1:24 VW T2 Pick-Up (TransKIT)

A bed instead of a load compartment

The pickup version of the commercial Volkswagen of the second generation was a working machine in the proper sense of the word – a low dropside bed, the cab moved forward and a tool locker underneath it. While the van is sold today as a stylish icon, the pickup stayed what it was: a machine that carried sacks, crates and building materials.

The most rewarding subject for a diorama

It is exactly this body that opens the door to scenes you will not build with a passenger car. The bed can be loaded – crates of fruit at a market, barrels outside a pub, boards and buckets on a building site, surfboards and blankets by the coast. The load at the same time solves the age-old problem of dioramas: it gives the viewer a reason why the vehicle is standing exactly where it stands. A tarpaulin draped over the bed or a few crates stacked beside the wheels turn a static model into a moment.

Combinations that work

Figures in working clothes, pallets, crates and small machinery all work well around a pickup. Weathered paint, dust on the fenders and rusty traces around the catches of the bed move the whole thing toward reality far more than a perfectly polished surface.

Before building

The resin castings are washed, freed of lugs and tried dry against the parts of the kit. The load floor deserves attention of its own: the wood texture stands out when a thin coat of thinned dark paint is drawn over the base shade and left to settle into the grooves. Knocked edges and worn places at the catches then give the bed its age. A working machine is meant to look used, otherwise nobody will believe the scene.