Austin 8 Tourer (Variant A) an open topped small military vehicle at 1/56 scale

The Austin 8 was a small car which was produced between 1939 and 1948.

Launched on 24 February 1939 production continued into the war until 1943. Approximately 9,000 - 9,500 of the wartime Austin models were two-seater military 8AP tourers produced for the armed services and government,

This model, as most of mine started from a speculative request from a commission client. Did I have or could I make an Austin 8 Tourer in resin. The answer was both no and yes. I have a good on-going correspondence with M Bergman (NZ) and he has very kindly permitted me to use his files to create new vehicles or distinct variants not in his massive catalogue. The basis for this model was his Austin 10.

Having created the basic open topped vehicle and added some internal detail to make the vehicle more a visual treat the client sneakily asked for a covered version and one where the rear window structure had been removed.

The results turned out better than I had expected. The models printed first time in plastic though cleaning the support material from inside needed a slow and steady hand not to knock the gear stick off. Encouraged by this I moved onto printing the models in resin. After not too many tests I managed to find the correct placement of supports to enable me to print reasonably reliably each of the variants.

This listing will provide you with the following STL files:

1. Variant A – Austin 8 Tourer with canopy down and folded. This can be used to print in plastic or for you to add your own supports to for resin printing.

2. Road Wheel – you need four.

3. Steering Wheel. This is a very small item and fiddly to insert, use tweezers. It is a separate item so that you can try to fit a driver in.

4. Supported versions of the files are provided so that you can print the model in resin.

Whilst the images of the test model print plastic were done at a 0.15mm layer height I would recommend that you set the layer to 0.1mm for a better smoothing of the curves.