plus road grime and maybe a bit of light bush-bashing damage here and there. Seems a shame to do it to three nice model cars, so I thought I'd stop now and photograph them as they might have been at the start of the rally: clean and ready to roll.

Lots of extra spotlights for all cars (the Cinesound car has
five extra spots, the Holden three and the 203 sedan has two).
The Cinesound car also has a fairly suspect looking, scratch-
built winch mounted on the front bumper).

The Cinesound's roof rack is from a Peugeot 203 'Postes'
Fourgonnette model. I made up some luggage for the roof
racks to match the photos, and I swapped the original
Solido model's rear vision mirror from the left side to the
right front fender. I also swapped over the steering wheel
to right-hand drive, and re-did the dashboard just for fun,
but nobody will ever see that detail!

One good thing about making this modded model was that
the Cinesound film crew made their own home movies of the
Redex Trial, so their own car features in their film several
times, and I was able to get the decals just right.

 

Possum Kipling's Holden needed a new sun visor and quite a
few decals, including several on white backgrounds.

The 1/43 scale Heller plastic kit isn't that nice. The front
windscreen is too small, and the castings for the body,
especially around the bonnet area, are rough. I added the
radio aerial and the bonnet-mounted wind deflector, plus
a bare minimum of decals, and two spotlights.

I've toyed with a couple of different layouts for the diorama, and this afternoon I mocked up the one which I think I will use. To represent slightly higher ground, I used some ceramic dishes on the right and packing foam on the left. The real high ground won't be so high and the slopes will be much gentler. 

However, the basic idea is that the Tubman 203 crossing
the creek will be in the foreground, and it will place the viewer
right at the centre of the action.

I've already made the trees, shrubs and low scrub for the
diorama. The cameraman is from a Fiat model, and while he
is a bit modern for the era (he looks 60s to me), I am happy
to use him as he looks the part. He isn't painted yet, and his
plastic base will either be removed or hidden (haven't  decided on
that detail yet). I want about half a dozen spectators, and there will
be an old Aboriginal couple among them. The Cinesound film
crew's home movies feature quite a few Aborigines watching the
the action and waving, so they're welcome in my diorama too.

1953 Redex Trial diorama, pt 5 - update

Progress report. Progress has been made!

 

I'm working on all three cars simultaneously, so while paint dries or glue sets on one, I then work on another. So far, all three cars are partly done, but none is complete.

From the left: the plastic model of the winning 203A sedan has been assembled, but I still need to finish off the decals, fill one or two minor gaps and touch up with paint, and also create the wind-deflector on the bonnet.

The 203 Commerciale wagon has a long way to go yet. I need to scratch-build the winch mounted on the front bumper, add the extra spotlights, more decals, correct number plates and make various bags and other gear for the roof rack.

The Holden FX also needs more decals and its extra headlights. I've finished the sun visor over the front windshield, which looks the part here, but if you examine it close up it's not perfect. However, it will be in the background in the diorama, so my sun visor (made from an aluminium can) does the job well enough.

Once I finish each car I'll do a separate blog posting about the build and the mods.

1953 Redex Trial Diorama, pt 3 – The Cinesound Peugeot 203 'Van'

The Cinesound Peugeot 203 "Van" has been my real discovery of researching the Redex. I didn't know about its existence until recently, but to me it's as much a wonderful story as the winning 203 sedan driven by Ken Tubman. Imagine the winning car of a 6500 mile rally being basically the same vehicle which the news crew drove through all the same 6500 miles while covering the event? Probably has never happened before or since!

 

I know from watching the small number of videos available on You Tube that this photo, above, was taken somewhere near Alice Springs, in Central Australia. The crowd on the hill are local Aborigines, who obligingly waved for the cameras in some cheesy shots used during the newsreels. 

The 203 'van' itself is a bit of a one-off, as far as I can tell. Yes, it has windows down the side like the Peugeot 203 breaks (station wagons) of the time, but that last side window is smaller than on the breaks (see the model below). The various "Commerciale" and "Fourgonnette" Peugeot 203s came either with no windows down the side, or just the first one, after the driver/passenger windows of the main cab. My guess (and it's only a guess) is that the extra windows down the back were added locally. I might be wrong, but Googling Peugeot 203 vans doesn't show many other vehicles with windows quite the same as this one.

So, for my diorama, I was faced with the task of coming up with a "perfect" replica of the 203 Van with the homemade extra windows, or just using the more familiar "break", pictured below. Mostly for reasons of cost, I have decided to go with my Altaya model of the break, as it's already painted in the right mid-grey colour as the Cinesound car – and besides, it's going to need a lot of modifications to look the part.

As I did with the Tubman 203 sedan, I have mocked up in Photoshop what the diecast 1/43 model of the Peugeot 203 break needs, in order to be turned into a reasonably good replica of the Cinesound car. 

If you click on the photo it will come up a bit bigger. I am
planning to build my own roof rack from soldered-together
brass tubing. The decals are easy to do in Photoshop.

As well as bulding the roof racks, I'll have to devise some
canvas-covered "stuff" to fill the racks. The front of the van
needs quite a bit of work. Lots of extra headlights for starters
plus also a replica of the hand-cranked winch at the front.

Here's a still from the Redex movies, of the winch being cranked
by hand by one of the Cinesound team.

For my own amusement, I've also made up a small file on
what I need to think about when making the winch.

I'd hate you to think I'm some kind of model-building or model-modding expert. Far from it, I am somewhat of a newbie with less than two years' experience in model-building, and almost zero, zilch, nil experience at modding. But I'm not going to let that stop me!

For the roof racks for this 203, I'm buying a soldering set and some brass and hope to make my own racks. I have another 1/43 Peugeot 203 Fourgonnette here with roof racks to give me a pattern to follow. And once I have mastered soldering up the roof racks, I am hoping that making the winches from some brass pieces will seem just that little bit easier.

Wish me luck!