The Car
I will be the first to admit my limited knowledge of pre-World War Two automobiles. I enjoy the cars of the 1950’s, but for me the cars of earlier days are somewhat obscure. It’s hard not to notice the older cars still on the road today. If you are a serious hot rodder, you have no doubt heard of the 1932 Ford. I will go out on a limb and say that the 1932 Ford is one of the most popular cars ever produced. The 1932 Model B was preceded by Henry Ford’s Model A. The Model A had a very profound effect on the economy, the way we travel, and modern production techniques.
The 1932 Ford featured a new Flathead V8 engine, the first successful V-8 in a low priced automobile. An updated version of the Model A’s older 4 cylinder engine was also available. In addition to the two different engine types, a number of body styles were available, including a 2-door roadster, 2-door cabriolet, 4-door phaeton, and also wood-paneled (“woody”) versions of the car.
The ‘32 Ford has become very popular with hot rod enthusiasts, starting in the 1940’s when hot rodders would strip weight off the car, soup up the engine, and go racing. Today you can find the ‘32 Ford in many movies, in car shows around the world, and if you’re lucky, driving down the street.
The Kit
This is a Revell kit, which has a Copyright date of 2001. I received it as a throw-in with another kit purchased online. I figured it would look pretty cool on the shelf because I don’t have any classic cars on display. It sat in the box for a while before I got to it.
I finally became excited about building the model after watching a TV show about car shows. I saw both restored original and heavily customized cars on this show and afterwards I decided to open up that ’32 Ford kit.
Revell’s ’32 Ford kit is very simple. It contains 76 pieces, and is rated as a Skill Level 2 build. I was torn between how I wanted to build this kit. The assembled model on the box depicts a street rod with wheels straight out of the 40s or 50s. It looks great, but I wasn’t a big fan of the wheels.
I knew I didn’t have the skills to create a ZZ Top style car, so I decided to change the wheels and leave off the decals. Due to the kit’s age the decals were yellowed so I set them aside. There are a lot of chrome pieces with this kit. When assembled, it all looks really good, but those wheels just didn’t look right. I opted for a set of Pegasus Chrome T’s. These are really classic “Mag” style wheels, which complete the hot rod look.
The kit comes with a removable convertible top, which looks good on or off the car. I was also happy to see that the hood on the car came in 3 pieces and was optional. One of my pet peeves is putting a lot of detail into the motor, but when you sit the kit on the shelf, you never see it. With this kit, you can go nuts with details and then show it off in hot rod mode.
The grille comes completely chrome and one of my tricks to creating depth is to hand paint the entire grille a flat black. The idea is not to get complete coverage, but to get down in the cracks of the grille. When it is dry, I take a paper towel and wet it with a little paint thinner. I then wrap the wet paper towel around my finger and drag it along the grille. This exposes the front chrome of the grille and leaves the black paint in between the ridges. This gives a nice look of depth and realism. Again, the kit doesn’t have many pieces and is pretty simple to put together.
Conclusion
This kit was a lot of fun to assemble! I normally build more complex kits with more parts so I built this one quickly. It looks great on the shelf and all of the chrome really draws your attention. I would like to note that this kit resembles the “Deuce Coupe” version of the 32 Ford. When researching this kit, I noticed that the “Deuce Coupe” had the headlights on a bar that crosses in front of the grille, whereas the traditional ‘32 Ford mounts them on the sides of the grille. Either way, this car was a lot of fun to put together, it was very simple, and it looks great. After building this kit, it makes me want to go out and see if I can find a 1:1 version and tinker with it; maybe hot rod it who knows. Thanks for reading and happy modeling.