MOC: UK Police Ford Focus

[Ralph_S]

I've had models of Police cars from the US, Germany and the Netherlands for a while, but until now the only British Police cars I had were minifig scale. Now that has changed :-)

UK Police Ford Focus (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

British police seem to favor five-door hatchbacks as their patrol cars. The Vauxhall Astra is common (known as the Saturn Astra in the US and the Opel Astra in much of Europe), but the Ford Focus, which has been Britain's best selling car for years, is also a popular choice as a patrol car.

UK Police Ford Focus (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

My model represents the second iteration of the Focus, produced from 2004 to 2008. The Policeman wears the traditional `Bobby hat', although in real life a constable driving a patrol car would be more likely to wear a cap. He also wears a typical high-visibility jacket, complete with `Battenburg' markings.

UK Police Ford Focus (3) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

As usual on my larger scale car models, everything opens. For the rear hatch this was a bit tricky, as the bottom is seven studs wide and the top is six. It slides aft a bit (with the hinge moving in the roof) before it hinges up.

UK Police Ford Focus (7) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

I struggled with this one. I started it more than a week ago, making very little progress for several days. Yesterday it was finally more-or-less complete, but I didn't like it much. I came very close to giving up and taking it apart. However, after a good night's sleep, I had another look at it this morning and realised that a few minor relatively minor tweaks. It's a problem with these modern cars. You can mess up a lot of stuff on, say, a '57 Cadillac Eldorado, but it'll still look like an Eldorado. Mess up on some of the shapes and details on a modern car and it'll look like nothing in particular.

I'm glad I didn't wreck it. I think the end result is a nice addition to my fleet of Police cars. I hope you'll agree.

Cheers,

Ralph

[timslegos]

nice car! it is very impressive that you have managed to make such nice curves with studs!

tim

[Rocketbilly]

Great details here, and the livery is spot on. Nice work. As already stated before, the curves are very good too and really help capture the vehicle. I was expecting to see some lime green and orange, though, but a quick Google search proves that your choice of colour seems accurate.

Edited November 27, 2011 by Rocketbilly

[Ralph_S]

nice car! it is very impressive that you have managed to make such nice curves with studs!

tim

Thanks. In the olden days we all used to do it like this

Great details here, and the livery is spot on. Nice work. As already stated before, the curves are very good too and really help capture the vehicle. I was expecting to see some lime green and orange, though, but a quick Google search proves that your choice of colour seems accurate.

Thank you. I did consider using orange for the chevron markings in the back, as they do appear to be orange on some cars. There are plenty of them, however, where it looks more red. Perhaps it depends on the light. I looked at using lime green instead of yellow, but the colour on the real car does look more yellow than green to me. I have a minifig scale NHS Ambulance with lime green and regular green Battenburg markings and am thinking of building a larger version of that as well and will probably use lime green too.

Cheers,

Ralph