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Back to the Future Doc Brown's Step Van |
| Base | Matchbox Delivery Express Van |
| Mods | Stripped/repainted, decals added, resin cast ramp, tool chest |
| Card | 4th Gen card w/rounded corners & punch, 2010, JS0019, BTTF-04 |
| Qty Made | 16 incl Prototype |
Just when I didn't think I could get any luckier with base cars popping up in the diecast section I find the Matchbox Express Delivery van and it's a good 90% correct to Doc's 1981 GMC Step van. Now being to scale with the rest of the 3" cars it won't house a Time Machine but you can't have everything.
With some help from friends I rounded up about 16-17 of these cars and began the process of building a prototype, which I painted silver. After some hard staring at the DVD I realized it's more of an oxidized aluminum/gray color. Oops. I made decals for the grille and made a screen accurate bumper sticker that reads "One Nuclear Bomb Can Ruin Your Whole Day" and of course the licsene plate, which you can just barely read.
Instead of going the large wire wheel grinder route I decided to try some Jasco industrial paint remover. It's what they use for airplanes and that is arguably some of the toughest paint around. It did a number on the paint but then I ended up spending so much time scraping the paint flakes off and worrying about it dissolving my gloves that it really wasn't worth it in the end. Fun to watch though!
I made the ramp piece out of styrene and made a mold of it so I could pop out 15 of them. That's what you see on the table behind the interior pieces. The floodlights were straight pins bent over and then a heavy drop of aluminum paint applied to make them look like spotlights. The pins actually go through the body of the truck. I had to buy a pin vise attachment for my dremel and a bunch of super tiny pin vise drill bits as they would break from time to time. Talk about tedious!
One or two of the trucks fought me up on reassembly so I had to weigh them down while pinching.. so my broken DeLorean radio and a bottle of paint did the work. Made for an interesting photo.
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