It's hard to explain how this started, or how much fun it was. But . . . after converting a lot of diecast cars to 'Streets, I had a dozen++ discarded plastic Bachman sedan bodies left over. I decided to bash them into coupes, convertibles, etc., to create an entire line of cars, as if from the company that produced that sedan.
So, I made up the "Bock-Mann" Motor Car company. The rules I imposed on myself were: a) every car had to start with and use as much of the original sedan body as possible,b) it had to fit on the WBB chassis - but since that is adjustable over a 20 mm range in 4 mm increments, that gave a lot of flexibility. I decided to have fun by making up an entire story line, so here they are (photos below if you want to skip the story).
The Bachmann E-Z Street sedan is actually a 1:48 scale model of a 1956 Supreme sedan manufactured by Bock-Mann Motors. Founded in 1926 by half-brothers, Bock-Mann made it through the depression and up to 1941 on the merits of its torquey and virtually silent low-RPM sleeve-valve V8. War-time production boards considered that engine an unsuitably old design, so during the WWII the company was asked to manufacture a lightweight OHV six cylinder engine for amphibious personnel carriers instead.
After WWII, Bock-Mann went to market with civilian version of that straight six engine and failed to update their now obsolete V8. By the mid 1950s, as Ford and Chevy and others set market expectations with new OHV V8s, Bock-Mann’s sales were slumping badly. Leland Iacola, the young executive in charge of Bock-Mann’s R&D, bolted two of the company’s six cylinder engines side by side in a slight “vee configuration” so they looked like a V12. Thus was born the Bock-Man Double-Six, which the company never actually advertised as a single engine, despite lawsuits later on that claimed they had. The Double Six briefly increased sales but the complexity of the arrangement, which was to haunt Matra with its Bagheeras two decades later, increased production and warranty problems. The company ceased production in 1968.
Here is the Bachman sedan, this one is stock, unaltered.
And now, the rest of the Bock-Mann 1956 Lineup . . . .
