When I learned that the Professional Car Society's 2003 International Meet was featuring a scale model show along with the full-sized festivities, I was eager to show my models there along with our real cars. I received a trophy and several nice prizes for my modeling efforts, including this Jimmy Flintstone professional car conversion kit.

The Jimmy Flintstone kit modifies Galaxie Limited's 1/25 scale 1948 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery truck into a hearse or ambulance. Converting the sedan delivery truck into an ambulance requires lengthening of the chassis and associated parts, including the frame, exterior and interior floor pans, exhaust pipe, drive shaft, and door panels by cutting them apart and splicing in lengths of styrene. The key to accomplishing this is to repeatedly test fit all of the parts with alignments effected by the modification, especially the dashboard and front clip.

With the lengthening finished, I began detailing the ambulance interior. A partition cabinet and patient compartment door panels were built out of sheet styrene, with the upholstery details scribed in. I equipped the ambulance with a resin recast of the Jo-Han ambulance's stretcher purchased on eBay. The oxygen bottle and radio came from my spare parts bin. For the microphone cord I used a twisted scrap of styrene gouged out with my scribing tool and painted black.

The leaded windows were built by piecing together HO scale window frames, then covering them with Bare Metal Foil. I coated the back of the center crosses with five minute epoxy, then painted them with Testor's Ruby Red Metallic. For the tunnel lights I used styrene tubes carved to shape with my Dremel. The "New Bedlam Hospital" markings were made using Vitacal printable decal paper and our computer.

The complex conversion was made easier by the quality of both kits. The Jimmy Flintstone body was a flawless resin casting that easily fit the detailed Galaxie parts. My only complaint is the self-adhesive metal "speedline" fender trim included in the Galaxie kit. The instructions caution that some glue may be needed to secure the edges of the trim. It doesn't mention the hours of aggravation included in accomplishing that.

The end result of many hours of cutting and piecing together tiny parts was this beautiful, unique scale model ambulance.