1955 Ford Fairlane Victoria WIP

[MrObsessive]

Well after sitting for many months on the table and collecting dust, I've decided to once again tackle the '55 Ford Victoria. For those of you new to the board, I originally started this around a year and a half ago, but was stopped dead in its tracks when I couldn't find a proper grille for it. Not to mention the trunk trim which was common to all Fairlanes for '55.

I got a junker '55 Ford Fairlane diecast from Rick Hanmore at NNL East last year, but something about the grille didn't seem right. So I quietly put the project on hold and started to work on something else.

I spotted a '55 Ford "Orange Crisp" wagon at a toy show a while back and wondered if the grille would fit-------the price was cheap at only 5 bucks, but much to my chagrin, the grille was too big! It's 1/24 versus the models 1/25.

Nevertheless, I got tired of seeing the car collect dust after building a number of models in the interim, so I took a deep breath and begin to draw out where I would need to make cuts to "resize" the grille to make it work and yet look in scale.

Here are a few pics of the bodywork involved to make the changes, and also the grille which I've started to hack into just recently................

The basic body shape is pretty much done except for some small changes I may make. One of which is the vent window frames which I think should be a little narrower by a mm or so. BTW, the roof came from the Lindberg '53 Ford, but it had to be stretched, raised, and widened to make it fit on the '56 lower body.

1952-54 Ford hardtops had basically the same roof crowns as the '55 2 door (and '56 4 door hardtops).

I scratchbuilt the "checkmarks" on the doors as well as redid the fender side trim.

Other body mods will be to make the headlamp door "eyelashes" that were on the Fairlanes-------this will be done with some strip plastic. On the hood I filled in the hood ornament depression, as well as puttied in the scribed lines on the underside to prevent ghosting when it comes time to paint.

There's more to come!

Edited July 28, 2009 by MrObsessive

[Dr. Cranky]

I think that's gonna be another masterpiece for your collection, Bill!

[MrObsessive]

Here's a pic of the grille that'll be used-----as you can see, it's waaaay too big for the front end!

So far I'm taking a coping saw and starting to hack away at the bumper which is attached as a whole with the grille. This'll take a while.............then I want to cut off the ends of the grille where the parking lights are, carefully file down the grille itself to match the shape of the parking light pods and then reattach them when the fit is correct.

After everything is said and done, I'll send the bumpers out (the rear needs modifed too) to be replated.

As far as the chassis is concerned, much work needs to be done there too............I cut away the molded in exhausts, and replaced the floorpan, but the chassis floor on the sides needs widened a bit to eliminate a sizeable gap I see when it's attached to the body.

I think I may have to totally replace the trunk floor along with the gas tank and spare tire well..............since the trunk will open, I don't like the "upswept" look of the models trunk floor and my earlier efforts to try to fix it weren't good enough according to photos I have of the 1:1

BTW, I already have a color picked out.........the car will eventually be Regency Purple and Snowshoe White with a black and white interior.

Stay tuned folks.........this is gonna end up being a looooooooooong thread!

If you want to take a look at my earlier and more detailed work on this one...........click here to check it out.

Thanks for lookin' so far!

Edited October 24, 2007 by MrObsessive

[Fisher61]

I'll be following this one, Bill. Can't wait to see how you pull this one off !

[novadose71]

Looks pretty good so far, you have your work cut out for you(pun intended). A friends dad had a 55 and a 56 while we were growing up, I always liked the 55 a little better, and I had always hoped AMT/ERTL(R.I.P.?) would backdate the 56 to the 55. I remember his dad showing us, a day or two after he painted it(dark blue/white) , he could blow his nose and it would be blue. He painted lots of cars and was a little too cool for a respirator or anything, and payed for it, he only lived to see mid 40's. uhhh Anyway, I guess that's my 55 Ford story. Keep going, I can't wait to see it finished.

[dub]

YAY! This is great that all of us newbies get to see how one of Bill's extra detailed builds comes together. We really are not worthy! I'm sure your updates will be the highlights of my visits here in the coming weeks. I can't wait for more!

I'm gonna grab some popcorn, and sit back to enjoy the show!

[Olle F]

Nice build, as always. It also shows something I have totally missed: I thought the '55 and '56 bodies were identical, so I searched for pictures after seeing this thread. From the pictures I found, it seems like the '55 HT has a '54 style roof, but the '55 Crown Vic has the sleeker '56 style roof. Is that correct?

[MrObsessive]

From the pictures I found, it seems like the '55 HT has a '54 style roof, but the '55 Crown Vic has the sleeker '56 style roof. Is that correct?

Ford did some mixing and matching of rooflines for 1955-56. If you wanted a hardtop in '55, you indeed got the somewhat carryover '54 style roof. These were known then as Crestline(?) Victorias during 1952-'54.

Ford introduced the Crown Victoria in '55 which had a lower (about an inch) and sleeker roofline with thinner and more swept back C pillars. Although technically also a hardtop with frameless door glass, it had that basket handle "chrome tiara" which looked neat, but undoubtedly took away from the true nature of a hardtop......ie: no pillar at all.

For '56, Ford dropped the round roof '55 style hardtop for the 2 doors, but instead adopted the Crown Vic's roofline for all 2 door hardtops across the board, without the chrome tiara. Ford still offered the round roof style for '56 albeit a pillared coupe and sedan, and the roof crown was flattened by a 1/2 inch or so.

Interestingly, Ford wanted to get into the 4 door hardtop market by '56 so they resurrected the '55 2 door round roofline for their '56 4 door hardtops. This must have been expensive for Ford, because this was a one year deal................as the all new '57 Fords were right around the corner.

Confused yet?

I guess I could have saved myself a lot of work by making this a 4 door hardtop, but I like 2 door hardtops too much I guess and it was unique just the same!

I do have a few more '53 Lindberg kits to maybe do a '56 4 door hardtop someday.

[Jairus]

Dang it Bill!

You got me going again on my '55 Sunliner again. I pulled it off the shelve and went through the box again last night but unfortunately you have already exceeded my expectations with your high quality. What are you going to do for the trunk trim since this is a Fairlane series? Hmmmmm

[Olle F]

Confused yet?

Not a bit, I'm just surprised. But it all confirms what I saw when I was searching for pictures. The taller and more rounded roof line on the post sedans and 4-door HT's is perfectly logical, and is in line with how other manufacturers designed their cars as well. What threw me off was that they used one roof for the HT, and another one for the Crown Vic (which, just as you say, basically is built like a HT). I have never noticed that difference before.

Thanks for the information, you learn something new every day!

Edited October 25, 2007 by Olle F

[Chromecop]

Looks very good so far. Can't wait to see this one finished!

[MrObsessive]

What are you going to do for the trunk trim since this is a Fairlane series? Hmmmmm

Aahhhhh!! You just wait and see...............I plan to just go ahead and scratchbuild it.

I tried to fit the junker Danbury Mint's trunk trim, but of course it being 1/24-----is just too big. I could maybe cut that down like the grille...........but I don't think it'll look right because of the shape, especially in the center. The Danbury's trim seems a bit heavyhanded to me also.

Stay tuned, because I'm going to attempt this in the very near future, since it's part of the bodywork.

[BIGTRUCK]

Bill is this the Ford from last year? Wow thats gonna be a home run for sure...

[MrObsessive]

Bill is this the Ford from last year? Wow thats gonna be a home run for sure...

Yeah Ken, it was what I was working on when I joined the board. Hopefully, there won't be any snags in getting this one totally done.

I'm working on the grille today and at least get it in a stage where I can set it aside until I'm ready to have it replated.

We'll see about the home run part..............

[Fisher61]

Bill, some people might think I'm nuts, but I prefer the higher '55 roof over the lower '56 roofline. As you said before it's funny they changed it for the last year of this body cycle, but the big three had money to burn in the '50's, just look back to the one year only '58 Pontiacs and Chevys.

[MrObsessive]

No, you're not nuts Bill! In fact, I prefer the '55 Ford over the '55 Chevy! (gasp! HERESY!! )

I think the Ford is a little more cleanly styled, and you don't see as many of them at shows where '55 Chevys are everywhere.

Don't ya wish they could change bodystyles that often today, instead of hangin' on to the same ugly styling for years on end (Last Monte Carlo comes to mind ).

[MrObsessive]

I spent this past week trying to make the grille and trunk trim for the '55. Two of the biggest hangups to finishing the car from before. My attempt at resizing the grille were anything but stellar resulting in a ruined piece and frustration. I wanted to totally scratchbuild the grille, but I have no more PE eggcrate to use and NO ONE makes the correct grid pattern I need!

My only other option was to now use the grille out of the Danbury Mint '55 that I got from Rick Hanmore. I originally didn't want to use this because the parking light pods were a bit undersized for my tastes, and of course the dreaded 1/24 scale!

BTW, here's the car that is giving up it's grille along with a bunch of other parts to build mine……………

Don't let the pic fool you! This car has a very substandard paint job with runs-----------------and the roof section which is a separate piece, wasn't sanded down properly as the underside ribbing from the headliner can be seen from the outside. Danbury obviously put this one out to pasture, and now I have it to scavenge parts.

The Danbury grille actually has some better detail than the other grille so I held my breath and went to hack away.

I split the grille right down the middle with a coping saw, (the grille is plastic) and then carefully filed down both halves until both sides were symmetrical.

Filing down the top inside of the grille, I was able to finally get it to fit inside the front of the Ford………..

Some tweaking of the leading edge of the grille will be needed to ensure a nice clean fit.

If you take a look at the above pic, you can see where I'm beginning to replicate the car's "eyelashes' on the headlight doors. I can't make any promises that this'll turn out well, but we'll see. I tried to use the diecast's headlight eyelashes, but of course they were too big.

Now it's on to the trunk trim……………frustration out of not finding anything suitable to replicate this, led to me to just completely scratchbuild this on my own. I started with some plain styrene sheet, cut it to a basic shape according to photos, and just started to add the little "grids" one by one as you can see here…………….

Like the grille, I tried to keep everything as symmetrical as possible------keeping the spacing as even as possible using .010 styrene square rod………..

After all the little teeth were done, I glued a border around the perimeter per the 1:1.

Then I test fit the whole works on the rear deck of the model………..

Some more tweaking of the corners, and some filing down will be needed to thin it out a bit more….and afterwards it'll be BMF'd with a black wash to bring out those teeth. This was a LOT of work, but another hurdle cleared!

I've got a long way to go, so thanks for lookin'!

Edit: Please excuse the font size! I originally wrote this in Microsoft Word, and copied and pasted, but somehow the font turned out bigger than I usually use. I REALLY don't feel like reposting this!

Edited November 4, 2007 by MrObsessive

[dub]

Wow. That is some tedious work there, Bill. The details are starting to take shape. Your works in progress are just as impressive in person as your finished builds, as I was reminded today. Keep 'er going, she's lookin' good!

Don't worry about the font size; even though it kinda looks like shouting, it is really easy to read. ;)

[Jairus]

Bill, I have been stopped more than once by the grill, the trunk trim and the dash for my build of a Sunliner Convertible. The side trim is hard enough but doable. You tackled the trunk trim with the right attitude.... lots of freaking work but I believe you GOT IT! At least as good as can be done by hand. Any chance you could resin cast that piece.....?

Yeah, I thought not.

Beautiful work, now are you going to steal the dash from that Danbury model too? (Blasphemy)

[novadose71]

That's looking pretty good so far. I know what you mean about the hurdles, I just scratched a grill for my AMX project, it was a little nerve racking at first but once I got going it just flowed together, felt good to finally get it done. BTW While your resin casting that trim piece, maybe you could cast every thing else and offer kits for sale. One can wish, right?

[bigphoto]

Hi Bill,

I feel your pain as I recently started a build of a custon 56 Crown Vic, please enjoy the 1:1s

[MrObsessive]

Beautiful work, now are you going to steal the dash from that Danbury model too? (Blasphemy)

You Betcha!

[Fisher61]

Bill, the grill and trunk trim look great! You know after all your hard work and you have this finished, Lindberg or Revell will probably announce their going to release a '55 Ford Fairlane kit. LOL ! But then again it would never have this level of detail!

[cruz]

Thanks God Bill is a member of our club, we get to see all the subtle details on his builds, just make sure to keep us posted. By the way Bill, do you back all your digital pictures on a disc? It is always good to do so, I am sure this model will be featured in a magazine and I hear that it is good to have all that reference on disc...........

[MrObsessive]

Cruz, I keep all my builds (as well as car references) in separate folders in my PC. So I have a folder marked "1955 Ford Fairlane" and all my photo reference, as well as the buildup pics are in that folder.

In case my PC should take a dump, (it better not.....it's brand new! ) I have an online backup service that I can use to recover everything. As far as pics online, Fotki has a service where you can have them printed for much cheaper than the brick and mortar places.

You remember the pics from P.R.? Those came from Fotki and they do excellent work. It's definitely needed in my case, 'cuz if I ever take the model to GSL, one of the requirements if it's in factory stock to be considered for judging, is to have all your work shown in pics.

As well as reference photos of the car you're building. (Shop Manual!)