Built by: Paul Burke in Cotati, California

Having been out of the loop for the past few months, working on a new CD with my band, I haven't had a lot of time for modeling. Checking in from time to time I would try and keep up on what's happening. With all the hoopla over the real Bath Tub on Ebay in the news, I figured this would be way back into the hobby. An Eldon !!!! Need I say more. My take on these kits is, the designers at Eldon would go out to the parking lot, walk around the car once and look at it, then go back into the drafting room and draw up the plans by sheer memory. That has to be it, because they're so off the mark it's not funny.

Simple stuff: The blower pullies on the real car sit on the outside of the blowers. Eldon, the inside. The blower caps are way out of scale. The tubs are to far apart and never had padding down the sides, the head rest suck and so on and so on. If you look on the box of the Doyusha version, the front axle is on upside down in the pictures of the model. What kind of crap is that?

With a Dremil, some glue , yellow pearl and flat light green paint and flocking, this was finished in a day and a half. I ground the frame down so the tubs would fit properly, redid the blowers, adding caps from a couple of old funny cars. They're not correct, but the scale is right. I I added pulleys and made the belt from tape. I cut the exhaust hangers and made my own so the pipes hang correctly. The ignition wires and Cragers are after market.

Other than that, it's pretty much out of the box. Oh, one other thing. The gold plating isn't plate after all. It's been sprayed on, and loves to come off on your fingers. Just a warning to all you future builders of this heap. All in all, this is not one peoples favorite show rods, but it does have a place in the history of the hobby. The older I get, the more I see the value of the design of car like this, especially when traveling on long trips.