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Heller Peugeot 403


Unkempt

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The Peugeot 403 was made by the French manufacturer in the 50s and 60s. They made over a million of them, apparently, but the only plastic kit I can find is the old Heller 1/43 scale. Anyway, that's not the point.

 

The point is that I've been watching a lot of Columbo recently.

 

Lt Columbo of the LAPD is very proud of his car, which is also a Peugeot 403. Unfortunately, he's got the two door soft top coupe version. They only made about 500 of those, so it's not surprising that the Heller is the far more common 4 door hard top. Since I'm not a massive fan of vintage French cars but do like Columbo quite a lot, there's going to be a bit of surgery.

 

The kit:

 

BO2a1aL.jpg

 

What I'm going for:

 

RYFMTo3.jpg

 

 

Here's what's in the box:

 

6J40Z60.jpg

 

It's a fairly crude kit and I don't intend to detail it very much. Most of the work is going to be in the conversion and 'weathering'. Basically I just want a little Columbo car on my shelf.

 

I've found a decent profile pic of the soft top. I've also scanned the kit plans. I then outlined the kit plans, made it red and overlayed it to give a comparison:

 

dOBSM8d.jpg

 

 - so I've got what's in red and want what's in the photo below. The basic shape looks good. Differences I can see are:

 

-no rear door

-front door is longer and needs extending

-take the roof off, obviously

- the soft roof doesn't go as far back so the boot will need extending forward

- oh, and make the soft top roof

 

 

I haven't actually managed to finish a model this year so hopefully this'll get me back in the groove. Might be a bit slow, though,

Edited by Unkempt
sp.
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Thanks guys. A bit of progress:

 

LR6KqmI.jpg

 

There's a shelf attached to the back of the rear seats; that came off and I used a bit of that and some scrap plastic to fill in some of the rear forward of the boot. It looks like the soft top comes down just behind the rear seats at the back.

 

Also tried to fill in the rear door lines...

 

zHMBbX1.jpg

 

looks like more filling/sanding needed, then I can rescribe the front doors. Still, it's a start!

 

 

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I've rescribed the doors and the boot. I foiled the hubcaps on the wheels. The seats looked very bare so I tried to reproduce the upholstery using putty, but it doesn't look very convincing; not sure whether to redo it or not.  Still, progress is happening.

UVKGaFo.jpg

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Thanks chaps. A quick no-glue push together looks... not too bad:

 

MozT5V3.jpg

 

QWFWVHB.jpg

 

Still not sure about those seats but now I'm thinking I might put something in there to cover them up. He'd probably have some files or something in the back.

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  • 3 weeks later...

And an attempt at the soft top. This is tissue paper (OK, it's bog roll) over the frame sprayed with varnish and primer. It's actually pretty solid but it still needs some finishing.

 

0sp851k.jpg

Edited by Unkempt
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On 10/14/2018 at 12:48 PM, HansReggelsen said:

What a great build - can't wait to se it finished! :goodjob:

 

Cheers :bye:

Hans J

 

......ahhh.....just one more question. Do you plan on putting a dog in the back? :hmmm: (:winkgrin:)

 

Couldn't find a dog. Found this in a bead shop though.

 

2pPDpbP.jpg

 

Seals are the dogs of the sea, right?

 

Bit of filler

 

Wxz3ARv.jpg

 

 

Bit more filler, primer

 

NGTlYnV.jpg

 

 

Et voila:

 

OQNiA0A.jpg

 

 

Probably should have measured first, he's still too big and doesn't really fit in the back.

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12 hours ago, Unkempt said:

Probably should have measured first, he's still too big and doesn't really fit in the back.

Nah! He's just a very overweight Beagle...

:)

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well

 

I think I'm done. It was a nice idea but try as I might I cannot get the canopy to look right. It just doesn't fit and I'm not starting again at this stage. It doesn't look too bad from some angles...

 

5KhdGi2.jpg

 

e8qLjTX.jpg

 

But from the front...

 

 

MRmmt7Q.jpg

 

 

Yikes.

 

Maybe I'll go back to it at some point but that's it for now folks. Sorry!

 

 

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Still, it looks quite nice as a whole, especially considering the scale! Maybe you could try a top down version, the interior looks worth showing.

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As I remember Columbo, he wasn't to wellkept himself, so your Peugeot is a true companion to him:

In short - I love it! :goodjob:

It's nice to see a screen-car that is something other than a Firebird, Jaguar, DeLorean, Aston Martin etc. :winkgrin:

 

Hmmm....the local hobbyshop actually has this kit......hmmm....:hmmm:

 

Cheers :bye:

Hans J

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