My first thought was it would be really cool to build up a copy of ICE 3, which I rode up into a glacier. This brute is based on a surplus NATO missile launcher and appears to be essentially unstoppable, but sadly there are no 1/24 kits of NATO missile launchers out there. There appear to be several in 1/35, at fairly steep prices; I may one day buy one and pretend it is 1/24 by changing up engine and cockpit, as with my snowplow, but that is a tale for another day.
Controlling tire pressures from the cab is critical to making regular progress. See how soft the front tires are in the picture below.
The 5-axle Mercedes Class 8 was also cool but a lot of time would have been spent on making seats.
Attention then turned to the more common approach of modifying a road vehicle. There were lots of examples on the roads in Iceland, from Mercedes busses to Land Rovers, Japanese 4X4s and full-size American SUVs. The Ford Expedition seemed to be a favourite.
I witnessed this Nissan being flogged up hill through deep wet snow and was impressed by the vehicle and the driver. A good thing too, as he was carrying our food and sleeping gear!
Crawl speed, with tires deflated as much as possible without breaking the bead. Watching wheels begin to slip, only to be brought into line by a set of three very limited slip differentials, was very entertaining.
Clear of the snow, for now, and the tires re-inflated to gravel road levels. Dinner was waiting for us when we got to the mountain hut. But I digress.
Coincidentally I had Jimmy Flintstone's resin 1955 Suburban in the stash, so I ordered the AMT 1957 Cameo to serve as a donor. I started looking around for big tires, and eventually came across Aoshima's jacked-up Toyota Hilux 4X4, which saved me the trouble of kitbashing the Cameo suspension. And there things stopped for a while, probably in late 2017.
So the plan is now to build up the Toyota chassis and interior, fit the Suburban to it along with a decent motor (the Toyota is curbside), and scavenge a few bits from the Cameo (firewall, hood, windshield, grille, lights, maybe bumpers).
First step was a bath in oven cleaner to strip the chrome off the Toyota chassis bits and the Pontiac 421, which I intend to build up on carbs. (A blower would be overkill in this situation). The old Revell Parts Packs are of relatively poor quality once the chrome is off, and I rummaged around in the bin for a better manifold than the lumpy tri-carb unit provided. The one I found was from a Ford, with a pair of double-pumpers and with the distributor in the front, but that's OK, it'll do. Look, they're all big block V8s, so who cares?
Second step was to fix the transmission relative to the chassis, because once the oil pan is cut out to make room for the 421, there would be no way of determining where the transmission goes in terms of height or longitudinal position. I did this with pieces of 1/16" brass tube inserted into 1/8" styrene tube, which was in turn glued to the top of the frame. The rod can stay once it all goes together, or not; the floor pan is raised off the chassis on a series of little spacers, so there will be plenty of room for my improvised transmission mounts.
Still undecided on using the clutch housing from the 421 or the Toyota. The Toyota will likely be less work.
I'll look around for other '55-'57 Chevy pickups as well, as the Cameo is a nice kit and it would be a shame to cannibalise it for only a few bits; AMT had a 1955 Stepside which seems to be relatively available. Stay tuned!
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