Project 1:43 first-generation Chevrolet S-10 pickup

Every once in a while i'll have enough time and get into a creative mood by restoring some worn-out castings.  Now a majority of the time recently i've been adding missing details to models with a collection of Sharpie colors so I tend to be on the simple side.  On the other hand there are times when a casting is so bad that it needs a complete makeover.  What I try to do is to retain much of the casting as possible without drilling out the rivets, if necessary, and my days of trying to make a custom vehicle is long gone as I realized I lacked the skills to carry out a professional custom job.

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For this project I found this play-worn Chevrolet S-10 pickup long-bed 2WD from the 1980's at a flea market visit for $1.  The paint was typical silver with some confetti graphics along the sides.  The tailgate was missing, or wasn't?  The jury is still out on that as I've seen pictures of some models without the tailgate, or maybe it was a plastic piece that came off.  Anyways a tailgate was gonna have to be added.  The working suspension collapsed sending the truck to a lowrider position where it was not able to roll on its own.  There was no clear markings but undoubtfully it was a first-generation S-10 pickup.  Now there was another compact pickup truck alongside it as well, but poor detail markings left questions on what this truck was based upon: a Nissan pickup? A Mazda pickup?  Not sure, so I left it behind.

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Now I had to get to the suspension so I had to drill out the rivets to access the inner chassis.  There I found the plastic piece that retains the front and rear axles has broken off its plastic base support.  I remedied it with a sturdier metal piece that was glued into place and held on by the interior trim.  Speaking of interior the bench seat and dashboard design is S-10-era correct, so I added a shifter for the 5-speed manual transmission.  The wheels could've been replaced, but instead I reused the wheels and painted the wheels silver.  The base has the added exhaust system and to match the chrome front grille to the front and rear bumpers the entire base was painted silver.  The grille was painted silver as well since the chrome was starting to fade.  The tailgate was created with a piece of metal (from a flat metal hinge of some sort), bended to an inner-arc shape consistent of the real truck, and originally hinged to the lower paper clip bar to make the tailgate open, but some conflictions with the base and the recess in the metal body would not allow the tailgate to open so it was later glued onto the back of the truck.

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Then it was paint time using the same blue paint used in the Hot Wheels Redline Custom Barracuda restoration project from a few years ago.  Finally as the paint dried it was time to assemble and add the trim details to make this look more like an S-10 pickup.  That include front signal lights, blue bowtie logo, black trim around the vehicle, handles, S-10 badges, taillights, and Chevrolet across the tailgate.  It was simple, but not easy and not the most professional job but at least this S-10 from an unknown diecast manufacturer looks better than before!

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