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The Dukes of Hazard General Lee.


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Having watched every episode of the Dukes of Hazard many, many moons ago, I always fancied building the General Lee so recently I bought MPCs version of the famous Dodge Charger in 1/25 scale. Now I’m guessing that the mouldings are very old (possibly late 60’s?) so the fit and finish of parts leaves heck of a lot to be desired, but I guess in the day they were pretty much par for course. Anyway, I’ve wrestled and sweated with this kit for the last two months, but have eventually beaten it into submission.....sort of. The surface finish of the rock hard plastic is horrible, and the parts only fit where they accidentally touch, it really is that bad, so lots of filler, sanding and swearing is required to rectify the built in errors. I’ve scratch built the interior rear view mirror, CB aerial and door mirror as none were supplied in the kit, and I’ve cut and repositioned the front axels as the wheels are designed to be fixed ahead which looks a bit of a stiff pose to my mind. Also, I’ve drilled the bodywork to recess the filler cap, added lead wire HT leads to the engine, a radiator top hose and I had to scratch built the bull bars on the front of the car as the kit version was completely inaccurate. The steering wheel spokes and exhaust pipes have been drilled and slotted, and I added a more accurate roll over hoop inside the car. Other than that the car is built straight OOTB! 🤪  The paint is Zero Paints ‘General Lee’ Hemi Orange, and most of the chrome is a combination of a Molotow chrome pen and Bare Metal Foil. The base is simply made from balsa wood scraps, and the dirt road is simulated with PVA glue and table salt. The whole base is airbrushed with various Tamiya acrylics and then detailed with artists oils and some Humbrol washes. It’s not a build I’m particularly proud of, but I am pleased I found the will to persevere and that I didn’t give up.

So, without further ado here is the General for your critique.......

 

The basic (grotesque) kit of parts. The radiator fan blades aren’t even moulded 90° apart and the decals are thick, very thick! 

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Pre-weathered state.

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Post weathering with Revell powders.

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Looks like you’ve made a silk purse out of a pigs ear of a kit. I looked at my kit and then thought the bin looked best place for it. Might give it a go now having seen what you’ve achieved with yours.

 

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38 minutes ago, TANK63 said:

Looks like you’ve made a silk purse out of a pigs ear of a kit. I looked at my kit and then thought the bin looked best place for it. Might give it a go now having seen what you’ve achieved with yours.

 

 

Thanks, but I think it’s more of a duffel bag than silk purse, the basic kit ain’t that good to be able to spin silk out of it. 😄

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Very, very well done! Looking at the final result you wouldn't know that it gave you so much trouble. The slightly dusty look is perfect.

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3 hours ago, Bill.B said:

......... The radiator fan blades aren’t even moulded 90° apart.........

46698543121_f30e1b52d9_o.jpg

 

Looking at photos in the manual for the fullsize car, the radiator fan is possibly correct, and I'm sure I've come across other fans of this design in the military vehicle world, though I can't find any pictures at present.

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Great result. I love this car and I've occasionally thought about getting the kit of it, although I'd read many times before it was a crappy kit. Your initial description only reconfirms that so I think i'll stick with admiring yours instead.

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Looks good to me too.

I watched an episode of Graveyard Carz the other afternoon.

They are restoring an actual film survivor (only just!) General Lee.

The boss, Mark, is fanatical about accuracy, and he said the film & TV 

cars were painted in 1975 Corvette Fire Red. Which is actually Orange.

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  • 2 weeks later...

That tool isn't that old.  Maybe the late 1990s, early 2000s. The first General Lee kit from MPC had the wrong body (Charger 500) with the flush rear window as opposed to the tunneled window your kit has. I don't think the body based on the tooling yours was made from is all that accurate being I think the rear window seems a bit smallish. th?id=OIP.z5hFAvptQmUVoQPKBU5L1QHaE_&pid

Edited by lordairgtar
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