The initial blocks of Jelutong wood cut out on the bandsaw & ready to be carved, Here I have already begun to shape the nose which is somewhat reminiscent of Thunderbird 2.

Here I am holding the main sections of Firefly together. I turned the turret on the back, which actually has 3 barrels sticking out of it which I'd never noticed before! At this point I have finished the turret off to its final yellow colour. Also for all those who have scratched their brains to work out what that strange girder is that sits atop the Firefly......It's the chassis of the AMT "Prestige Silhouette" 1/24th scale car kit! The kit actually appears made up as a Police car in the episode "Terror in New York City" Indeed, other parts of this car kit appear on many other International Rescue vehicles, particularly the chrome parts.

A close-up view of the unmasked cabin area. This shot also shows the fitted Dozer blade. This was made from 2 pieces of ABS two mm Plastic welded together with a clear piece of thin plastic sandwiched between the layers where the window is. The frame round the window on the blade is 20 thou Plastikard and the 2 domes on the front of the blade, where the top lifting brackets attach, are made from the tops of 2 real aluminium rivets glued on with Araldite. You can also see how I have "sculpted" a special cowling out of P38 Isopon for where the top bracket attaches to the body. These are almost identical to the lighting brackets on Thunderbird 4. These in turn had holes drilled through them to take the outer lower dozer blade arm. Also visible is another hubcap added as detail and the gun extended to poke through the hole in the blade.

A close-up of the kit parts added to the rear of the "Firefly", including the inevitable small "Airfix" Girder Bridge parts either side of the round tanks. This photo also shows the scratch built aerial attachment I made for the rear port corner. The circular plate, which I was unable to identify, was cut from a piece of 40 thou Plastikard & is just visible under the 3 rear-facing gun barrels, which I made from 1/8th inch brass tubing. The two "mushroom-like" pieces just behind the cab were scratchbuilt also as I could not identify these either. The chassis from the "AMT" "Prestige Silhouette" kit is attached with one simple screw into the wooden turret's front rim, with the little "pips" on it picked out in red as on the original model. All 3 aerials were made from piano wire & just pushed into the wooden body. However, the corner aerial was superglued into a pre-drilled hole in the aerial fairing I had to make specially

The main pieces of the Firefly's body cut out in Jelutong. Note I have already drilled a mounting hole for the cannon in front of the nose. In order to obtain an accurate profile of Firefly's side mudgards, I have cut the shape out in Perspex. This can be seen lying on the front piece of wooden mudguard. I then layed this on the side of the mudguard and drew around it. The photo I took it from can be seen at the top of picture. This is a "screen-grab" blown up to the exact size of the original model.

Here the Firefly has been coated with many coats of high-build primer/filler. It has been rubbed down between every other coat to ensure no wood grain shows through until I obtain a high gloss white finish essential when using yellow as a final colour. The cut-outs for the headlights were done by slicing of the headlights at what would be their back face, hollowing them out and then re-attaching them. The cabin was also cut out and a piece of pre-moulded Perspex inserted. For this alone I had to make a special mould. The headlights are 2 hubcaps from the Monogram "Predicta" 1/24th scale car kit, another car kit used extensively for parts!

Here the top section has all its detail added and is ready to be attached to the chassis. The word "FIREFLY" is in "Grotesque 9" the style of lettering used on many THUNDERBIRD vehicles.

As with the Mole & most other International Rescue vehicles, the tracks and wheels were taken from the Toy of the "Vickers Vigor Tractor". Sadly, no one I know has ever found one of these Indeed Mike Trim (who worked on the original show) told me he thinks this is because "Century 21" bought up EVERY toy! So These had to be made from scratch and cast in resin, the track plates then joined together by threading them individually through each track plate & sticking them in exactly the correct place to fit the sprockets on the drive wheels! (My thanks to me good friend Keith Scaife for helping me with these!)

The various sections of Firefly now carved in Jelutong. I followed the many screen-grabs to get the shape correct. Initially it looks a simple shape , but in fact proved to be one of the most difficult to get right. The nose section, in particular, has such a distinct shape. And the sides of the mudguards (or perhaps I should call them track-guards) have a flat on them where the word "FIREFLY" is written.

Due to the loss of a film by a well known high street chemist ("we can offer you a free film sir") -I can never work out how this is supposed to make up for 24 lost and irreplaceable photos! I am unable to show you the next few photos showing the construction stages leading up to what is now photo 6. You'll have to use your imagination I'm afraid, but here Firefly now has its final coat of "Daytona Yellow" on, plus its masked up "VW Mars Red" stripes applied. I have also built the Dozer blade support arms out of brass & aluminium tubing and added the 2 hooters from the 1/24th scale AMT Firetruck (yet another much raided kit!) to the top of the cabin. Originally these were from Rip-Max "Supermarine" model ships fittings, but these are no longer available.

Other views showing:- the black boxes either side near the back of the cab atop the trackguards are the 2 engine halves from the AMT "Prestige". Behind these are 2 engine parts from the 1/24th AMT Firetruck (although with these particular parts I cannot be certain they are accurate). Other parts are really rather strange:The 4 white pieces around the turret are lifeboats (really! You take a good look at the original model) from the QE 2 Airfix kit! The back top section is the radiator grill from the "Prestige" car, the two boxes on the back edge are scratchbuilt, as I believe they were on the original. The 6 silver "barrels" are from the "Faller" Refinery kit, with the proverbial "Airfix Girder Bridge" struts stuck either side of these! And all the chrome parts are either from the AMT Prestige or Monogram Predicta car kits. The Aerial mount on the port side corner is scratchbuilt, with the actual aerials made from piano wire.

Finally mounted on its chassis, the Firefly sits finished on the workbench. The final piece of detailing added: A leaning vertical grill on the side of the front cabin made from a set of railings from the "Airfix" Trackside Accessories kit of the ticket booth!