My Dukes of Hazzard models by RetroJoe

A long long time ago, way back in the early 2000s, I made a friend named "Retro" Joe Warrick on a Dukes message board.  He was an excellent model builder.  I tried to make a Batmobile or two before, and they came out horrible.  Joe really knew what he was doing when it came to model building.  I asked him if he could make me a General Lee, and he said yes.  I then asked for a Daisy's Jeep, and he said yes.  Before we knew it, Joe was building me all seven major cars from the Dukes of Hazzard.  This was before the Rosco's Patrol car was re-released.  And he didn't even use the Dukes of Hazzard General Lee model for my General.  These cars are definitely one of the center pieces of my collection.  

For the General Lee, Joe used the Revell-Monogram '69 Charger model set.  It has a more correct look.  The wheels were the hardest thing to find.  Joe discovered that the most accurate looking wheels came from a model called the Eckler Corvette.  I had to track down a seller on eBay and I convinced him to sell me just the wheels.  Joe had a decal maker create all of the decals.  Its painted perfectly. The inside has so much detail. He hand made the push bar and roll cage.  It looks like a real General Lee.  Even has a CNH-320 plate. 

The Daisy's Jeep model released in 1981 wasn't all that accurate.  And the re-release was too new of a model year.  Joe advised me to look for the Mork and Mindy Jeep model that was released in 1979 by Monogram.  I didn't ask questions, I just bought the Jeep.   He was right and the Jeep came out spot on.  Has a FCH-630 plate on it.  

Cooter's Tow Truck is an original Dukes model Joe worked with.  It is a hard piece to track down still.  He used all of the original parts and decals.  Ol' Ben would be proud of this model.  

For Uncle Jesse's pickup we went with an AMT model called the "Star Truk."  It also wasn't that easy to track down.  Joe asked me if I wanted a clean look to the truck or dirty.  I can't remember Uncle Jesse ever having a clean truck.  Joe added a very realistic mud spray all over.  

The kit used for Boss Hogg's Caddy was a Jo-Han "Boss Man" Cadillac.  There wasn't an officially licensed Boss Hogg kit, so I am guessing Jo-Han filled the demand with this one when they released it in 1982.  I'm happy they did.  Joe crafted the horns on the hood himself.  It has the BOSS-1 plate on it.  

I was fortunate that AMT re-released the Joker Goon Car/Gotham City Patrol Car right around the time I convinced Joe to make these cars for me.  These cars were first released with the 1989 Batman movie merchandise.  It was the same base model as the original Rosco car.  At that time, 1981 Rosco models were going for insane prices.  So I was very happy to have Joe make them out of Joker cars.   They have the two different license plate that Rosco and Enos had. 

I don't have all of collection on display right now.  It just got to big for the current space.  I am working on a new place to show it off.  But I have had these cars out since the day I got them.  I look at them everyday.  They are one of my favorite parts of my collection.  I haven't heard from Retro Joe in a little while.  He hasn't been very vocal in the online Dukes communtiy.  Back then he had a few awesome webpages set up devoted to Dukes of Hazzard models.  I was very happy to find that they are still operating.  You can check out his sites here, here and here.  I saw a few other names on his site that I haven't seen online lately in the Dukes community.  I hope they are all doing well. 

Its funny that, and I didn't really notice this before, all of the other main cars in the Dukes of Hazzard are mostly white.