Just throwing a request out to the Shapeway guys. Just wondering if anyone out there would be willing to do some truck cabs for us to put on our own custom frames, possibly do some fifth wheels too. I would like to model the following trucks... International transtar II, Kenworth K100 (Both arodyne and regular), Kenworth w900, Ford ltl9000, and the ford clt9000. Thanks for reading, John
I would be in for any long nose tractor. Preferably a Pete...a KW...or even a Mack. Wellll...anything except a Volvo. I drove one ONCE....once was enough. I always hated the grill on a Volvo...even in the 1:1 world !! Also...I am not a big fan of cab-overs...sorry.
A cab for a 70s vintage KW W900 would be right on par for me. I have thought about bashing one out of a Con Cor but in my opinion there is not much there other than a frame to start with. Yes if someone at Shapeways would do the cabs and hoods there is enough on the Con Cor chasis to work with.
The frames of the CC trucks are a few FEET too wide. The KW cab isn't too bad if you fix the front windows. I think CC/Herpa had intended to do a day cab version of the truck as the cab has a rear window that is hidden by the sleeper. Looking at their HO line, I wonder if they had bodies like a dump and concrete truck planned. The sleeper itself was sort of a botch job. If you take the sleeper off the truck, you will notice that there are several lines of rivets concealed behind the cab. I think this was suposed to be the rear of the sleeper module and the tooling somehow hot revered and never corrected. The same thing happened to Bachmann's front end loader. The bucket and arms have actually been installed upside-down for over 40 years.
The Atlas truck is a Ford LT9000. The main difference between the LTL9000 and the LT9000 is the sleeper.
I'm pretty sure the LTL had a longer nose and the grill was squared off. I doubt many people would pick up the difference uless they were looking directly at the models. From the origonal post, I would say the International cabover is probably the most in need. These were everywhere in the 70's and 80's and a few are still around today. The Ford W series cabover would also be a welcome addition (Atlas may even be able to reuse the grill and headlight castings.) Some 80/90's vintage Freightliner and International medium duty trucks would also be a nice break from the sea of transition era Fords we always seem to get.
I'd say any 80s/90s trucks would be great...seems those of us who model the 80s/90s are forgotten about in the "support" areas. We can get rolling stock and locos, just no vehicles.
The Atlas model is an LNT9000 its a short haul Medium duty truck. The LTL9000 were Ford's long haul trucks, these were succeeded by the Aeromax series tractors.
