RODGER

JOLLY

RODGER

JOLLY

This is the Jolly Rodger, a fantasy Hot Rod reissued recently by AMT/Ertl.  No, I didn't misspell the name.  That's a play on words--RODGER, as in HOT ROD--get it?  Okay, I know it's a pretty lame pun, but that was typical of 1970, the time when this kit was first produced.

Part car, part ship...this is one of the weirdest and wildest hot rod kits I've seen.  The platform began its life as the hot rod version of the Beverly Hillbillies truck from a few years earlier.  Discarding the rear portion and grafting on the highly modified galleon ship body produced a bizarre but surprisingly pleasing design.  Unfortunately, this raised questions about the state of the original moulds and may have accounted for the inability of the company to reissue the Hillbillies truck in it's original form.

What was it about using skeletons in model kits back in the '60s and '70s?  Don't get me wrong.  Actually I like to see Mr. Bones show up like this.  So, how many car kits came with skeletal occupants?  Let's see:  Jolly Rodger, Li'l Coffin, Boothill Express, Bad Medicine, Stage Ghost, Rommel's Rod.  I'm sure there were others.

This kit was built out-of-the-box as a relaxing break from my usual modeling routine.  This proved to be a bit more of a challenge than I had first expected--partly due to my own habit of agonizing over details, and partly due to the somewhat ambiguous instructions included with the kit.  Most of the construction was straightforward.  It was mostly at the end of the project when the information about parts placement became sketchy.  The box art was of little help as it verred noticeably from the instruction sheet.  The parts in question were the cannons, anchors, lamps, sideview mirrors, horn, windshield, headlamps, front bumpers, and the rigging.  All of these things were alluded to, but without any real exactness.

Paint colors are another detail that's left up to the modeler's imagination as the instruction sheet fails to make any suggestions beyond the engine colors.  I chose to use Testor's Light Yellow for the body and Model Master Burnt Umber and British Crimson for the wood details.  Flat Black, Gold, Leather, and Silver Chrome Trim were used for the remaining parts.  The oil lamps hanging from the anchors were accented with Stoplight Red following the assumption that they represented the break lights.