Polar Light's Ecto-1 provided the basis for this unusual ambulance model, with Monogram's 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Hardtop contributing mirrors, sun visors, and a detailed grill. As with the other funeral cars I had built using Ghostbusters kits, all of the Ecto's equipment attachment points had to be sanded off and puttied away, then the rear ambulance windows plated over to form the Ambulandau roof. For the tunnel lights I carved styrene tubes to shape with my Dremel, then fitted them with lenses made of 5mm doll eyes painted red. The rear bumper in the Polar Lights kit was a remarkably poor fit, and required a fair amount of puttying and sanding to fill in the gaps. I ground off the chrome-plated bullets that serve as tail lights on the Ecto-1 kit and replaced them with red translucent tail lights from the Eldorado kit.

I trimmed the exterior with Bare Metal Foil. Incidentally, Bare Metal Foil and a white paint job do not mix well. Cutting, burnishing, or even handling the foil can transfer residue which leaves black smudges on nearby surfaces. Inevitably, polishing the smudges away produces more smudges from the foil, which require more polishing, and so on. It can be very frustrating. I tried waxing the model before applying the foil too, in hopes of establishing a barrier against the residue, to no avail. With the exterior finally finished, I added a spotlight, mirror, and a siren from the Ecto-1 kit. For the beacon I cemented a red translucent ball point pen plunger inside a length of styrene tube.

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. A resin recast of the Johann ambulance stretcher and cot hook, purchased on eBay, completed the interior nicely.

While the Bare Metal Foil and the poor fit of the rear bumper did contribute to some frustrating moments, the end result was still an attractive model of a seldom seen ambulance. While I enjoy building professional car models, I'm fairly certain that this will be my last built on a '59 Cadillac chassis.