Ever since I had seen SF guys using crew cab Toyota HiLux trucks in Iraq, I thought about building one. I scoured the manufacturer's catalogs and couldn't find one in 1/35 or 1/32 scale. I was excited when Mig announced his, but was put off by the price. I scratched my head and got an idea.

I had an old Revell 1/32 Toyota 4-wheel drive truck from the early '80s. I thought that I could take two of them and combine them to make a crew cab. I started looking for another kit of the Toyota and was having no luck. About a month ago I found one on eBay though. So I snatched it up.

I started with the two kits, a razor saw, some sheet plastic, and some putty.

The kits:


I cut one kit (blue) apart at the windshield and along the front of the doors. The second kit (red) I cut along the rear of the doors and the back of the roof line. I then cut the blue doors to the size I wanted and mated the two sections to form the crew cab. The roof needed quite a bit of putty to get them to mate smoothly.




Next was on to the bed. The HiLux has a shorter bed then a standard truck. I studied pictures of it and determined that the cut is slightly in front of the fuel filler cap on the right side. I proceeded to close the front portion of the bed off and made the front wall out of sheet styrene. I also repositioned the tie-down loops on both sides.




Next was lengthening the frame by 5mm for the longer wheelbase of the crew cab. I cut it just forward of the main cross support in the center. I rebuilt the floor and frame members using sheet styrene and rod for the exhaust pipe. I also had to lengthen the rear drive shaft to fit as well.



For the interior, I used the forward tub from one truck and the seat and side walls from the other to make the rear area. These were mated together and sheet styrene added to form the rear floor. I will further detail the interior as I continue with it.



This is the final result so far. I think it looks pretty good. The price was right as well. I still haven't decided on the wheels and tires for it. The kit ones look pretty good. I also have an old set of Land Rover wheels/tires I may use on it.





And the left over parts from the donor truck....




They are pieced back together and will be used for a Somali Technical with the front doors and roof removed. I will need to rebuild the interior on it as well, but that is another project.

Looking nice. Too bad the donor kits are hard to find.

Paul

Nice work Gino, lucky you for having and gettin´ both kits in the stash to use,

The scratch conversion looks pretty good. Are you going to place the truck built with lefovers on a dio also, as a civilian one?

Cheers

PS: Thanks for the boxes BTW

Very nice work. You got lucky finding that second kit!

AMT makes this Big Foot truck
http://www.greatmodels.com/~smartcart/cgi/display.cgi?item_num=AMT8268

Would this work for such a project, or is this an American truck?

Hisham

Thanks guys. Glad you like it. I'm not sure if this will be a civilian one or an SF truck with guns, etc. They were/are also used by the Iraqi Police and the Saddam Fedayeen in OIF 1 as well. They are also used all over Africa, Asia, and the Middle East as well. The possibilities are pretty much endless.

Hisham, the Bigfoot truck is a US Ford F150 full size from the early '80s. It would not work since it is a Ford and it is also modified to fit the big wheels and suspension, sorry.

Revell/Monogram made quite a few 1/32 civilian trucks and cars in the '80s and early '90s. They can be found on eBay from time to time. I have quite a few and usually buy them when I see them. I got the Toyota from a seller who had quite a few of the 1/32 kits that he bought from a hobby shop that was closing. I also scored two Datsun king cabs that I may do the same with as well.



Good luck to anyone looking for these kits. I hope you find a few as well.

Excellent Chop Shop work there Gino, nice conversion work.

Joe

Interesting build Gino. I saw some of the SOF trucks in A-stan. Most of them had civilian plates or no plates at all. Looking forward to se your "Frankentruck" with som paint.

Erik

How Did i miss this one?

Gino Why you did not use the Mig one ??

More pictures please

Seb

I did my own mainly due to price. I couldn't justify shelling out almost $90 for MIG's when I could make a reasonable copy for only about $20 for both truck kits and I still have most of another truck left from it. I like the challenge as well. For more pics, check out the done posting and there is a link there to the PhotoBucket page for it.

Gino
ok i got your point
Thanks
Seb

here's one I did out of a Nissan "snap" with battle damage and driver, sorry for the img quality, but I sold it 2 years ago and these are the only pics I have left
I have 2 Toyotas waiting and really like your club-cab bash, thanks for the ideas.

Really neet stuff here!

Hi Gino,
very nice job with a low cost kits, thi is exactly what I prefer.
Only a question, what kind of research did you do on ebay?
Revell old kits?
Revell snap?
Revell Toyota?
or what else?
Thank you
Moreno