David Johnson says he grew up watching the Hamm's Beer Bear during commercial breaks for the Minnesota Twins baseball games. He naturally wanted this truck when released by Classic Metal Works years ago and finally was able to acquire one. Decals for the beer goblets were made from a color photo of a truck in the Fred Gruin collection on Hank's truck pictures website and were sized to fit over the pad printed graphic. David says he just had to have the Bear and made a decal from an image found on the internet. The Hamm's Bear was introduced in 1953 and was a first ad campaign using an animated character.

Many changes were made to the model truck's frame to improve appearance. The cab and box were lowered on the chassis, the large front bumper was filed down leaving only the center section, and the under cab fuel tanks were removed and replaced with fuel tanks, and a cab running board from a Life-Like dump truck. Other vehicles in the photo above are a Studebaker resin casting by Cutter's (Photo Galleries 556 & 558), a Dodge casting by Superba (Photo Galleries 287 & 374), and a '55 Chevy from Classic Metal Works.

All photos were shot outdoors on a simple diorama set up. The rail car photo is inspired by a similar photo of a Ford Hamm's delivery truck found on Google Images. The boxcar is an old Varney printed card stock and wood kit, extensively rebuilt from a swap meet basket case.

Posted July 5, 2015