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'58 Ford Fairlane 500 Club Victoria! New Photos of an Ancient Build!


John Goschke

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Re-built in about 1978, I think, from a pink brush-painted original '58 annual. At the time I had a 1/1 parked outside in this color combo, so this is an idealized replica of that slightly rusty and tired old Ford!

I rebuilt the model with a better chassis from an AMT '59 Ford. The "cruiser" skirts are modified from custom pieces from the AMT '59 Ford with the chrome moldings added from strip plastic. Referring to the real car I also did a lot of work reshaping the windshield and rear window molding, headlight bezels, and adding the rear license plate recess. The '58 taillight lenses were custom pieces in another kit that I used to replace the mold-on originals.

The fender ornaments and wipers were scratched from plastic and aluminum strip. I also attempted, with partial success, to scribe in the cowl vent detail missing from the kit. The door handles were cut from an AMT '57 Ford and the mirrors were AMT custom parts modifed to resemble Ford mirrors and covered with foil (which is looking kind of funky these days!) A strip of plastic was added inside each side window opening to represent the window channels characteristic of the Ford and Edsel hardtops of the period.

The chrome was somewhat worn so I repaired it with BMF, which all these years later is showing its age. The rest of the trim is also the foil applied in the '70s. The epoxy used to apply the Mark Gustavson "Putty Thrower" photoetched emblems in about 1980 has turned a bit yellow over time.

Every now and then I get the urge to strip this and rebuild it, but always reconsider, deciding to leave it as-is as a memento of that time. This was really the first time I looked at an existing kit and tried to fix the flaws that made it inaccurate using techniques that I still use today.

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I wasn't building models in 1978 but this must have been state-of-the-art then (just as your models are today). Personally I think it would be a great shame to pull it apart - there are other models to be built, John.

My Uncle Fred's brand new, pale blue and white 58 Custom 300 Fordor was what triggered my lifetime love of US cars from the period. I was 8 at the time.

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