Cosmo_Song

Amazing work and details! Where did you source the side mirrors? Were they 3D printed?

Thank you! It was really some small areas of change but I think it's essential to make it look closer to an actual vehicle from the 70s. The bumper rubber was simply a vinyl tape strip, and I foiled a styrene strip and added a super think vinyl tape stripe to mimic the side trim.

Thank you! Yes I really like these promo cars from the 70s but side mirrors were not common to be included until kits from the 80s. I'm so glad I was able to cast the mirrors from Greenlight's 1/24 Monaco cop car.

Started with a MPC promo from eBay, I added the vinyl top, side trim, transparent signal lights with acrylic sheet and some chrome details. Also casted the side mirrors from a 1/24 Greenlight Monaco cop car diecast. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Super cool build! Glad to see we are doing very different approach to a Gen3 Chevelle haha! Mine would be a mainstream grandma car

Thank you! I'm planning to do a mainstream Lumina Classic

In the meantime I'm looking for an interior that I can use, any suggestion for the bench seat and dashboard options?

The rear wheel opening was also a little too long comparing to my reference photos, so I started with cutting from the middle of the rear wheel opening and moved it forward about 2mm. In the meantime I cut the A pillar from the bottom and made cut on the B pillar to adjust the roof angles, I moved the entire roof backward for 2mm and extended the A pillars. I could technically cut the fenders from another AMT Malibu body but I decided to try something different for replicating the body panels without damaging an existing body. I built a box with cardboard to cover the inside and outside of the rear panel area that I wanted to replicate, and sealed the curvy gaps with silly putty. Once the silicone mold was cured I poured resin into it and it came out quite good and maintained the same body panel thickness from the parent part. I will use the resin duplicate parts to implant into the front fender area. I marked the fenders on the line when the surface would bend to align with the main body and installed the duplicated resin parts with super glue + baking soda. Then I started to use Tamiya epoxy putty to merge the gaps and start forming the shapes all around the main body. The original tail panel was too short, I added 1mm styrene sheet on the bottom and scratch built the taillight and license plate opening areas. I used the Gray Mr. Hobby Mr Surfacer 1200 to check the body curvature consistency and now all the flaws became very noticeable. I'll continue work on smoothing out the main body.

I was excited to get this '74 Malibu from AMT since there hasn't been many mid 70s midsize GM colonnade cars from major model makers (except for the Johan Cutlass decades ago). I'm a big fan of Malaise era cars so I figured I could get this Nascar car and convert it into a mainstream factory stock '74 Malibu. I thought it looked quite okay if I modify the front fender and wheel opening a bit. Until I took a closer look at the side profile and compared it to a Johan Cutlass that I have, big difference on the pillars and greenhouse proportions. It looks like the AMT Malibu had a chopped top. I realized there's much more need to be done to fix the proportions before I can work on the front fenders.

Awesome progress of the sedan conversion! Cant`t wait for the following results. Good job sir.

Thanks Dwayne! I used aluminum foil to duplicate the fender and hood and then I damaged them. I used epoxy on the backside to secure the foil afterwards and glue them on to the styrene body with super glue. You can see my whole process in here: Good luck with your builds too.

Fantastic work! Please check out my 4DR build too:

Thank you Michael, I got the flat hood from here: http://www.reliableresin.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=4&products_id=77 Can you show me where can I buy the mopar volcano wheel that you 3D printed?

Hi Michael, super impressive work! I`m building a base model `70 Challenger would like to use your mopar volcano hubcaps, could you post a link of that your casting hubcap item on ebay?

This is going to be masterpiece, I admire your dedication Robert!

I used pencil to draw the outline on the primer body first, ant then I just used X-acto knife to slightly do some strokes along the pencil line (free hand). After a couple of strokes for the depth I pushed harder to achieve the desired depth for the door lines. I think it just takes some patience and a fresh blade

Thank you Charlie. Haha I`ll put it in my calendar, next one should be an accurate "glasshouse" style 4-door sedan with the correct Caprice full trim.

Thank you very much! Good luck with your own build too. One modifucation I did to this model was to reshape the C-pillar. The original shape was missing a triangle area so I had to use styrene to fix it.

Thanks, I really like to put side windows on a car model so it looks it can be properly left on the curbside.

Thank you Kevin! I actually didn`t really fix the rear bumper, I just shaved the body rear panel and used bondo to make it to fit the bumper.

Thank you for sharing your experience, Steve. I like to build model cars based on my childhood memories, that`s why I`m more into cars in the 70`s. I grew up in China in 1980`s and we had a few American tv show and movies on screen, like <Hunter> and <Superman>. I remember there were a lot of the full-size cars in those media which were from the 1970s and were not in a good condition. But those images were always a big inspiration for me in that time era and I really think those last generation full-size cars during malaise era are really cool! Especially when they turn into curbside beaters and lose all the hubcaps and then I can feel the authenticity.

Thank you very much. I found the correct fonts and sticker images online, and then I used Adobe illustrator for the graphic design and print it out with tin can glued to the back.

Thank you, yes I still remember those crappy orange plastic parts and huge flashes everywhere, not to mention those incorrect wheel position. It took me quite a while to clean it up but I`m happy with what turns out in the end

Thanks everyone for the replies