LN 8000 Crew Cab: Initial planning

Those of you with an interest in oddball trucks will recall the transporters used by Grand Prix teams in the '50s and '60s. Of course there is the mythical Mercedes 300 transporter, but on a more mundane level one finds the typical Fiat transporter used to carry three Ferraris, boxes of spares and a crew of 5 or 6. Click here for a classic photo of this iconic race team circa 1957. 

There are 1/18 diecast models of this, which change hands for ridiculous prices; the closest you can get today at 1/25 is AMT's Ford LN 8000.

Now the LN 8000 has a few flaws. It can only carry one car; the semi-circular dip in the ramp, which is meant to trap the front wheel, is not realistic; and it only has seats for two.

As a solution for the number of seats, I was inspired by a 1953 F600 crew cab (click here and scroll down). I figured I could use Jimmy Flintstone's F100 crew cab as a replacement for the LN 8000 cab. However the F100 is too narrow to cover the big Diesel or the wider front axle in the LN 8000, and the fenders don't fit the larger truck tires. So a lot of cutting would be needed.





So an alternate approach was required. I decided to build up a crew cab LN 8000. It seems someone once made a resin crew cab body for the LN 8000, but I couldn't find any, so it was off to the chopping block once I'd acquired a second LN 8000 cab as donor.

I learned from the '53 COE project that you can graft on a second cab in one of two ways, either back to front or back to back. After a lot of planning, it seemed to me that back to back would work best.



In spite of it all being nice and square, there are still enough shallow angles to make the cuts challenging. First I cut the back off the 'rear' cab, and glued that cab, back to back, to the 'front' cab to maintain some structural integrity. Then I cut off the fenders and windscreen of the rear cab before grafting on the back panel removed in the first step. I left the back of the front cab in place as a partition, and again to ensure it has some strength. 



Right now it's got suicide rear doors but that is easily fixed.

The rough cut looks good on the standard length chassis. Next will be lots of cleanup (putty and sanding) and building the interiors. Plans for the car carrier portions are in the works and will be revealed in due course. Stay tuned!