DEENFR

Truck models

Krupp Titan SWL 80

Developing Revell's Krupp Titan SWL 80 vintage truck, from the chassis in Oberhausen to the tooling in Hong Kong.

After the Büssing 8000 was so well received by model builders, it was of course an absolute must to develop the next truck oldie, and that became the Krupp Titan SWL 80. Flatbed, tarpaulin, body and the tyres with the Trilex rims were not made new; these parts are identical to those of the Büssing. Here, too, the management decided on this truck, unlike me: I had proposed a Mercedes or a MAN instead.

As far as data, pictures and drawings for the tooling were concerned, this model was much easier, as I had received documents from Krupp in Essen. Unfortunately there were no dimensioned drawings of the engine, only illustrations from brochures. Everything that was still missing for the development I again got from Helmut Hoffmann in Oberhausen, because he had everything I needed.

As if he had known I was coming, there was a Krupp Titan chassis with its engine standing in his yard at the time. In one of his halls there was also a partly restored cab. I pressed the shutter more than 200 times and came away with everything I needed for a perfect model.

And this is what Helmut had made from the chassis I photographed at his place: a beautiful Krupp Titan SWL 80 in his house colours, red and blue.

Once the data package with photos and drawings was ready, it was off to the toolmaker, but not to Denmark and Heljan again; it went on, to Hong Kong. In the mid-1990s there was a company there that also built tools for Revell and produced sprues as well.

17 August 1998: on this day I was in Asia for the first time, more precisely at the Hong Kong office of Revell Engineering. Approval of the Krupp Titan tooling model.
17 August 1998: on this day I was in Asia for the first time, more precisely at the Hong Kong office of Revell Engineering. Approval of the Krupp Titan tooling model.
On the right the office manager Mr. Chow, and next to him Gary Chan. I travelled with him by bus to Chilong, two hours by car away, to a factory in China, Revell's toolmaking plant.
On the right the office manager Mr. Chow, and next to him Gary Chan. I travelled with him by bus to Chilong, two hours by car away, to a factory in China, Revell's toolmaking plant.

The Krupp Titan went on sale in this version at the end of 1998. Westfälischer Fernverkehr belongs to the haulage company Heinrich Vogt in Dortmund and still exists today. Revell has reissued the Titan time and again since 1998.

Revell brought out the last and therefore most recent version of the Krupp Titan in 2013, with the paintwork and lettering of the haulage company Rheinisch-Westfälisches Frachten-Kontor in Wuppertal.

By the way, since no computer back then could calculate the folds of a tarpaulin – they are shaped by the material, the temperature and the weather – I built a double-size model. The body was made of wood, onto which I applied a layer of clay and shaped it with wet fingers, so every fold is modelled by hand. Once the clay had dried, the whole tarpaulin was traced with a copy milling machine and milled into the metal. Whether Büssing, Krupp Titan or Hanomag trailer, all these models share the same tarpaulin texture.