Tamiya Holiday Buggy / ORV Hodgepodge

[duckhead]

The body sat just about like this with the motor installed, and then I realized that the battery hold down bracket screw holes lined up just about perfectly with the body jerry can screw holes. It was destiny the body should end up here. The rear body mounts will be here and covered up by the jerry cans. In this position, I like the back but think the front is a bit high visually. TBH though, front the susp arms hit the body at about half travel, so the whole front may need to come up another 3/16-1/4". I think it will be okay though. This pic is at full side view so it looks bad, but from a higher perspective, it still all looks great.

Nice build, it's coming along great! Maybe consider the SRB / Rough Rider wheels and tires to help fill the wheel wheels out a bit. They are 1.75" versus 1.5".

I also saw a post somewhere awhile ago about folks using a propane torch to "relieve" the plastic before priming it to get better adherence. I am digging around to see if I can find it.

-Mark

[juicedcoupe]

Being hard plastic, I'd probably consider something like the Krylon Fusion primer. It's made specifically for plastics.

I've used it on a few types of plastics. It seems to bond pretty well.

[XLR8]

I'm no expert but the body isn't hard plastic like the ABS other Tamiya bodies are molded from. It's an odd rubbery plastic sorta like polypropylene. If you've ever tried to paint a plastic milk jug, then you know what this is like. Without prep work, ordinary rattle can paint will simply flake off if/when the material flexes.
Krylon Fusion or adhesion promoter and some prep work should do the trick.
Or, just go with the blue color the body was molded from.

EDIT: I was just working on the Sand Scorcher body and under the roof it says <PS> which I reckon means polystyrene. The hard plastic Tamiya bodies aren't ABS as indicated above.

[morrisey0]

It's funny that you guys thought it was based on a British car , I never thought that , always considered it a California style , we had beach buggy's mostly and a few sand rails that were all influenced by the Funco designs , nothing quite like the HB , guess I never considered your more common use of Vacation over holiday , vacation buggy just doesn't run off the tongue like Holiday Buggy , recon even Tamiya felt that way .

First off, I will give Doug props for breaking out the Caterham 7 (+1 to Wheeler Dealers for introducing most us yanks to this sexy beast)! My first impression of the HB was MG TA. Open fenders, long long bonnet; this was my first honest impression. Plus the fact that VW kit MGTAs and MB Gazelles were/are so common, it just seemed like a non-US, English/European bit of kit to me.

It wasn't until after I realized it was SoCal that it hit me that it was simply a full bodied, full fendered sandrail. The sandrail bones are fairly common here (even on the opposite side of the USA), but putting a full body on it is weird. But I guess the 1st question should have really been; what side is the GD driver on?

I'm no expert but the body isn't hard plastic like the ABS other Tamiya bodies are molded from. It's an odd rubbery plastic sorta like polypropylene.

It reminds me the most of the roll-up plastic sleighs that you got as a kid. Yea, it is plastic, but it is flexible as h3ll. Slightly later Tami plastic (Blackfoot, Clod, etc) are hard, rigid plastic like 1/24 models are; not the HB. I will add later to a "lessons learned" post on why this type of plastic plus [super hard rigid] Bondo aren't maybe the best mix.

[Dadio]

There are 3d printer resins that would be perfect to fill the holes instead of Bondo like Siraya Tech Tenacious but its way too expensive to buy a 1 litre bottle at £50 for this project where you only need a thimble full.
With reference to what side the driver sits in models of any kind , well here in the UK you just never see a right hand drive model made just for us or the very few other places on earth who got it right

[XLR8]

With reference to what side the driver sits in models of any kind , well here in the UK you just never see a right hand drive model made just for us or the very few other places on earth who got it right

I'm stating the obvious here but I reckon the side of the car you are driving from should align with the side of the road you are driving on.
For instance, imagine that you are driving on a two-lane highway and you approach the back of a large truck you want to pass.
If you'll need to pass on the right and you are sitting on the left, you'll need to move your car almost entirely into the right lane before you can see if there is on-coming traffic.
It's a bit frightening if you think about it.

[Dadio]

With reference to what side the driver sits in models of any kind , well here in the UK you just never see a right hand drive model made just for us or the very few other places on earth who got it right

I'm stating the obvious here but I reckon the side of the car you are driving from should align with the side of the road you are driving on.
For instance, imagine that you are driving on a two-lane highway and you approach the back of a large truck you want to pass.
If you'll need to pass on the right and you are sitting on the left, you'll need to move your car almost entirely into the right lane before you can see if there is on-coming traffic.
It's a bit frightening if you think about it.

Errr.... we do drive on the left side of the road as well as sit on the right of the car so overtaking is still the same for us except in some parts of Ireland where they have their own overtaking system but let's not confuse things

[juicedcoupe]

I always see the old mail Jeeps and Kei-trucks driving around and figure that it must be odd. But I can't really imagine either of those passing anything on the highway.

But what's really strange is that I want one of each. My wife just thinks that its funny.

[morrisey0]

As my usual, I rushed the finish of this to get on with the next one, so I made a few paint / masking / decal mistakes, but good enough for now.

I went with grey instead of baby blue because, well, baby blue. They also used a decal on the inside of the front fenders, but I just didn't feel it was necessary.

In the immortal words of Tenacious D, "This is a tribute."

[morrisey0]

What timing! The day after I finish this up, a brand new body set shows up courtesy of Doug (XLR8)! Literally replacing everything that I pulled off the stock chassis.

Part of me wants to stick it back on the DT02 chassis and just make a basher of it. The other part of me wants to continue my unnatural desire to stick hard plastic bodies on RC10s.

[Frankentruck]

The Golden Arrow body is awesome on there! The holiday buggy body reminds me of a stretched VW Manx buggy, kinda like Speed Buggy.