One of the fun things about EBay is the chance of picking up a great deal, something that you see and nobody has bid on that you think could be perfect for a job in hand. For me this happened last week when I spotted a rather sad looking Daimler Scout Car on there for just 99p. The description was vague, the photo looked like the model had been run over by a lorry, but for 99p I was ready to take a chance, a sort of Christmas present to myself. So I bid the grand total of £1 and a few days later my phone went BEEP to tell me I was now the proud owner of a piece of junk.
I finished the Christmas Special early this morning and into that strange vacuum that exists when a large project is completed cam Postman Pat with a small parcel. It was the Daimler. With shaking hands I opened the wrapping and grasped my scale rule. At 1:50 it was a perfect match for my other Corgi die-cast vehicles. I pulled out a random 28mm figures and was slightly disappointed that the match was not great. But that simply made my mind up that this baby was heading for the desert where my Perry Miniatures toys are that tiny bit smaller than my late war toys.
The paint had come away in many places, so I used fine grade domestic sand paper to take off the worst edges. In an ideal world I’d have had it sand-blasted and stripped back to the bare metal, but this is a wargaming toy, not a submission to the Model Engineer Show, so a quick rub down would have to do.
My first job was to drill a hole for the Bren gun. Whilst I could just leave it unarmed I like to idea of adding a weapon. It was, frankly, a poxy job. Mind you, if you get to the point where drilling through metal with a pin vice is easy then its time to put on tights and a cape and go out and fight crime, so this was just a laborious five minutes of effort before the hole was made.
Next I too a Bren from my spares box. This is one of the metal ones from Perry Miniatures which came with my carrier troop. I cut the Bren in half and filed one end to fit into the drilled hole. The rear half I set aside and sought out a suitable gunner.
This chap was lounging about, another Perry Miniature figures so the perfect scale fit. I glued the Bren to him so that when stood up in the car he would be leaning on the weapon just before the magazine. Now I was looking for a driver. The answer came in the shape of a kneeling chap in the Perry Miniatures plastic 8th Army set.
This was VERY handy as the plastic allowed me to carve out some bits where the die-cast model had a few odd structural bits which I had to work around.
I added a tin helmet and some arms and in went the driver.

As you can see I added some bric-a-brac. Warlord Games tank clutter provided the biggest bit on the back, with a Perry Miniatures spade, helmet and knapsack adding a bit of a “lived in” look.

Now I finally added the Bren gunner and gunned in a fair bit of superglue to hold everything in place. Tomorrow I plan to add some straps with green stuff, then undercoat and get started on the painting. More snaps to follow as we progress.

I have a few exciting projects for the Christmas Hols, so watch this space for regular updates over the festive period.