No molds. No resins.  This model Bricklin was hand carved by me from a block of bass wood.  I can't tell you how many hours went into it.  But lots of hours.  I dare say well over 100 hours of looking at photos, carving, looking at more photos, carving some more, a little bit of wood filler where I made mistakes.  Until I got it just the way I wanted it!

If you know me, you might be asking, "but Tim, why wouldn't you paint it Safety Green to match your vin #1864?"  The answer would be, "because I didn't own vin #1864 yet!"  So, this wooden Bricklin is the first Bricklin I ever owned!  These first two photos are old photos from when I first completed the model back in 1982.

Since this was created in 1982, and since this model was a "one off" with no notion of ever making copies, I wasn't prepared to check out the art of photo reproductions to get a better looking label on the back of the model.  Considering I loved scale model cars and loved the Bricklin, it was good enough to me just to know I had the only model Bricklin in the world on my shelf at home! 

In 2002, I learned how to make rubber molds and work with resins.  The very first thing I wanted to do was make a mold of my wooden model Bricklin and start making copies!  Before I made the mold, I had noticed that the lines I had carved for the hood and the headlight buckets were WAY off!  So I filled them with wood putty filler, cut new lines and sanded it smooth before proceeding to make a mold of it.  So now it was going to be necessary to repaint this model!  The natural question would be, "why wouldn't I paint it Safety Green now?"  The reason that didn't happen is because as soon as I had a resin copy, I went to work on THAT and left the wooden original sitting on the shelf unfinished for a while.  So, of course, I made the first resin model Safety Green.  Then I started to restore the wooden original.  Since Safety Green was now represented in my model collection, I wanted to pick another safety color for the wooden model.  And Safety White it was!

I also gave it the elongated 'B' logos on the front fenders and the hood extension, details the model didn't have originally.

That original 'BRICKLIN' lettering that I put on the back of the prototype sure is ugly!  But I couldn't bring myself to throw it out.  So it's mounted to my work bench where I can see it anytime I want.  I don't know what happened to the original license plate I had on the back of this model.

Yes and no.  At a glance, it does look just like my 1st Series models.  Like them, it's solid with no interior to see.  Unlike them, it's much lighter.  My 1st Series models weighed about 16 ounces!  They were heavy!  This prototype, being carved from bass wood, is very light ... only about 5 ounces.  It's a stark difference to have this model in one hand and a 1st Series model in the other.  Also unlike my 1st Series models, the prototype kept the wheels I put on it back in 1982.  They're AMC rims and in fact, they're the same rims you'll find on pictures of Malcolm's prototypes before the SV-1 went into production.  So it just seems right that my prototype has the same wheels as his!