Making the SPV (Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle)

from TV's CAPTAIN SCARLET.

" In 1992-3 the BBC re-showed the 1960's TV series "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons" As with Thunderbirds -shown the previous year, it was decided to bring out Comics and Poster Magazines based on the show. And, as with Thunderbirds, Fleetway Publications ran into the same problem they'd had with Thunderbirds: namely, that very few decent colour photos of the vehicles from the show still existed in any film/TV archives. So it became necessary for me to build an SPV model in order to do new photographs of the vehicles in action. I decided right from the start, that as with the Thunderbird models I'd made, I would build my model the same scale as the large model used in the actual show. This meant the SPV would come out at 22" long. (approx 1/18th scale) People say to me "How do you know where to start?" To which I almost always answer "At the beginning!" Well, this model splits into 2 parts: the main body and the chassis. Firstly however, I produced a set of plans from the very reasonable "profile" shots of the SPV in one of the Japanese "guidebooks". By re-photographing these onto slide film and then shining the slide onto a piece of paper until the recognisable toy parts ( in this case from a Japanese toy) appeared their actual size, I could then trace round the photos and produce the plans the correct size. (I used this same method to produce plans for Skydiver and the Thunderbird models) I built the main body of the SPV from a series of wooden blocks as it is a fairly complicated shape. I used Jelutong -the rubber tree wood.