Search the Community

Anyone remember the programme? In the late 70's early 80's, created by the same guy who created "CHiPs" and hot on the heels of the classic "Emergency!" 240 Robert was the callsign of the Bronco used by two Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies who were also search and rescue paramedics. The programme focused on this aspect rather than the policing role, it only lasted 15 episodes and one of the main characters was played by Mark Harmon, later of NCIS fame. As a young kid in West Yorkshire, I loved it, I think it was on ITV on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Of course now through the magic of the internet you can research and revisit all these things that you only vaguely remember. The modern LASD still operates these search and rescue teams and they use a wide range of vehicles, so this build will be a little "what if" but is based strongly on the real thing. I've had the Meng kit for quite a long time and had played with the idea of doing this but lacked any suitable decals, however with JBOT decals making a reappearance I decided now was the time. The kit will be used pretty much out of the box, just a little scratch building and alteration of the centre console to turn it into a police vehicle, then the scratching of a box to sit on the truck bed. The decals are here and look excellent and the light bar is coming from police car models in the US and other little interesting bits from the spares box and Kit Form Services. So a few pictures. F350 - 2 by phil da greek, on Flickr F350 - 3 by phil da greek, on Flickr Big box full of stuff, a lot of it is to build a very realistic engine, not for me as the bonnet / hood will be down, just enough so if anyone views it from the right angle there is something there. The instructions are good. Nice & clear, making it obvious where bits need to go. F350 - 4 by phil da greek, on Flickr F350 - 5 by phil da greek, on Flickr Centre console as supplied and then as butchered and then an idea of where we're going with it. F350 - 6 by phil da greek, on Flickr F350 - 7 by phil da greek, on Flickr F350 - 8 by phil da greek, on Flickr So far so good. The chassis is built and being painted up, it went together very well with almost no need to "fettle", all in all the kit goes together well with no big gaps to fill (so far). Only two complaints really, first the nasty rubber tyres, I've had no success finding resin ones (anybody got any leads? 35mm diameter, probably the same size as 1/24 Land Rovers) and the second were the truly stunning ejection marks in the crew cab floor that took some serious fixing. Feel free to join in but a word of warning, if you're a F350 or LA County Sheriff expert, you may want to go somewhere else. Feel free to count my rivets but don't expect me to thank you. Laters.