'70 Grande

Need thoughts and opinions. This '65 Chevy-II project started in my mind as a Gasser-build. Realizing that the intended 427 big-block motor wasn't going to fit, I changed directions and started working towards a small-block powered street machine build. Now, I'm leaning back towards the Gasser. Seen below are 3 pics. Pic #1: Street-machine rake on stock-height suspension parts with steelies all-around for the street, thin/stock Firestones upfront with tall, treaded Firestone's on the rear. Pic #2: Raised front suspension on leaf springs with thin/stock Firestones and tall slicks at the rear, all on steelies. No inner engine bay sidewalls. Pic #3: Same as #2 except going with tasty little 5-spoke mags upfront. Looking for your thoughts or opinions on what direction you think I should go on this project... thanks.

Fortunately it was not too complicated to get the firewall moved rearward and more accurately positioned as seen in the first pic below. One end result of that adjustment is now the engine bay sidewalls will need to be lengthened to reach all the way back to be connected again to the repositioned firewall, (gap seen in 2nd pic). Fortunately I have an extra set of sidewalls from the '66 Nova Pro-street kit that I can use to make this alteration.

Trimming back of transmission hump seen in the first pic and firewall gap for moving firewall back seen in second pic.

A WIP update: As seen in one of my previously posted engine bay pics, the '66 Nova's engine bay sidewalls and firewall were going to need some adjustments to fit this '65 Chevy-II body better. The major issue is getting the firewall moved towards the rear by about 3"-to-4"-scale-inches. Fortunately, I think I came up with a good solution. As seen in the following pics, I was able to cutback the outer-floorboard edges as shown in the first pic below, (cutback started at the bottom of the pic/uncut seen at the top of the pic). Second pic with cutout piece moved back and reinstalled.

Finished installing the factory-stock-positioned rear wheel openings to my '65 body; joints yet to be cleaned-up. I know some trim details are missing from behind those rear wheel openings, but I want to work on other aspects of pulling this build together before getting into the body details.

Stunning build! Paint color choices are excellent! I'm curious what the chrome pieces at the top/rear corners of the hood represent; were they small running lights of some kind?

The challenges are growing... the engine compartment of the '65 Chevy-II is shorter in length from the radiator wall back to the firewall than the '66 Nova. I really like how the '66 Nova's engine compartment walls look inside the '65 Chevy-II body, but now there's a bit more adjustment work to be done here. I expected this, but was hoping for a overall simpler-chassis-swap. Also, I have learned that the "Street-Freak" kit's 427 engine is going to be too big/long to fit... time to dig a high-performance 327 Corvette engine outta my parts box and do an engine-swap... the morphing continues. Also, because the drag slicks that I originally intended on using on my Gasser build are going to be a tight-fit in the rear chassis, I'm probably going to a more, high-performance street car project and scrapping the Gasser theme for this build. Any thoughts, suggestions, questions or criticisms welcomed.

I thoroughly researched where the factory-stock rear wheel openings needed to be located on my converted '65 body. For the chassis-swap, I wanted the factory-stock chassis from the AMT 1/25 1966 Chevy Nova kit as both 1:1 car's are the same 110"-inch wheelbase. Here's where the work begins, and the "morphing" begins as well! Turns out, probably due to these kit's being originally-molded decades apart, the kit wheelbase's did not match-up. The '66 Nova factory-stock chassis was probably a scale 1-1/2-to-2"-inches longer that the wheelbase for the '65 kit. At the top of Pic #2 below, it shows the amount I cut-out of the '66 chassis to gets things lined-up properly.

My initial plan was using the "Street-Freak" kit's 427 engine, but not with injector stacks; instead using a high-rise, dual-carb set-up coming outta that hole in the hood.

In 2022, I will have been a part of this forum for 10 years, and this is my first WIP post. Looking forward to your comments, suggestions and criticisms. With all the excitement for the upcoming Moebius '64 Nova kits, I wanted to present a project that I started when the first shots of those Moebius' kits were seen from a model show that I think was about 1-1/2 years ago. This WIP is the ancient, AMT 1/25 1965 Chevy-II "Street-Freak/Gasser" kit that I originally intended to do a standard wheelbase chassis swap and still build as a Gasser drag car. I was going to call my Gasser the "Money-Pit", because I spent a chunk of $'s to gather-up all of the things needed for my intended build! Well, as many of you know, initial build-intentions frequently morph into something else, and that's exactly what's happening here. These first pics will show you my initial intention and project-start...

Glad to see this project coming back to life! And I certainly appreciate your tip on the front clip of the AMT Shelby kit... I never saw that before and your revision makes it so much better!

I did some more research; they are from the 1/25 AMT 1925 Ford Model T Street Rod/Roadster/Pickup (2-n-1 with a factory-stock '25 T), kit and/or AMT reissued 1925 Ford Model T Fruitwagon kit.

I am looking to trade for Q:2 of the 1/25 chrome, Front Wheels, (with rounded centercap), shown in the reference photos below (with the arrow pointed at it). The matching rear wheels are also shown at right in the 2nd photo. I am uncertain what kit these wheels might be found in but I think they might have come from the 1/25 AMT 1925 Ford Model T Street Rod/Roadster kit and/or AMT reissued 1925 Ford Model T Fruitwagon kit or possibly an older, 1/25 mid/late-1960's MPC Ford Mustang and/or Mercury Cougar kit. Would like them to be fresh-from-the-tree (if possible), or in good, reuseable condition. Thanks!

All beautiful builds! I'm a Mustang guy thru-n-thru, but all my completed builds this past year were Chevrolet's!?!?&!

Fantastic build! This build perfectly represents one of my top-3 "dream-choices" of cars I'd love to have in 1:1 scale parked inside my own garage!