MINI BIG RIGS
FINISHING TOUCHES It’s time to get personal – and add the little details that give this model a sense of realism and connect it to the reference photos we have of Ken Kirk’s Pilkington Merc.
By Carl Kirkbeck
I
t helps to look back to the December 2019/January 2020 issue of New Zealand Trucking magazine to be reminded of the first steps towards building the Italeri 1:24th scale Mercedes-Benz 6x4 tractor unit. Our build, based on the Pilkington Glass Automotive Division Mercedes-Benz driven by Ken Kirk, is now nearing completion. This month, we add the finishing touches, taking this build from ‘out of the box’ to ‘as personalised as by Ken’. Looking at our reference photos of Ken’s MercedesBenz, we see a handful of accessories that distinguish it. Items seen on real New Zealand rigs are generally not supplied with kitsets. For example, white mudflaps were common in New Zealand in the 1980s but they were rarely seen on the European
trucks where the kitset was manufactured. Also, CB aerials, Hella spotlights and, of course, a set of New Zealand number plates are not provided – this is where we need to turn to the spare parts and sheet plastic and get creative. Here, we will go step-bystep through some basic scratch building of a few key accessories on Ken’s mighty Merc and attach them to our build. The rule of thumb with scratch building is that there are no rules, it is all about looking at what you have and adapting it to achieve the desired result. As you will see here, having a small collection of Evergreen plastic sheets in your collection of odds and sods is worthwhile as you can easily fabricate many parts from sheet styrene plastic. So, let’s jump right in and complete this project.
Our subject matter: The 1989 Mercedes-Benz 2244 Ken Kirk drove for Pilkington Glass Automotive Division, delivering windscreens throughout New Zealand to then-thriving vehicle assembly plants.
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90 New Zealand Trucking
July 2022
