Motor City

Dodge made a Ute before WWII, but I'm not sure if Chrysler and Plymouth did. All of them made Utes after the war.

Hopefully we will finally get a '62 Grand Prix kit at some point, then a '63 ...

1964 Chevrolet (autocolorlibrary.com) Daytona Blue, my favorite color on the '64

That's really cool and the last year of production. 🍁

What an awesome collection. Thanks for posting these, Joe!

Does it include the electronic buzzer to unlatch the front door remotely? It wasn't in a real nice neighborhood.

I agree that the '73 GP looks better than the '77 GP, but I think the '76 Regal or Century Custom Coupe looks even better and so does the '73 442. The point is that the 1973-1977 GM intermediates are sorely missing, and so are Rancheros.

When I worked a few summers at a large municipal park in the mid-1970s, we drove Ford pickups built from the early to mid-1960s. They had smooth black vinyl seats like what you'd find in a basic taxicab. Most, if not all, were Custom Cabs, but were basic with no power steering or brakes, and manual transmissions. I would think they were bid out as fleet sales to the city.

Thanks for posting this link, Brian. I'll have to get a copy of the book. Some of the rubber cars had good detail and were popular for a while.

The Fury and Coronet were Jo-Han models. It would be nice to clone some of the early AMT kits such as the Fairlane 500, Thunderbird, Park Lane, Lincoln, Roadmaster and Invicta, Bonneville, '59 and '60 Impala and '60 El Camino. I think Round2 wants to concentrate on fixing the existing tooling first and see how well that goes before venturing into the earlier era.

All of that is great information, Tim! I was hoping there would be multiple wheel options and the choice of whitewall and blackwall tires.

Is it just me or would the cream truck look better with blackwalls and the hubcaps? I think the whitewalls look good on the red truck with chromed wheels.

I just looked at my '70-'74 Dodge and Plymouth brochures. The '70 Challenger and Charger are listed in the full-line brochure as having an optional trunk rack, but it isn't listed for the Coronet. The '71-'73 full-line brochure doesn't list it, but it notes to see the dealer for additional options. The '74 brochure specifically lists a rack only being available from the factory for the wagons. The '70 Plymouth full-line brochure doesn't mention it. The '71 Barracuda and intermediate brochures list it. I don't have the '72 brochures. The '73 Barracuda brochure doesn't list it and I don't have the intermediate brochure. I also don't have the '74 Plymouth brochures. Lots of options aren't listed in brochures. As Tim stated, many options were available from the factory, and some were also available as a dealer option. Since we are talking model cars, you can do what the factory should have done!

the '72 Corvette brochure calls it a luggage carrier

My red '57 has very minimal warp and the same tool marks as the red one pictured above. For anyone looking to buy a two-seat Thunderbird promo, look for waviness along the side character line, distortion above the grille and rear bumper and on the dashboard.

That is quite true since the red car has a bit of warp and thinking about it, I doubt if Ford would have approved a veeded rear. The red and pink cars are both promos, and you can't see any tooling marks on the back of the pink one, so it appears to be a different tooling. Maybe the first set of tooling, which is presumably the pink car, wore out? It might have been in Tim Boyd's book that a former AMT employee stated the '57 Thunderbird was their highest volume promo model. It looks like the red car was the basis for the kit based on the similarity in the tooling marks as you pointed out. Too bad there aren't any AMT employees from that era who participate on this forum.

the bottom of the trunk lid on the blue car is a horizontal line; the bottom of the trunk lid on the red car is veeded

That's a nice straight promo. I have one in the same color combination. I understand the black promo is very rare for '57.

How would you remove the cement without damaging the body or breaking small pieces such as headlight lenses and engine parts?

What could you salvage off of that mess with cement used on probably everything?

I remember seeing that prom picture. That's a cool story. To still have the original top is just amazing. It looks like you have a couple of other Mopar projects well underway. I wish I had kept my first car, a loaded '71 Eldorado coupe, but it just had too much rust and was worn out. I couldn't justify storing it elsewhere after the shed it was in started to collapse. I didn't buy a house for several more years, so that would have been a lot of money out of my pocket. At least I've kept the first vehicle I ordered and purchased, a new El Camino. The Eldorado was a hand-me-down from my grandmother.

Thanks, Craig, a person can sure learn something every day. I knew people with '67, '68 and '70 Coronet 500s years ago and never knew that about the convertibles. I really like your '68. It's a great color combination! Best wishes on its completion.

thanks, guys; it's an optical illusion; it didn't make sense to me why there would be two different rear window treatments!