General Lee & Rosco's police car

[Jim85IROC]

I've been a huge Dukes fan my whole life, and I always loved some of the more well done rc dukes videos on Youtube. I finally decided to build my own General once I decided that I could adequately mitigate some of the shortcomings that I've always seen in these cars and the videos. There were 2 big issues that I wanted to overcome:

1. The only good 69 Charger body is the ridiculously expensive 2005 Malibu rc hard body.
2. There are no good options for period correct police cars.

For the first issue, I'm trying out a few options. I picked up a Kyosho Fazer with the 70 Charger body. The front end looks totally wrong, but if you remove the chrome piece, the lexan seems to be the right shape to accommodate an inset 69-style grill assembly. Once I swapped my 3d printed Vector wheels and took off the front grill, it already started looking way better.

Right out of the box:

The printed wheels:

Wheels on, front grill/bumper off:

I also ordered an RJ Speed 69 body as well as one from Team Blue Groove. The RJ body isn't bad, but the nose and tail are too stubby. I think they'll be much improved with 3d printed grill and tail lights. The TBG body isn't here yet, but maybe it'll be better than the RJ body. It looks pretty good in pics.

So, that leaves #2. This one required a completely different approach. Nobody offers a 1/10 scale sedan body, especially anything that was on the show. I started digging into 3d printable options and I found a guy on Cult3d.com with a TON of body options, including a lot of 70s junk. He didn't have any late 70s Monacos or Furys, but he did have a 74 Monaco, which is virtually identical to the 75 Monaco that was used a little bit in Season One, so I grabbed it. It turned out to be a really nice model that I could easily pull apart in Mesh Maker. I'm about 1/2 done printing the body, and I've got a ton of work ahead, but I'm really excited about how this looks!

Nobody makes 1/10 scale decals for Rosco's car, so I've started making those also. I just need the body so I can size them appropriately.

Overall, this isn't going to be a quick build, but it should be a lot of fun!

 

[ferp420]

thats pretty cool

 

[OSRC]

Awesome stuff...I have a Fazer General as well. My favorite TV car of all time, had to have it.

Excellent work on the police car as well!

 

[Jim85IROC]

The rear of the car finished printing. Now I just need to print the rear valance, then headlight & taillight lenses and the rearview mirrors.

I sized this car to fit on the Fazer chassis, but neglected to take the width into account. The body is too narrow to contain the wheels, so I ended up ordering a 3Racing M4 chassis that's narrow enough to accommodate the body. I'll need to build a longer chassis. Aside from the wheel width, it looks pretty good!

 

[Jim85IROC]

I've made a lot of progress on Roscoe's car. I've got the whole body printed, and temporarily taped together. I made some decals and printed them on photo paper just so I could tape them to the body to check fitment & location.

 

[OSRC]

Will there be a 1/10 Flash in the passenger seat?

 

[Jim85IROC]

Will there be a 1/10 Flash in the passenger seat?

quite possibly. I've found a couple printable 3d models, but I need to decide if I want to pay for it.

 

[Jim85IROC]

This week I made a lot of progress. I revised the police decals and printed them on the actual decal sheets instead of regular paper. I also have a donor chassis that's been lengthened to fit the car.

I designed and printed some hubcaps for the wheels. This is a pic of an early revision (my final revision was v14).

My final Charger body arrived this week, as did my decals. All 4 have their pros and cons, and I plan to build all of them.

The biggest issue with most of these bodies is that they're either not a proper 69 front end, or the body lacks detail, so I've started developing a new 3d printed grill assembly. These pics show one of my early versions in place on a couple of the bodies. I'm still working on revising these.

I also built a chassis for the hard body car, but now I need to lengthen it to fit the wheelbase.

 

[Zukiiholic]

Nice collection and nice looking Roscos car.
3d printed grill looks pretty good too.

 

[Jim85IROC]

Yesterday I glued the 3 main sections of the body together and hit it with primer to expose all of the defects. It's funny how good the body looked in white right from the printer, but as soon as you make it darker all of the flaws become very apparent.

After numerous rounds of sanding, putty, sanding, priming, sanding, putty, etc, it's starting to come together.

Next I need to get to work on the front and rear fascias.

 

[Jim85IROC]

She's all primered up! Hopefully this weekend I'll have the white paint on.

 

[high plains drifter]

Man, you do good work. Looks great. I'm enjoying following along.

 

[Jim85IROC]

Painted Roscoe's car today and it came out like ass. The paint seemed to go on very dry, even with heavy coats. It left a very rough surface, so now I'm going to need to wetsand before I apply the clear.

 

[OSRC]

Seriously need the "Like" button back on this forum... Nothing to add per se, just waiting to see your finished product!

 

[BJoe]

That would make a great Bluesmobile too!

 

[Jim85IROC]

That would make a great Bluesmobile too!

There's actually a guy on youtube doing exactly that.
https://youtu.be/x0exQ3uEuPQ

 

[Jim85IROC]

Yay. Back to the sandpaper I go.

 

[Jim85IROC]

I had more issues with paint and decided to start over on the police car. In brighter news, I got my first video in the series up last night. This one is a comparison of the 4 available body options for General Lee builds:

https://youtu.be/3h4aj6EsYQI

 

[Jim85IROC]

Since I no longer have a printed body to work on until I can print another one, I've shifted my focus to one of the Generals. I'm starting with the Kyosho. For this car, the biggest task is to convert the front end from a 70 to a 69. I am doing this by removing the 70 chrome piece, cutting out the lexan behind the original grill, and installing a 3D printed grill that I'm designing.



Here's the original 70 front end:

Here's the front end with my conversion in place. Aside from tweaking the grill angle slightly, I think my design is essentially done. When I print the final one, I'll use a much lower layer height, but even with the draft quality, I'm super stoked with how it looks.

Next step is to figure out a bumper. I'm hoping to cut down the 70 grill and see how it looks. Even though it won't extend back toward the wheel well, I think overall it'll look better than a printed bumper.

 

[Jim85IROC]

Today I cut down the 70 front grill to make a bumper.* I need to decide whether to keep it like it is or to try to extend it back over the fender. Doing that will leave a bit of a visible seam in the chrome, so I'm not sure if it's worth doing vs just leaving it this shape and cleaning it up a bit.