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The Expressbolaget Distribution Car
As a model of the Volvo Duett van was introduced it also became possible to re-make it into a small flat bed car for small cargo distribution. It became fairly popular and among others the Expressbolaget freight company in Helsingborg had at least one of these.
Utgångsmaterialet
As base I selected one of the simplest models of the caar I found. It was sawn off right behind the drivers door and just in fromnt of the back doors. That way we get the correct type of rear wall of the "cabin" with the least amount of work. On the following picture, the caar has been glued together, joints filled and a suitable short chassis extension has been made from styrene strips.
Most of the build is done from photos and memory and the placing of cross members is a good guess. Since I wanted it to look like an ordinary delivery car I choose a darkish green colour that seemed to be the standard truck colour at the time. In any case it was the colour chosen by the Expressbolaget company in its day.
The first layer of paint finished using the box as support when painting. A few more layers finished off the paint stage. Then I made a small flaat bed measured from photosand fitted to the chassis. Ended up quite OK.
The glittering in the picture comes from the camera flash which is hard to avoid. A picture from behind shows that the centre pole in the rear window has been remoced. THis model did not have that and it was therefore removed after sawing off the rear doors.
The last preparations for finishing. Test assembly will be finalized and a few colour correfdtion here and there must be done before the finals coat of paint.
This picture on the front shoiws the typical Volvo Duett pick-up style. The "cabin" looks almost too large for the car in relation to the flat bed, but that is how it was. It was not a big truck but a very practical small pick-up for delivering parcels and such on narrow streets.
Here it is, ready and shiny parked min front of the houses in the HSB block. Perhaps a delivery to teh coops shop or the toys and hobby shop. Zooming out a bit to allow the perspective to increase.
Looks quite good, doesn´t it? A small delivery car is not very difficult to make if only you dare to saw a bit in a model. Still missing is the logotype on the doors but that will show up shortly.
/Peter
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