The Light at the End of the Tunnel

By Bob Mintz

Is this a possible Lionel archive “find” that has been recently unearthed?

Before you start rifling through your Greenberg or Tom McComas guides, the answer is…DOUBTFUL!

In May of 1996 I purchased an Eastwood product # 303500, a 1955 Chevy Delivery Van, with an original cost of $24.95 and a later final clearance sale of $19.99. I have since seen this item at local train shows, and even York recently.

It has been sitting on my desk at work ever since, and I couldn’t help but notice how similar the body was to the # 68 Executive Inspection Car. As it turns out, they are almost identical, except the Eastwood car is die-cast. I purchased a “chassis only” of the Postwar #68 for around $125, but with the Lionel LLC remake of the #68 type motorized units #18447 Executive Inspection Car; #18454 #68 Inspection Car Archive Collection and #18463 Hot Rod Inspection Vehicle, the chassis may be readily available from Lionel directly for much less.

With a few modifications and a Dremel tool with cutting and drill bit attachments, you too can own the mysterious “lost” Postwar motorized unit. As you can see, it is quite handsome, and is in the traditional Lionel colors: orange, blue and crème.

The first thing that you must do is unscrew the front and end screws shown in the arrows. You will most likely find that the front and rear bumpers will also fall off, as well as the right and left doors, bench seat, steering wheel and dashboard. This is normal; so don’t panic, just yet at least.

At least the windshield will remain intact, but you may want to remove it temporarily so that it doesn’t get scratched during our modifications.

When the unit is completed, you can later glue on the bumpers, if you so desire. Hopefully, the rear license plate will not interfere with the hole that you must drill to hold the chassis in place. You may even use the screw to hold the rear bumper in place.

You must permanently remove the front grill, for the opening will act as a support for the tongue of the motorized unit.

As you will see in the “before” and “after” photos, you need to cut off the front and rear screw posts located at the front and rear of the shell. Remove the roof by unscrewing the four screws holding it together.

You must now cut off the upper post as shown, as well as the entire roof brace separating the passenger and storage compartments.

Once everything is aligned, you will need to drill, as previously mentioned, a hole to hold the motorized chassis to the shell. I used a small piece of black electrical tape to cover the rear windshield, just to darken the slit that was previously used as the bank deposit door, but this is optional.

Be extremely careful of the nut of the chassis, it can readily scratch the front windshield. I glued the bumpers back on, but if you so desire, you can really enhance this motorized unit by drilling holes to expose the rear lights as the Postwar chassis comes with a bulb.

The only downfall of this car is that the arm for the “E” unit cannot be easily changed. The finished product will be tight, but if you play around with cutting the brackets in the right places, you will have a wonderful working delivery van. As it turns out, this modified version runs smoother than the original. This is perhaps because of the additional weight caused by the die-cast shell.