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| Originally a 1964 Pontiac GTO, Greg used the kit’s boxy shape as a platform for his converion. Greg shortened the roof, added scratch built doors and shortening the wheelbase. |
Volkswagen will always be remembered for the original Beetle. Dr. Porsche’s “people’s car,” a direct copy of a Czech Tatra design, is still the most produced car ever. Less well known was their line of vans and pickups introduced in the late ‘50s. Based on the Beetle engineering, these “boxes on wheels” were compact and efficient, making them popular with small businesses in the U.S. In response to these products, the U.S. auto industry started making its own lines of compact utility trucks.
Chevrolet was the most direct imitator, with its Corvair van and pickup of the early ‘60s. The design was very similar to Volkswagen’s. It had a rear mounted air-cooled engine and a driver’s seat over the front wheels. This allowed for a large amount of cargo area on a compact chassis, though like the Volkswagen, driver safety was very questionable in a front end crash. Ford’s Econoline (initially part of the Falcon line) series of vans and pickups were more successful. It too had the driver’s seat over the front wheels in its first generation, but power came from a water-cooled engine centrally mounted in the chassis.
This basic formmid engine with driver forward would be followed by all the U.S. makers for their vans and compact pickups through the ‘60s. Chevrolet came out with their own “Econoline” after the poor selling Corvair line of trucks was dropped in 1964. Dodge also introduced a compact line very similar to the Econoline in the early ‘60s and here we come to one of the main inspirations for this article.
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| Greg’s conversion was inspired by a friend’s similar conversion of a 1977 AMC Matador kit. Greg retained the donor GTO kit’s bench seat and dashbord for the semi-gloss black interior. |
When the A-100 series of compact pickups was being introduced, Chrysler came to the Alexander brothers of Detroit with a proposal to sponsor a custom version of the new Dodge. Mike and Larry Alexander had been building tasteful and well-constructed customs for many years. They turned to GM designer Harry Bradley for a plan for this new custom. The Alexanders and Harry Bradley had long worked together in their custom designs, though not officially; the hot rod industry was still a back yard business back then. Bradley worked on the design through 1965 while he was at Stanford University for his master’s degree. He realized that customizing an A-100 pickup would require a radical amount of work; anything else would look just like a shoebox with fancy wheels. His first sketches were indeed quite radical, looking nothing like the original truck. The design had lots of new ideas and borrowed sections from other vehicles. For instance, part of his design used a 1960 Ford station wagon tailgate for an opening front end. Chrysler enthusiastically approved the plans, but probably wasn’t told much about Bradley’s contributions, being a GM stylist, or about the Ford parts going into the design.
The Alexander Bros. needed a name for this new creation. Bradley’s sketches were published in a 1966 issue of Car Model magazine in a “Name this Custom” contest. The winning name was Deora (incorrectly translated Spanish for “golden”) inspired by the gold color used in the sketches. The Alexander Bros. then went to work. The Deora was a complex design that took an enormous effort for a small shop to build. The Dodge A-100 truck was radically transformed into a smooth and low custom with a front-opening door. Bradley’s new ideas were tried out in this fully-driveable custom truck. Firestone even made special tires just for the Deora. The project drained the Alexander Bros. (it cost as much as two new Chryslers to build the Deora), but the radical truck was a smashing success on the custom car circuit. AMT made a model kit of the Deora, and it would even inspire a second Deora II to be built. The original is currently owned by the Alexander family and being restored to show condition again. The Alexander’s Bros. shop would be demolished to make way for a new freeway (ironic, no?) and they went on to other things besides custom cars. Harry Bradley would go on to Mattel, where he and Tom Daniels, another custom car stylist, would produce many a Hot Wheel and Monogram kit based on their designs.
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| The CTO wheels came from an AMT 1949 Ford kit, with the caps from AMT’s 1962 Catalina. The Firestone tires are also from AMT. The body was painted with light blue automotive touch up paint. |
The Deora kit was re-released not too long ago by AMT. Looking at the box top, it’s obvious the Deora design, while still very good, is looking a bit dated. I passed on the kit, but then my friend Steve Hinson did something that inspired me to look again at the Deora concept. Taking a ‘77 AMC Matador kit, he reversed the body and shortened the roof, making his own custom version of a Deora. He even painted it gold; we nicknamed it the “Matadeora,” and, well, the name stuck. If you’ve ever seen a Matador, customizing it is the best thing you can do to the kit. When he started on his project, I broke out a Honda Accord and started making my own version of a compact pickup custom. The results were mixed after I did the basic body work; I abandoned it, but maybe I’ll get back to it one day.
Still having the bug, I looked for a kit that would make a better subject. The slab-sided ‘64 Pontiac GTO struck me as having possibilities.
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| The Dodge Deora was a complex design that took enormous effort for Alexander brothers to convert from an A-100 compact pickup. The name Deora was incorrectly translated Spanish for “golden.”. |
Already a bit of a box, the GTO body would lend itself well for conversion into a compact pickup. I started by shortening the rear overhang and taking a section out of the middle to shorten the wheelbase. The roof was cut off and shortened and repositioned on the front of the body after the front grill section was cut off. Scratch built front doors were added ahead of the front wheels, and all the gaps in the body were filled and smoothed with Tamiya polyester putty (fancy Bondo). In retrospect, I should have drawn out a few plans instead of just eye balling it all as the front end droops just a little too much. A couple of millimeters makes a big difference in the looks of a custom scale auto.
The chassis was shortened and the axles installed - this was all that was done underneath as this model would be a “curbsider,” that is no engine or chassis detail. The real thing would have a nice Pontiac 389 V-8 centrally mounted following the Econline plan. A bed for the back was also skipped; a cover would be installed instead. Being a styling exercise, I was pursuing a quick build rather than a bang-your-head-against-the-wall full detail project, but this concept turned out well enough that a fully-detailed project would be a possibility if I won the lottery and had the excess free time. The body was primed and sprayed with a light blue automotive touch up paint. The lacquer clear coat kept crazing the paint, so a coat of Testors High Gloss Clear enamel provided the final finish. In hindsight, I would have done the entire paint job with Testors Model Master paints, as they airbrush beautifully when thinned with lacquer thinner. Use adequate ventilation, please.
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| The Dodge A-100 series of compact pickups was inspired by Volkswagon’s little known line of vans and pickups introduced in the late ‘50s. |
An interior was made from the rear seat of the GTO kit with the stock dashboard glued in front. It was a bit rough, so semi-gloss black was definitely the color choice here. Since the beginning of this project, I envisioned this model as being a “Phantom” vehicle, or a stock-appearing car that never existed in real life. The all-black interior with the bench seat worked with this concept, as did the steel wheels with Dogdish hub caps. The wheels, by the way, came from an AMT ‘49 Ford kit, with the caps from AMT’s ‘62 Catalina mounted on them. AMT’s common-as-dirt Firestone tires had whitewalls painted on them with a very pale tan acrylic (never use enamels on vinyl tires; they will never dry). The kit glass was used front and rear for the new “cab,” and then the interior was installed.
Final details included the stock GTO rear bumper and front grills. The ‘62 Catalina’s front bumper was cut down and used as it fit better than the GTO bumper. A .010” plastic sheet tonneau cover was made for the back, with “snaps” being reproduced by pushing a pin into the plastic from the other side. Door handles and a rear view mirror were added, as was a Pontiac arrow emblem just above the center front grill. In the middle of the project I decided on the name “CTO” (Compact Truck Option) for this creation, so the “G” in the front grill was modified to look like a “C.” I lost the rear emblems in all the body work, but it wouldn’t be too tough to find a photoetched detail set for the ‘64 GTO and suitably modify those emblems too. Right now, the relatively plain body works well with the compact truck concept, so emblems are not a worry. Photoetched parts also cost money...
The CTO was completed in time for the ‘04 Western NNL—one of my goals—and the model was met with a good reception. It was photographed by both Model Cars and Scale Auto magazines, so perhaps we’ll see it in print, but there were certainly a lot of other very good models photographed there too, including Steve Hinson’s Matadeora. So now the CTO sits on my shelf, and I’m off to the next project.
Greg Plummer has been building plastic models on and off since 1973. His interests include most everything. He has been a member of SVSM since 1998.
