HCM V8 Hot Rod

Last winter I found a picture of the Marmon HCM V12. In my opinion it looks rather bland and isn’t really well proportioned. But you can hot rod everything, can’t you? 😉

I created a new picture with all the body parts on several layers. After finding some wheels that would fit the style I was looking for, I decided on the wheelbase. It is slightly longer compared to the original car and looks even longer, because I pushed the wheels out to the corners of the vehicle. Substantial lowering just had to be done for a proper stance. The roof was also chopped a little bit. I tried to keep the simple lines of the original body and just enhanced them. The color is the same as the donor cars’. I think the color is rather unique for a Hot Rod. And as always: some may like it, some may hate it. It’s just a matter of taste…

Marmon HCM V8 Hot Rod | photoshop chop © Sebastian Motsch (2012)

Below you’ll see some snapshots from the transformation into the Hot Rod pictured above.

Marmon HCM V12 | reference picture

This is what I started with – a blank canvas with a set of big’n’little steel wheels.

I had a rough idea what I want it to look like in the end. I started with dissecting the body into several layers. Then I removed the fenders from the body for that old school Hot Rod look. After that was done, I placed the body near the rear axle in the approximate position I imagined. After several tries I was satisfied with the result.

The door had to be altered. This was fairly easy to do with a simple design of the Marmon.

With the door finished I could start to layout the rest of the car. This is important to achieve the correct stance.

Now I placed the leaf springs, steering linkage and axle links.

With the basic layout set, I decided to convert the V12 to a more modern V8. Mainly due to the fact that I didn’t find an exhaust that could be modified to look like a V12 convincingly.

With the engine in the correct position, I concentrated on the cycle fenders. No paint here, just bare metal.

The hood was actually fitted earlier, I just omitted it in the snapshots for better understanding of the placement of all the components.

That’s it – done. A Hot Rod that nobody would dare to build in real life.