Built by: Randy L. Koger in Naples, Florida

I think it's safe to say that this sassy little beauty of a show rod has got to be Tom Daniel's most famous creation, and it's one of my top-five favorites that he designed.

I had this SSP reissue in my collection for several years, and built two or three of 'em straight outta the box, but was always disappointed at the huge sprue marks on the chrome helmet on the completed kits. However, once I discovered that there were services that did re-chroming of kit parts and I sent out the chrome parts and had them re-plated, I tore into another Red Baron kit and made the built-up you are looking at here.

The kit is strictly box stock, with a couple of exceptions: All the chrome-tree parts were stripped, sanded and smoothed and sent out for re-plating, to get rid of all the sprue marks, and there are MV lenses behind the headlight lenses to give the headlights some realism and depth.

The body of the car is painted Testor's Stop Light red straight over the red plastic, and I "bare metal foiled" the gas tank. I painted the seats Testor's Light Gull Gray and dry-brushed black pastel chalk into the folds on the seats to give them some depth and then dotted each button on in the pleating with gold paint. The result is very convincing deep-leather seats.

A bit of Testor's Metalizer paint used here and there on the engine gives it all a little contrast and helps tie the whole color scheme together. Black paint was dropped into the cross design of the wheels and radiator.

Finally, I cut the German Maltese crosses from the decal sheet so there was no excess decal film on the perfect chrome of the helmet. Sanding the tread of the tires added the final touch. This piece gets a lot of attention at the shows, and it's a wonderful piece of eye candy that I think does Tom's brilliant show rod creation justice. Enjoy! (And thanks again to Tom Daniel for all the delightful model kits he designed!)