James Bond 1967 Toyota 2000GT This is the 6th model in my collection of James Bond vehicles. The car appeared in the 1967 film “You Only Live Twice”, starring Sean Connery. The movie had James Bond team up with the Japanese secret service to help thwart Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and SPECTRE, who were capturing various spacecraft in orbit. The featured car in the movie was a Toyota 2000GT, a rear wheel drive two seater hardtop sports car that had just been released. However, the movie makers discovered that there was no way Sean Connery (at 6 foot 4 inches) could fit into the car. The solution was to cut the top off and turn it into a convertible. I don’t recall that James Bond every actually drove this car, he was always in the passenger seat. There have been various model kit versions of this car over the years:
I started with the ARII version of the car which, in retrospect, was not the best choice. The model has almost no chassis detail and some of the parts were not accurate for the version that I wanted to build (e.g. the wheels were the cast version and not the wire wheels of the movie car). However, with some work the result was a passable replica of the movie car. - This model is the 6th in my collection of James Bond vehicles. It depicts the ToAston Martin DB5 that first appeared in the 'Goldfinger' and 'Thunderball' movies, with Sean Connery. An Aston Martin DB5 then made a number of cameo appearances, mostly in the first two Daniel Craig films and one was finally destroyed in the 2011 film 'Skyfall'. This is from a Japanese manufacturer, Doyusha and it is a simplified curbside model that has a number of inaccuracies. On the plus side, it comes with many of the features of the movie car - rotating license plates, weapons console, dasboard mounted radar screen and tire slashers. Base Kit(s): ARII Toyota 2000 GT (kit number 11151-1500) Finished: March 2014 Modifications/Additions: - chopped off roof and scratchbuilt rear deck and convertible bolster - opened glove box and scratchbuilt ‘gadgets’ - scratchbuilt communication parts behind the rear seats - flocked floor - tires from the kit were put on Hobby Design Ferrari 250 TR photoetch/machined wheels - MV lights used for side lights on rear - dashboard was painted Tamiya light tan, streaked with red brown and followed by clear orange - body paint is Tamiya Pure White straight from the canbuilt pretty much out of the box - custom printed license plates Click on Thumbnail to see detailed image. These images are 1024 x 768 and maybe a bit slow to load, depending on your connection speed. Building the rear deck of styrene and scribing with Dymo label tape. You can also see the trim around the bolster, which is made from Evergreen 1 mm (0.040") half round strip, bent into a curve and CA glued to the deck. Oftentimes, if you use the solvent glue on a bent piece of styrene, it will often break in pieces. |