Built by: Dawie Coetzee in Cape Town, South Africa

There was the Carl Casper Paddy Wagon. There was the Tom Daniel Paddy Wagon. Now, here's Dawie's Paddy Wagon, based very loosely on a late-Victorian horse-drawn "Black Maria" and featuring a custom motorised articulated forecarriage.

The engine, transmission, rear end, driving wheels, headlights, and controls are from the Beverley Hillbillies truck Dan Barten sent me. The rest is largely scratchbuilt out of styrene sheet. The front wheel and the trailer wheels are from cheap 1:24 and 1:18 toy motorcycles. The front fork was built up out of brass rod. The roof was cut from 41/2" PVC drain pipe. The timber components are veneer shelf edging. The stained glass sign is laser-copy transparencies glued back-to-back onto tracing paper. The lanterns are composed of glass beads, earring parts, and foil-covered styrene sheet. The paint is mostly out of hardware-store rattle cans. Dan Warford of Slippery Arts supplied the decals.

It represents my first build in 23 years. I thought I'd start with something geometrically simple, which might present well without the need for an extremely fine standard of finish.