Model Car Garage - The 1926 Citroen B14 Normande by Heller - A Model Car Unboxing and Building Essay
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- Опубликовано: 15 фев 2024
- Our story begins in France at the 1926 Paris Auto Show.
French industrialist and automotive pioneer Andre Citroen presented his company's all new B14 line of automobiles in a display alongside Peugeot and Ford.
Andre strived to make his cars state of the art and the latest creation was a testimony to his accomplishments.
The car proved to be successful with 128 000 units sold in it's 3 year model run.
It is interesting to see how popular the car was and still is. Throughout the 1920's and 1930's, artist Sonia Delaunay created paintings, textiles, clothing and even painted various automobiles based on her modern art style which included geometric shapes and patterns. These cars had either images of her circle style images or her recurring four quadrant patterns which matched her line of clothing. Many of these cars now reside in museums across France.
The car appeared in famous cartoon strips like TinTin by Herge as seen in the 1950 book "Land of Black Gold" and driven by Thomson and Thompson where the car was filled with an unstable mixture of gasoline and formula 14 resulting in an engine explosion.
In 1985 Heller of France released a 1/24th scale plastic multi-piece construction assembly kit of the 1926 Citroen B14 Normande which is the subject for this video.
The Heller 1926 Citroen B14 Normande includes 5 plastic parts trees the first one being molded in white plastic, the second in grey, the third in clear, the fourth in chrome and the fifth includes the rubber tires. Some of the parts on the parts trees are molded in a way which is unusual compared to the way in which model kits are molded in America.
For example, the hood of the Heller Citroen B14 is molded with the sides half way unfolded and the cowl of the body molded as a separate piece. An American model kit would have the hood molded with the sides fully down and the cowl attached to the body. Some of these parts were a bit of a challenge to assemble, but this video shows how I handled those issues.
Since I could not find enough mechanical information on this year of Citroen on the internet, I did find similar information through my Uncle's 1926 Dyke's Automobile and Gasoline Engine Encyclopedia. Although the book contains mechanical information covering American cars, it does show similar parts and concepts used in the European cars. I have included images from the book to explain what the plastic parts represent and a basic understanding of how they work.
Along with my exposition of the model kit instructions and parts tree investigation, I also build and paint the model kit and provide my solution to some of the fit and finish issues as well as my solutions to some of the more complex issues of the 1926 Citroen B14 Normande model kit by Heller. For glues, I use only Testor's tube glue and some Crazy Glue in the load bearing areas, such as in the cowl to door assembly.
To paint my model kit, I used various enamel and acrylic paints from Testor's, Tremclad, Humbrol and Citadel. All of these paints were applied using a brush and no part of the kit was painted with sprays or an air brush.
For the body, I have replicated a paint job in the style of Sonia Delaunay using Tremclad gloss black, Testor's yellow, green, orange and a vintage bottle of Testor's pink which hasn't been in production since the 1990's. I do believe my bottle of Testor's pink is from the 1980's and I was surprised that it still stirred up and dried as if it was a brand new bottle. That is a true testimony to the longevity of Testor's enamel paints if they are properly stored and cared for.
Masking the body for painting was rather easy once I analyzed the Sonia Delaunay pattern and layout. Basically, the vertical surfaces of the car were used as a starting point for the pattern. Sonia measured the height of the car from the fenders to the body line and then divided that distance by three to get the height of each pattern region. For the length of these regions, Sonia measured the distance from the cowl to the front of the door and used that measurement as a guide for the size of her rectangles. The rectangles were then divided into quadrants and each quadrant was assigned a color different from the other quadrants. This patter was repeated for each pattern area of the car. The solid color regions of the car were the original color of the car she was painting. The pattern was laid out with one region directly on top of the other instead of overlapping like bricks. Once I understood this layout, masking the body with masking tape was easy. I show you how this is done in this video.
Overall, I found that the Heller 1926 Citroen B14 Normande went together nicely and was a fun build with a fair amount of building and painting challenges. The only issue I had with my particular model that I could not solve was that one of the wheels for the kit was missing so I couldn't use my fender mounted spare.
I hope you enjoy this video. #citroen #legendarymodels 
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Very cool paint job, these old cars make nice models😎👍🏻
Yes they do. Glad you liked the video!
I have one of the other versions, the paint scheme is awesome and an inspiration for my build. Puts me in mind of WWI air craft camo. Well done.
For sure. Camo in WW1 on aircraft, guns and tanks is so unusual and unique, it's an art form in itself!
Awesome kit. Very impressed with the paint job considering being had brushed. 👍
Thank you so much and thank you for watching to the end.
Love the build Trevor and the paint scheme is very cool ❤😊
Thank you so much. Hope you enjoyed the history as well.
Took your suggestion to watch this video. Very nice. I like all the added history that you added. I sometimes do it as well but not as in depth. Amazed at how smooth that black Tremclad paint dried up. My goal when I restarted the hobby was to take advantage of airbrush painting that I could not as a kid but it's nice to see that brush painting can work as well.
Glad you watched the video. Yes, that Tremclad in a can paint really comes up glassy smooth. It's amazing how it settles out. I have a future video coming up of the Revell / Atlantis 1/32 1956 Cadillac Eldorado and I was going to spray it gloss black, but after the Citroen build, I decided to brush it and it really looks slick. Just waiting on paint to dry so I can chrome it, glue in the interior and finish it off.
Look for the video coming soon!
Really nice work Trevor, that is an impressive paint job, hand painted, looks fantastic!!!
Thank you so much 😀
I am working on a 1/32 scale build, but I started before this year's Group Build. It was for a video I planned to release a while ago, but didn't get to finish it due to issues with spray painting. But now that I had good success with brush painting, I have painted the hood and body with a brush and finishing off that video too. - Look for it coming up...next.
Appreciate these in-depth build vids!
Thank you so much. It was new for me. Maybe I'll make more like this going forward.
Nice history intro and impressive build. Paint looks sprayed not brushed since I don't see any brush marks. Very nice paint results.
Thanks 👍
I inherited a bunch of paints from my Dad when he passed away in 2019 and the car is a mixture of my newer Testor's and some of his vintage Testor's that they don't make any more. I was amazed that the vintage paint was as fresh as when it was new AND that it dried just as well. The pink color was separated in the bottle, some on the top and some on the bottom with thinner in-between. A little mixing and shaking and it came out perfectly.
Nice video ... 👍... good tips and information
Thank you so much. I am going for a new video/story telling aspect to my builds. Hope you were also entertained and educated by the side mini-movies included. (And some suspense for the final build).
Outstanding build Trevor! I really enjoy the historical significance of these model builds! I really enjoyed learning the history behind this exact car and you replicated that checkered paint scheme very well Sir! That wood in the back came out nicely and very realistic! This one is definitely on my list 😊
Glad you enjoyed it. I was thinking that it could be possible to make this into a hot rod using a lot of spare AMT engines and wheel combinations from the old 3-in-1 kits from the 1960's (and their subsequent reissues). I'll bet that even the MPC/AMT 1929 Ford Woodie hot rod parts would work out well. A Desoto Fire Dome would look cool under the hood.
@@MonsterHobbiesModelCarGarage You know, that does sound like it would look good under the hood!
@@johngligo4049 For sure!
Great video,Trevor. Very nice looking model. I liked your wood graining and fantastic paint scheme👍😎. French hillbillies on acid mon ami 👍😎
Thank you Pete. Imagine this with a 1952 Desoto Fire Dome under the hood, with the hood sides removed.
@@MonsterHobbiesModelCarGarage car hauler ramp truck with v8👍😎
Could also get one and use the body parts on the Beverly Hills Oldsmobile...perhaps.
Any Model A 🤔🤞
Too long for Fords. - My friend saw my video and asked how much the kit is. It's $52.00 American which is $71.00 Canadian! - I got mine at wholesale through my supplier for less.