After modelling the Ontario Street fire hall, and dabbling in early Regional Emergency Services ambulances (referred to colloquially as "Regional"), I repainted one fire truck I already had, and found another through an online auction to inhabit the firehouse.
This led to the challenge of modelling a late-60's-early-70's ambulance. I had bought a Hot Wheels 55th anniversary van for my grandsons. It nominally represents a 1994 Dodge van, but it's the closest thing I had to represent what I wanted to represent. Oh, those orange tinted windows and sunroof! Plus the fact that it's nominally 1:64 scale, instead of the 1:87 of HO scale.
The Hot Wheels Old Number 5 firetruck was a popular model, nominally representing a 1920s Ahrens Fox. The one I successfully bid for had obviously been previously-enjoyed!
The firetruck was first. The main structural issues were replacing those mag racing tires with more narrow ones, and pulling together the side-ladders with thin wire. The rest was mostly repainting of the red finish, detail painting, plus adding old-timey licence plates (not pictured).
The ambulance also had a wheel replacement, painting over of the sun-roof solid white and windows. watered-down black hobby paint. Hand-painting the blue stripe, adding printed 'AMBULANCE' fore and aft, and drilling small holes into the sunroof to add flashing lights and plopping on a rooftop 'cherry' flashing light. I shied away from adding the small lettering on the blue door stripe and/or the early provincial crest. Also, licence plates and detail painting.
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