John Goschke

That is excellent! A kit that rarely gets built anymore, you've certainly done it justice!

Great looking build! Looks very authentic, Excellent foil work on your part!

Thanks, guys, for the all the comments! This build was a lot of fun. It took me back to a time when every car I built had to have skirts and if the kit came with a Continental kit, I had to put that on, too! My JoHan '61 Rambler American even had bubble skirts and a Connie kit!

This was to be my entry for this year's cancelled NNL East in the Survivor Kustoms and Modern Recreations category. Finished this spring, the idea was to pay tribute to the early "3-in-1" Customizing Kits and all their accessories, and build it the way I'd have dreamed if I'd had the skills back then. It represents an East Coast-style custom, with the usual J.C. Whitney type of accessories including dummy spotlights, dual antennas, Continental spare tire kit with chrome bumper end extensions, Turnpike Cruiser-style fender skirts and Dodge Lancer-style wheelcovers. I also added a rear seat tonneau cover. I did some accurizing of the windshield and rear window openings, including grafting in the cowl vent and wipers from the AMT '57 Ford, along with reshaping the top of the front fenders, followed by removal of the emblems and door handles Paint is by Tamiya.

The skirt rash isn't nearly as bad as I expected. Keep at it!

As a kid who had visions of perfectly built Johan and AMT kits in my head, Palmers were the bane of my existence. This photo from Xmas, 1960, reveals my "joy" on receiving my first Palmer ("Gee, uh, thanks Gramma...), a '60 Olds ragtop, as I recall...

Just got this clean example of the ever-lovely '61 Plymouth by JoHan!

Great looking build!

Nice! I always liked these flashy mid-'50s Studebakers!

Really nice build!

Beautiful job!

You sly dog, you!

The taillights look terrific, along with everything else about this build, Steve. Maybe I missed it, but what wheels and tires are you running?

It IS done.....

This project started back as a replica stock build in 1980 with a mint kit. Now it's finally almost finished as a mild custom! Sometime the roof got broken and I tried to fix it but those thin roof pillars were just too fragile. Junk '59 Fury to the rescue! The Plymouth roof is essentially identical to the Dodge. Here I've also stripped the chrome for a replate and started to shave off the extraneous trim from the body. Here she is in fresh Tamiya primer and fresh Little Motor Kar Co. replated bumpers. Still to be removed were the door handles and the large piece of ribbed trim with the "Custom Royal" nameplate at the leading edge of the fin. I decided to remove and reshape the taillight bezels, then have them plated. Custom taillight lenses came from an original issue AMT '57 T-bird kit. Tailpipe extensions were made styrene rod. The JoHan Dodge is quite accurate except for the rear wheel opening shape. Back when I started the project I reshaped the openings. Here you can see the corrected one compared to an unmodified kit... After sectioning the chassis to shorten the wheelbase slightly for a more accurate look, I added material to JoHan's flat chassis so that the model will have a finished look underneath and viewers won't be able to look inside the body through the wheel openings. Now it's in paint! Tamiya Pearl "Light Red" for the main color and a pink mixed from Tamiya Pearl Light Red and Tamiya Pearl White. Hope you like it so far!