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Art Deco Garage / car dealership - 1:43ish


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For some time I have been planning on building a garage diorama to house my die cast car collection, a street scene would look odd since the collection at present is as follows:

Ford Mk1 Escort Lotus Twin-cam

Mk1 Lotus cortina

RS1800 Capri

Mk1 Fiesta (my first car)

Austin Healey 3000

Austin Mini

Jaguar E-type

Triumph Spitfire

VW T2 camper (wedding car)

Series 3 Landrover

 

This mix of vehicles wouldn't look quite right on a street scene (no matter how tempting the scale scenes high street is) especially as I want to keep them all cleanish.

 

The plan was then to build a garage / sales similar to the Superquick kit, which I had an attempt at enlarging to 0 gauge, but the simplicity of the kit, which is forgiven at 00 gauge makes it look like a sketch model at 0 gauge and so it was abandoned,

 

The next plan was to use brick paper to make the superquick Bus depot kit look like a two bay garage in 0 gauge, however I'd not got started on it and given that my example is now over 10 years old since I first built it, it was probably as easy to start from scratch. Having seen the Art Deco buildings being produced for Frankland I have been inspired to have a go at an Art Deco car sales / dealership.

 

The building will be made from card, using brick paper (I presume this is within the rules) and generally everything but the vehicles on the diorama will be scratch built due to me being a tight git saving my money to spend on the layout

It will also fit on a single shelf of an IKEA Billy bookcase

 

Here's some photos for inspiration:

Not sure what the rules are about embedding images on flickr so links will have to do:

 

Art Deco garage

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ross08/4787721343/

 

So, that's all for now.

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RS1800 Capri doesn't sound right. The Capri RS was 2600 - a Cologne product - while RS1800 was the BDA-engined Mk II Escort rally car, from FAV at Aveley.

 

I wasn't arround when it was new :P You're right, although i'm sure the larger 1:16 model I had was branded RS1800 and was definately a capri...

 

either way, it's yellow and has a long black bonnet. :D

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we only had the T2 for an afternoon, i was going to rent an Austin Healey 3000 to make our exit from the wedding but wife wasn't sure her dress would fit in it, the main reason not to was working out how to get her + parents + bridesmaids to the church, along with not really wanting to just drive such a nice car through Coventry city centre and park it in an open car park...

 

so the T2 will have to be re-painted and decorated to look like the one we had for our wedding :D

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Just a little taster of what I'm thinking:

 

post-10525-0-56040400-1332084528_thumb.jpg

 

To the left of the main tower is the showroom, holding a few vehicles under cover, to the right are the service bays, the building being symmetrical as I feel this is a key part of this Art Deco style.

 

The offices above the showroom / workshops are set back slightly compared to the ground floor.

 

The diorama will hopefully have space for an outdoor section of the showroom, not sure how this is going to look however...

 

as always, comments and suggestions are appreciated.

 

Thanks for your interest and encouragement.

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You have to go to Asmara for the ultimate art deco garage. Unfortunately, it was under restoration when I was there about 10 years ago, but there are links to 2 sites....

 

http://www.maximizingprogress.org/2010/12/asmara-eritreas-beautiful-modernist.html

 

http://images.mitrasites.com/fiat-tagliero-building.html

 

... it might be a bit over the top (if you pardon the pun) for your project though.

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at the right hand side the columns are to support each side of the garage doors, but i agree the pillars should be across the whole building frontage, deep enough to support the upper floor.

 

still deciding if the tower should be square or curved, however the next stage is to lay it all out and figure out the space the building can take up without it looking cramped onto the site.

 

think the garage in Asmara might be used as inspiration for the canopy over the vehicles parked outside the showroom.

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A bit of roughing out dimensions, it's very tempting to make the left hand side larger than the right, rest assured they will both be the same size, vehicles can be squeezed into a showroom tighter than the workshops since you don't need the space to work on them.

 

post-10525-0-96737400-1332096268_thumb.jpg

 

The grey area cross the front is to represent the main road onto which the dealership faces, initially I have drawn two access roads to get to the front of the showroom / service bays with a pedestrian path bordered by grass leading from doorway to kerb but I don't think this is right for the building, it might be what such a dealership might look like now, but I don't want to do it quite so modern.

 

I might also centralise the building or make the whole thing dealership and claim that the service bays are round the back...

 

Need some more foamboard for the base so that the shelf can be re-used later in life :)

some photoshop mock ups perhaps need constructing too :)

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Well, a bit of progress digitally, only done the lower floor and tower, which might gain a clock similar to the clock garage I posted earlier.

 

the extreme left window and extreme right service bay are the same width as the others, drawn shorter to illustrate the curve.

 

post-10525-0-10100400-1332103775_thumb.jpg

 

Right, off to bed then.

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Update time!

 

The top floor of the dealership has been drafted, incorporating (hopefully) the typical art deco windows that we know and love:

 

post-10525-0-01879300-1332190456_thumb.jpg

 

Given the array of cars being mainly performance Fords it's got to be South London really, hence the Harris name on the dealership, branching out from performance tuning into sales and running a race team (how else to explain the race trim and numbers on the 'Tina and 'Scort?

 

Being used to modeling in N gauge these days (originally a 00 gauge modeler) I had assumed that cardboard (old cereal packets particularly) would be suitable for the project, however I'm starting to think that foamboard might be give better long term results, it is a material that I haven't used since 2006 when I switched degrees from Product Design to Graphic Design, but shouldn't be too hard to get used to again, other than getting some more and some scalpel blades :)

 

In the words of Porky Pig:

 

"th, th, th-that's all folks"

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York had a fine example, I hope this link works http://www.google.co...=1t:429,r:1,s:0 - See the fuel pump right in the centre doorway!

 

May be not, google Forsselius Garage in Blossom St photos and it should come up. Our railway club room is immediately to the left.

 

It is a listed building and remains, unfortunately losing some of the finer "garage" features as Premier Inn on Blossom Street North. http://www.google.co...=1t:429,r:4,s:0

 

The design has strong similarities to yours, the clock is delightful - This is the view from one of Ebor GRM windows. sorry, not promising to measure it for you!

 

I hope of some interest - I can do more photos of the roof - or even the front of the building if of interest.

 

Regards

 

Paul Bartlett

post-387-0-53915000-1332193166_thumb.jpg

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the garage appears more 50's than 30's Art Deco style, but that could be due to it being located in the north, where style perhaps caught on a bit slower and sudden change in style wasn't always taken with the same enthusiasm as the fashionable suburbs.

 

It is very useful, especially for the clock (didn't like the numerals and numbers looked wrong) Thank you very much :)

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the garage appears more 50's than 30's Art Deco style, but that could be due to it being located in the north, where style perhaps caught on a bit slower and sudden change in style wasn't always taken with the same enthusiasm as the fashionable suburbs.

 

It is very useful, especially for the clock (didn't like the numerals and numbers looked wrong) Thank you very much :)

 

I must admit on a quick Google I was surprised how difficult it was to find anything about it. I can remember visiting York in the 1970s (probably 1977) and have a clear memory of it in the original guise - it was a spectacular building with the chrome "Wolsey" etc. and the white concrete blocking. By the time I moved to York it was an extremely stylish bar - Brubakers - but the last recession took that out.

 

Also odd is that the Reel cinema (Odeon - and the sign itself is listed as well as the building) is only a few buildings away built in the 1930s I suppose also Art Deco - but is that Brutalish? It is quite different - all Brick and curves. http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=Reel+york&hl=en&safe=off&qscrl=1&nord=1&rlz=1T4ADRA_enGB391GB391&biw=1280&bih=886&tbm=isch&tbnid=UbfCM4GSALUToM:&imgrefurl=http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1882055&docid=-Np0K_2zY4ITwM&imgurl=http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/01/88/20/1882055_32395cfc.jpg&w=640&h=480&ei=u6xnT7u_OOSl0QXzqdXqCA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=426&vpy=163&dur=1935&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=131&ty=108&sig=101997044883828470542&page=1&tbnh=166&tbnw=217&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0

 

The garage is said to be 1930s, extended in c1957.

 

Paul Bartlett

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i'm not 100% convinced about the ground floor windows that butt upto the tower just yet, not sure if they need to have a pillar between them and the tower or if they need removing all together.

 

Nothing is really going to progress until the end of the week now, I won't be able to get any foam board until thursday / friday, I do need to do a mock up which cornflakes packets will be sufficient for but I've got a job interview on friday morning I need to prepare for so I don't know how much time I'll have.

 

If anything does get done I'll post some updates

 

thanks for your encouragement :)

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Need some more foamboard for the base so that the shelf can be re-used later in life :)

I'd recommend using two layers of foamboard, with spacers inbetween, in a sandwich formation. I've found that when using only one 5mm layer the base warps, but with two it's far more stable.

 

Stu

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