Built by: Harley Richards in Croydon, Surrey, England

Three years in the making and this is all Tom Daniel’s fault! Many moons ago I was nosing around his web site when I came across the "Pop Top T." (A penciled concept Tom did for one of the hot rod magazines back in the day as shown to the right--ed.)

Hmmm......I thought, a T with gull wing doors--that could be a fun project! And so the long process of scrounging up suitable parts began.

For the record, we have MRC wheels and tyres, rear end from a Revell Buttera T, the engine block is an AMT Lincoln, blowers are from the Creepy T, pipes are Bathtub Buggy, front axle and radius rods are from the Milk Truck, the main body is an original AMT Tall T with a later-issue pickup bed grafted on (no, I have no idea why I did that!), while the grille shell is AMT with pretty much everything else came from the parts box or was scratchbuilt. The radiator grille is from an old electric shaver!

And if anyone is remotely interested, the doors and flush-fitting glass are features I will be in no rush whatsoever to replicate on later projects! In keeping with a full-scale T, only the passenger’s door opens as access via the driver’s side would be near on impossible (and, if I’m being honest, I couldn’t get the hinges on that door to work properly no matter what I tried – the “vinyl” roof was a late addition to cover up a crack in the clear coat that occurred while I was trying to reprofile the curve on the door!).

Another “Why did I bother?” feature is the paint. A lovingly custom mixed artists’ acrylic that took about ten coats to get a smooth  covering, but which bears more than a passing resemblance to Tamiya’s rattle can lime pearl. Ho hum.

Interior panels are all cut from Plastruct sheet and were given a coat of white pearl but no gloss coat for that genuine naughahyde sheen. The parts box yielded a Perspex steering wheel which was matched up with transparent foot controls and shifter. Like, solid gone daddio!