Hmm thanks H.P. I’ve been pondering the same thing. The problem is that with so much red tram in some of the narrative frames behind the van I think more red would be too much, which is why I prefer a mid-green. Which could in turn allow “Cirine” to be red…or black…on a white diamond like on the Barkas. Or black on red like on the 30’s era bottle? I’m also uncertain whether the logo should be on the doors rather than the side panels, the last photo in this update is leaning me towards the former. But I’m always open to debate.
So it really did take a while to work out how the rear door could open horizontally from a sloping rear panel, having made the assumption that’s what it must do (a photo ref does show it thus) - otherwise the door would be angled upwards when fully open…
The only way I could see it working was with the upper hinge projecting much further out than the lower one, but constructing that totally defeated me, along with the notion of micro-hinges. The apple finally landed on my head when I realised I don’t need to make work-able hinges at all. The narrative/photography only requires the rear door (and also the side doors) to be either (a) closed, or (b) open - I’m not making a movie. Thus side-stepping the problem I can make static exterior closed-door hinges in scale rather than (inevitably) way over-scale had they been work-able too. All I had to do was invent some mechanism for holding the door open and level – let’s call it a semi-hinge. After a couple of failures this was the result…
The two wires are not yet “locked” to prevent them coming out of their sleeves (because the door has to come off for painting) but the fact the wires can move laterally within them, and the sleeves themselves can flex up or down a little, gives the mechanism enough flexibility to forgive any (minor) construction mistakes. You can see in the last photo the door has dropped off the lip (I didn’t notice when I took it) but it’s easy to first lift it and then push the whole door in until it just rests on the lip, still in a 80% open position. And, with a bit of wiggling, level.
Of course it’s not what the real hinges looked like inside, but firstly I’ve scratched too many flimsy mechanisms that broke the third time they were used, this had to be virtually unbreakable. Secondly, by the time I’ve installed a couple of shelves that should look like continuations of the sleeves down that side & painted everything a darkish colour, they should be less noticeable. Better minds than mine would have come up with something much smarter but it’s the best I can do. Luckily the spare wheel’s fixed to the rear door, so that’ll make it easy to open and close without stressing the tiny door handle.
I’ve since been toying with a less bulky semi-hinge for the side doors, but I first needed to tackle the front cab. Here’s the Merc kit arrangement…
…but the Tatra windscreen (and side windows) are significantly taller & just too different to dodge, so…
I used the stumps of the Merc pillars to give the new ones something to hold onto, and the new front end of the roof needs refining along with various trimming/filing/filling everywhere. I stopped finishing any of it because I had a nagging feeling the suicide doors fit was highly likely to be problematic - they’re already an issue being much longer than the Merc’s. In the picture below the white template was my initial idea - cut the whole door from Evergreen and then cut out the window aperture within it…then make the exterior step ridge…then the inner panels etc…for two doors…the horror. And then another apple dropped – the kit’s sedan-version sprue also included the front & rear side doors…
Those of you who’ve been watching this madness since 2018 may recall I pulled a similar stunt to make the extra-long suicide doors for the Merc limo from the ICM sedan kit…
I joined the two inner door panels in the same way, replaced the pillars, and (belatedly) cut a strip off the top of the door panel to make the widow aperture suitably taller…
More work required to round the inner corners of the window slightly & flatten that curve on the roof-line above it – that roof’s not getting glued down until the very end of this conversion job, if at all. I’ve had to make some compromises such as the leading edge of the door…
…but I’m hoping by the time I’ve got the most noticeable Tatra features in place the compromises will be less so. Next, passenger door & semi-hinges 
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