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Question of the Week
R&D: GreenLight's Road to the Perfect 1:64-Scale Model QUESTION: "I'm so glad your organization has taken the time and research to accurately build replicas in 1:64 scale. The end result is we don't have Ford Pintos bigger than Chevrolet Impalas. My question is how much time and research were needed to accurately build your models to 1:64 scale? Keep up the good work. I look forward to the next release." Jose ANSWER: Hello Jose, Thanks so much for the compliments on GreenLight's efforts to stay true to 1:64 scale. It's something we feel strongly about.
The simple part is making the numeric conversion from full-size automobile to 1:64-scale model. You take any given dimension in inches (length, width, height, wheelbase, etc.) and divide by 64. For example, a car that's 210 inches long, like the 1965 Ford Galaxie, becomes 3.28 inches in 1:64-scale. We use the metric system with the factory, so--through a complex and highly secret formula--we convert the 3.28 inches to 83.3 millimeters. And we do this for every major dimension. Remember, this is the easy part.
The hair-pulling, keyboard-pounding job is finding accurate dimensions to begin with. If you have a real car, that helps. Although, have you ever tried to measure the width of a real car at its widest point? First you have to FIND its widest point. You get my point?
Old car-brochures are tremendously helpful, but even they contain errors. We like to confirm all major dimensions with at least three sources. Books, brochures, the manufacturer, websites, experts (often collectors of the real car), and actual vehicles are our most common resources. For new cars, the manufacturers provide CAD data, which helps tremendously. It takes several weeks to pull the basic data together and write it up in a form that our mockup makers will understand. I try to get all of the facts included and correct in that first document, but have found that I usually miss a detail or two.
Along the way, I discover features I overlooked earlier. For example, I learned recently that the 1966 Ford Galaxie 500XL doesn't have the same kind of front-fender emblem as the lower-level Galaxie 500. On my first test-shot, I had the 500XL trim on the trunk, and the regular 500 emblem on the front fender. Oops! Get out the grinder.
The longer you work on any car, the more you learn about it. You start to see what the original designers had in mind when they created the car, and when they made changes from one model year to the next.
The entire process, from research and development to test shots and production models, generally takes from eight to 12 months. You can read more about it here. Thanks again for your question!
To view the previous MacTalk topics, click below: Playing with Numbers: How GreenLight Serializes Green Machine Cars How to Become a GreenLight Model |
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