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This is a special conversion
of the re-issue of the Monogram Tijuana Taxi, designed by Tom
Daniels. A custom model with lots of modern stuff, crazy details,
big V8 engine and lots of chrome parts. From the first moment I saw that kit, I was sold. That was a kit which just asked to be ‘un-customized’ by me and to be transformed to a ‘normal’ Model T! I checked my parts stash to see if I had enough stock parts for a complete car. Well, no problem there, I had everything, from the steering wheel to the tires and headlamps. The first thing I did with the Tijuana body was to remove the whole floor section to check how the Tijuana body would fit on the stock T fender assembly. It proved to be too wide on the rear so I removed a vertical strip of about half an inch from the rear section, making the body basically straight from front to rear. See the side view picture. And the fit was now perfect. Next thing was the removal of the custom cowl and replace it with a stock cowl and firewall. Both were mounted on a piece of styrene which also holds the stock windscreen frame. See the front view picture. For the correct ‘taxi look’ I made a divider with a window which separates the driver from the rear passenger compartment. The converted body was now ready for a paint job! But I still had to find some front and rear seats. I was really lucky with the rear seat as the front seat of a ’25 T Roadster fitted like a glove in the narrowed body. Lucky me! For the front seat I had to fiddle around a bit with another ’25 T Roadster seat, but it came out very nice. I love my stash of spare T parts! Now that the interior was ready, including the stock dashboard and steering wheel, I had to focus on the outside of the taxi. I decided to use as many parts of the original Tijuana taxi as possible. The Tijuana wrought iron running boards were used to create a place at the rear for the large original Tijuana trunk. The ornamental curved supports for the second class seat were a bit too thick to use, but after I sliced them in half they looked just right and found a place on the trunk section. Not a thing you would suspect to find there, but it just felt right to do and kept a bit of the original Tijuana idea. And I added a small box, which was actually a toolbox from a ’34 Ford Pickup kit, on the right running board. Just because it looked nice. The fender assembly was finished in Tamiya gloss black and the body got a nice finish in Tamiya maroon. All in all not a complicated build/conversion. But I had a lot of fun working out all the details. |
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