Adding real wood bows to the open tops of your traditional hot rod and other applicable pre-World War II models is a surprisingly
easy modification. It also allows you to better showcase your model car’s interior detailing efforts. Here’s how you do it.
If necessary, mark the outline of a factory-stock roof opening. I cut and removed all of the material with black hash marks using a jeweler’s saw and cleaned up the opening with files and sandpaper. You can add thin styrene strips for panel flanges along the red line.

To make room for the front wood bow on the Revell 1930 Model A coupe, you’ll need to trim the top of the clear styrene windshield — an unneeded area above the top of the windshield frame. Use a razor saw and cut slowly to avoid fracturing the brittle, clear styrene.

Cut wood coffee sticks in half lengthwise. Then trim each individual bow to the specific length for its position in the roof opening. I number the bows (front to back) to expedite the final assembly. Notch each bow at the outer edge to allow gluing to the roof’s underside.

Stain the wood bows your color of preference — mahogany, in this case — and clear coat. After the stain and clear are dry, superglue the bows in place, starting with the forward-most and rear-most bows, 1 and 6.

Use a ruler and mark equidistant intervals for the remaining bows underneath the roof opening. Superglue each in place as numbered. References show 1/1 scale Ford Model A coupe roofs with both five or six wood bows; I used five bows to allow a better view of the interior.

Here’s a close-up of the finished wood bows in the roof opening. If you have the time or the inclination, add outer wood strips that run front to back along the left and right sides of the roof opening for even more authenticity.