Tamiya Aston DBS LHD/RHD conversion

[roymattblack]

This is a short 'build' of my Tamiya Aston DBS.

I was more than somewhat amazed when Tamiya released this ICON of British motoring in LHD!

A lovely model, but there was NO WAY I was going to insult the car by building it LHD.

If you look at the dash, it's pretty symmetrical so it wasn't difficult to cut out the instrument binnacle, trace the shape onto the 'correct' side of the car, and move it.

Filling the remaining 'hole' in the LH side was achieved with plasticard and filler.

I only had to take care that the thin plasticard was cut to match the shapes on the dash top.

After a bit of priming and further sanding, it was painted.

Moving the pedals and hand brake was simple.

Oh - BTW...... For those of you who don't like my colour scheme, the interior is Salmon red and Oxblood to match the Moonstone blue exterior.

A genuine DBS colour scheme, copied from a real Aston I saw at the Aston dealership near Norwich.....

Apologies for the lack of decent pictures, but I didn't take many of this build a few years back.

As you might guess, the last picture is a bit of 'fakery' of my finished model.....

Roy.

Edited July 24, 2014 by roymattblack

[bhouse]

A very nice build.

It does at first seem odd that a Japanese company (from a land where they drive on the left with right hand drive cars) should build this epitome of a British car as a left hand drive version.

I suspect the reason is to do with the Japanese psyche. Despite having a reputation as a nation of conformists, when a Japanese person wants to make an impression they have a huge arsenal of techniques.

So if you're sufficiently wealthy to be able to afford an expensive, sleek gaijin auto, you don't want it to look like a home-grown, Japanese vehicle; so you buy the left hand drive variant.

I used to make tv commercials for a major European manufacturer, and the spots for Japan HAD to feature left drive cars. As we were usually filming before the LHD ones had been made, we had to shoot rhd cars then flip everything in the edit. We used to fit them with reversed number players and badges. Such fun...

[Pete in Lincs]

so you buy the left hand drive variant.

And you have a driver!

Apparently they used to show flipped street scenes in old episodes of the Saint.

Aston Martin dealership in Norwich?

Is there a plough attachment option?

[Roo]

Aston Martin dealership in Norwich?

Is there a plough attachment option?

No, but the combine harvesters came with an ejector seat, guns popping out of the front wings and smokescreen