1/76 Airfix K2 Ambulance, Pt.2

It's been aeons since I watched Ice Cold In Alex, and decided on buying and building an Austin K2 ambulance. I no longer wanted to build a diorama based on the film (too much hassle, and nowhere to put it!). Instead it'll become part of my fledgling Allied forces, for future combat with my German stuff.

This was more or less how the K2 was last time I posted.

So, I got stuck back into this one recently. First off I decided to detail the interior, using reference from several visit to museums, such as the Duxford IWM Land Warfare Hall, and the Muckleburgh Collection. It was mostly from the former that I derived the rear interior, and the latter that I worked up the cab and outside colouring.

The interior of the Duxford K2

A closer view (note: nurse has leprosy, first finger and pinky missing!)

My interior is perhaps a shade darker than the creamy colour of the K2 at Duxford, but it's near enough for me (the paler interior pic, directly above, was in fact lightened by me in Photoshop, so as to better see the floor colour/detail). As well as cutting out the very thick chunk of plastic where the communicating doorway window is, I also scratch built two stretchers - one stowed, rolled up, and one deployed - some blankets, and modified some stowage from another kit for a medics satchel and a further blanket roll.

Cutting out that communication window was a beach!

Oops, forgot to paint rear inner doors: colour-match looks close enough to me.

Building plastic-card stowage cupboards...

... in situ and painted.

Inside the rear body roof area, there's a fair bit of new detail: two scratch built overhead stowage boxes, the fan vents, four lamps, and two handle like fixtures, perhaps for hanging drips? Once I'd painted that lot up, and added them to the model, I decide to also add a bit of spare photo-etch detail from some other kit to the floor (there's a lift-up lid on the floor, for accessing a further stowage area), and some kind of dingus on the wall by the door, poss some kind of intercom?

Rear body roof detailing.

Starting to paint internal detail.

Green Stuff for blankets, stretchers, etc.

Extras painted and...

... added to the interior.

front cab/dashboard, windows masked, and glued in place.

At this juncture I noticed it was beer o'clock, and grabbed myself an evolutionary tipple...

And so it came to the time for stripping and cleaning the airbrush again, and checking all the windows were properly masked, so I could spray the exterior body work. Next, a coat or two of gloss varnish, and then the decals. The British armed forces clearly liked their Red Cross roundels, preferring to add as many as they could; including the tiny ones fore and aft on the roof, there are eight on the vehicle in all!

Crap photo of Muckleburgh K2. Very dark green!

Looking quite dark, especially with hi-contrast roundels.

Doors in place (but not glued!).

After the decals went on, it was time for another coat or two of gloss varnish, to seal them in position, and then I could add the two air vent thingies on the rooftop. Pictured below you can compare our Austin K2 with our cousins across the ponds' Dodge WC54.

One minor irritation is that the two rear door roundels are refusing to conform properly to the surface of the model - they lay over the door-handle detail - despite the use of various decal solutions that are supposed to make them adhere more closely to such contours. Can anyone advise on how I might remedy this?

The Dodge WC54, and the Austin K2, side by side.

This was my ref for the tow-rope and these little yellow signs.

'Tie me kangaroo down sport, tie me...' er...

I decided to use some real cotton thread as a tow-rope. I soaked it in a PVA and water solution, to tame the loose fibres, and then repeatedly broke off the tow-bar trying to attach it. I used cyano-acrylite glue to attach the rope. Eventually, after much fiddling and re-gluing, I got it in position, and then painted it. It looks a bit clunky after all that effort. Still, hey-ho, and ne'er mind.

I've also added a scratch-built yellow roundel-plate, with a stencilled no. four on it. What were these markings all about, eh? Anyone care to enlighten me?

The Airfix drivers supplied in this set (I've not built the RAF fuel tanker yet!) are amputees, missing the lower parts of their legs. I popped one in the cab, and could clearly see his missing pedal extremities. So I amputated some from a German 1/72 PSC figure, and performed a graft onto this 1/76 Brit. I'm pleased to say he has not rejected his new ankles and feet. Once he's painted, I'll see if I can slip him in to the cab.

Tow rope painted; driver post-op, with new (German!) feet.

Driver painted. Ooh, I do love this mini-military stuff!

Although I've added a fair bit to this kit, I haven't put any divisional markings on as yet. I think I'll wait to come up with something uniformly suitable on that front, so as to have consistency across my putative Allied forces. 

And, finally (perhaps?), an oil wash with Van Dyke Brown, for the K2, my PST/AER ZIS-5-BS - a WIP I'll be posting on soon - and the Clarktor 6 tractor, as pictured above. When this lot has dried, I'll give them all a once over for some final fine detailing, pop the driver in the K2, and she'll be done. 

Film & Kit Reviews: Ice Cold In Alex & Airfix 1/76 K2 Ambulance (Pt.1)

Having been out of the loop for a while I thought I'd wade back in with a double-whammy: a film review and a kit build (only partial at the time of posting, I'm afraid) in one post.

I've been watching loads of war films lately, mostly set in WWII. And most of them have been pretty good. There's only been the occasional below par offering, and only one outright turkey. But I'll be posting on many of these soon, so I'll save further info for later posts.

Ice Cold In Alex is both an unusual war film, since most of the drama relates to four people in an ambulance crossing an otherwise mostly empty desert, and an  excellent one. After watching the film a few weeks back, I decided I'd like to make a K2 'Katy' Ambulance. And, perhaps, maybe even make an Ice Cold In Alex diorama.

The Film:

Ice Cold In Alex is a bona fide classic WWII movie. That said, it's also pretty unusual for the genre, broadly speaking, in that it's more a character study, and for the most part concerns just four individual battling their demons and the harsh environment, the desert, as much as the Germans. 

I don't wish to offend any readers of this 'across the pond', but it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the film that the version released Stateside was cut by about 50% and remained Desert Attack! The uncut version is 130 minutes long, whereas the U.S. edit is only 76!

An American poster for the butchered shorter version. Note different title!

The film is based on a book of the same name by Christopher Landon, and purports to be a true story.[1] We meet Captain Anson (John Mills), already the worse for wear, slurring his words and drinking spirits, in a Tobruk HQ. Anson's commander, a Brigadier played by Liam redmond, who we first see bathing in a tub, briefing Anson during a bombardment!

Anson is ordered to set about evacuating a column of ambulances from Tobruk, bound for Alexandria. But the Brigadier requests he stay behind and accompany him, along with his MSM, Tom Pugh (the ever dependable Harry Andrews, affecting a strange west-country-cum-Norfolk accent!). Two nurses are added to the ambulance crew by accident, when they're left behind.

The delay in setting out means we never see the main column of ambulances. And, indeed, after an attack results in the death of the Brigadier (and his driver, another war movie stalwart, Allan Cuthbertson), Anson an co. find their retreat route cut off when a bridge is blown just as they reach it. Shortly after this they pick up Captain van der Poel (Anthony Quayle). And thus the adventure begins.

As ever, I don't want to give too much away for those who haven't seen the film. But it's a corker. Military buffs such as our crowd will inevitable be disappointed that the few Germans Anson and friends meet are usually in American half-tracks. But the story is great, with the main enemies being Anson's personal demons, and the desert.

Mills, Sims, Andrews and Quayle, all looking overheated on a cool German poster for the film.

All the four major leads, Mills' Capt. Anson, Andrews' MSM Pugh, Quayle's van der Poel, and Sylvia Sims as the very foxy Sister Diana Murdoch, are superb. They are all characters you grow to really love and admire, as they fight their way over minefields, through enemy held territory, battling booze, quicksand and even tackling an excellent espionage subplot.

The famous theme, that both gives the movie its title and its iconic end sequence in the Alendrian bar, has even been used in two beer adverts. One's a spoof - from a series called 'Holsten-Pils Productions' - in which Griff Rhys Jones is interpolated into vintage footage from this and several other old films. The other's a riposte to the Holsten Pils ad by Carlsberg, and simply shows Anson downing the pint, which clearly shows the Carlsberg logo.

A nice pic of the cast and crew during filming. [2]

The whole film is excellent, filled with not just action - and even then not the kind of action modern films rely on (explosions, fast cuts, etc.) - but, and far more importantly in my view, with character and feeling. I'd seen it before, many moons ago, but was blown away seeing it again. So much so I watched it again with friends!

It also inspired me to search around for model of the 'Katy' K2 Austin ambulance, a vehicle that is almost a character deserving of a credit of her own in this wonderful film

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The Kit:

So, from the film to the model.

I'd have liked to find a 1/72 version of this vehicle. But the only thing I could find that was close, was this RAF Emergency Set, by Airfix, which also includes an Austin fire engine and some RAF ground crew.

One thing that happened, mirroring something that happens in the film, is that, on opening the box, I discovered my kit was missing a suspension spring for the ambulance. In the film they break one, and replace it, in a very memorable scene in which van der Poel literally shoulders the heaviest share of the work.

I had to scratch-build a new spring, which I made from thin plastic card and stretched sprue. My photos of this process are woeful. But perhaps thats for the best? As my spring, whilst fit for purpose (and probably unlikely to ever be seen anyway!), was not a perfect copy!

The model is a fun build, although it's an old Airfix moulding, with a lot of tidying required (much flash to trim off, and ejector pin marks to remove or fill). I intend to model mine on the vehicle in the film. And I might even attempt either converting some figures, or even sculpting them, so as to provide the four key characters.

Looks like I'm not the only one to be recently inspired by Ice Cold In Alex! [3]

Not sure whether I'll have any door or windows open. And the build has currently stalled momentarily anyway, as I prepare for the new school-term's teaching, and decide about the interior detail.

I might go for this, as a diorama option.

Some interesting details can be seen here: a tow cable; rolled mats on the front mudguards; painted 'frames' on the windows; the rooftop red cross logo in a different place to that suggested by the Airfix kit.

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Now, I'm not usually one for any royal nonsense, but I did find the following pictures interesting:

Princess Lizzie, as she was then, learning to drive a K2 Austin ambulance; 'doing her bit', I guess. I don't know that this was anything more than a publicity exercise - I doubt she was an active ambulance driver (correct me if I'm wrong!) - but the pics are great nevertheless.

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NOTES:

[1] I haven't looked into the truth (or otherwise) of this claim. Anyone else know anything about it?

[2] StudioCanal have some nice galleries of still from this film, which can be viewed here.

[3] I can't recall where I saw this pic. But apparently it's a set from the Perry's workbench. So I suspect they're 28mm?