I had been planning to build a high-top ambulance for some time. The addition of a 1959 Superior high-top Cadillac ambulance to Jimmy Flintstone's extensive line of after market 1/25 scale resin automobile bodies seemed made to order for this project. Unfortunately, things didn't quite go as easily as I had hoped.

The Jimmy Flint stone kit is not a model by itself. It is intended to modify an existing kit, in this case the Polar Lights Ecto-1 or Monogram Ecto-1A. I had worked with other Jimmy Flint stone kits before and found them to be relatively trouble free. Such was not the case with this ambulance body.

The casting on the resin ambulance body was clean and neat, without a single defect. Only some minor sanding was needed to remove casting flange here and there. Unfortunately, there was one problem with the ambulance exterior: the right tail fin was cast out of place, sitting an 1/8" too far back, overhanging the rear of the car. This further compounded the already poor fit of the rear bumper of the Polar Lights kit. An extensive amount of sanding, filing, and puttying was needed to achieve an even fit. Once the bumper fit evenly, I sliced out a portion of the bumper's center and spliced in a section cut from the oversized ambulance step left over from a Monogram Ecto-1A.

With the body painted and trimmed in Bare Metal Foil chrome, I began installing the windows. Strips of clear plastic worked well for the flat side windows. The rest of the glass was not so easy. I discovered that this Jimmy Flintstone kit was designed to fit the front windshield assembly from the Monogram Ecto-1A, not the Polar Lights Ecto-1, which has an assembly made taller by some overhead cross members. Fortunately, I had a spare windshield from a Monogram kit. Finished with the front and side windows, I began work on the rear windows. The Jimmy Flintstone kit includes a set of curved vacuum formed rear side windows and a rear door window. They didn't fit. The rear door window was much too large and had to be scraped entirely. The side windows fit only after extensive trimming and repeated test fitting.

For the interior I used the patient compartment of the Polar Lights kit, grinding away the various ghostbusting gadgets and replacing them with fresh cabinets built from styrene plastic sheets. I cut an opening in the rear door and cemented a scratch built cabinet in place, stocked with boxes of gauze bandages, the labels for which I made on our Mac. I made a gurney for my ambulance by bending and splicing various lengths of styrene rod. I sculpted a mattress from Milliput and dressed it with a sheet of Super Glue hardened facial tissue painted white. I finished off the interior with a cot hook and O2 bottles salvaged from an old Johann kit and an aspirator made from a clear doll house jar.

The Ecto's mildly detailed driver's compartment was less than ideal however. I sliced it away, replacing it with a new cab built by cutting down the floor and door panels from a Monogram Cadillac Eldorado convertible, then mating them to the rear floor of the Ecto. Using Detail Master red flocking, I "carpeted" the front floor and lower door panels by spraying them with Krylon Crystal clear, then poured in some flocking. Once dry, I simply shook out the excess, leaving behind a beautifully finished interior.

Once the car was assembled I finished detailing the exterior with a spotlight, mirror, and a siren from the Ecto-1 kit. To make the beacon I cemented a red translucent ball point pen plunger inside a skirt cut from styrene tube. One of the problems with the Polar Lights kit is that it doesn't have translucent tail lights like the Monogram kit, but rather has chrome plated bullets that must be painted red. I decided to cut these away, replacing them with tail lights left over from several Monogram Eldorados. I used these for the ambulance's front and rear roof lights as well.

I had hoped that this Jimmy Flint stone kit would make my high-top ambulance project easier by eliminating the need to scratch-build the ambulance body. However, I'm fairly certain that all I spent the same amount of time fixing problems with this one as I would have scratch-building one on my own. Still, it finished out as a beautiful kit, and is an excellent example of what can be accomplished with patience, work, and a fair amount of swearing.