Arii Showa era cart upgraded.

The DioPark bicycles got me thinking and I dug out the old Arii 'rear car' from my Showa box and decided that, with some simple changes it could be a decent little diorama extra.

These carts were everywhere in the Showa era (both before and after the war) so any period diorama would benefit from having one somewhere in the background.  I have seen guys in Akihabara pulling these things laden with cardboard for recycling, and my good friend Phil even photographed an abandoned one earlier this year on his trip to Japan.

The kit comes from this set:

I have sadly lost the Sweet Potato seller's additional features, but the core cart is still there.  These were mostly just frames with wheels, but the Arii version has a wooden floor and I'm assuming wooden sides, although they could even be canvas I suppose.  The frame around the wheels is a little thick but doesn't look too bad... however the wheels have to go: they are thick and solid, with the spokes represented as raised lines radiating from a central hub.
I had some spare Tamiya German bicycles and Aber detail sets for them, so decided to sacrifice parts for this... all for the better good ^_^

I removed the front wheels from both bikes and cut away the moulded spokes and front forks, but kept the mudguard in place... it looks nice.  I then added the Aber etched spokes and fixed the new wheels to the cart.  The wheel frames needed the hub pin cut down, but other than that it was a very simple job.

With a figure so show the size of the model...

Now to think what to do with it... finding photos of these on the internet is a nightmare, as are any Showa era photos of everyday life.  All I can do really is watch a few Japanese films from the 1960s and try to figure out what it should be used for.  The sweet potato original might be an option, and a challenge as I would need to scratchbuild pretty much everything, including the cooking equipment.
I'll post the finished model once I've decided what to use it for...