About 6 months from start to finish with plenty of breaks in between.
Although the kit was very motivational it was ultimately just a great jumping
off point for me to figure out how I would make each part.
Easily 120 hours I have no real count and if I don't try to figure it out that will be OK.
I would like to donate it to a museum or municipality for display.
Again as a life long / career long transportation guy I am fascinated with "how we got to here from there" in terms of the engineering of the machine.
Model making is not unlike car design: in the words of one of my favorite bosses and a great Engineer, Robert J Holdreith "the automobile is a seething mass of compromise."
Body by Fisher; body or Coach work was and still is an art. Subtle curves, complex transitions, precise door gaps, all lead the customer to seeing and believing in the quality of the overall product.
The Coach builders that came together to invent this land yacht had a difficult set of product requirements and the engineering background they brought with them led to this unique out come.
The limitations of materials and machining technology made many decisions for them. Road conditions were a major influence.
In general I am certain that the "ride & handing" were the worst; if you were stuck inside of one of these things all day in anything but ideal weather conditions it would have been miserable!
Having said that there were no other alternatives for many people; women were not going to ride horses and many city folk would not have owned horses.
Without question the Westward expansion of the country was happening in any and every way possible, and this was just one way.
