W-409

Fulvia is a beautiful car, so with it being 1/24 scale I think I'll have to build one. Hopefully it will have an engine though.

Thanks Tom! Me being here in Finland, the cost when ordering parts from USA is always pretty high so it's good to be able to scratchbuild at least some of the parts needed. I built a dipstick for engine oil. It's made from a piece of metal wire that I flattened out from the other end to represent the handle. Then the dipstick tubing was painted gloss black. Some more engine work was also done. The dipstick was installed and can be seen in the next photos. I also drilled holes on distributor and cylinder heads for spark plug wires and they are now installed, naturally in correct firing order. Wires are Pro Tech spark plug wire. I couldn't find a coil in my parts boxes, so I made one from styrene rod. Also, fuel lines from fuel pump to carburetors are done, they are metal wire with fittings made out of hex-shaped styrene rod. Clear fuel filter was made out of mold sprue that I heated up and stretched to make it the correct diameter. I drilled a hole in it and installed an actual filter element inside (piece of thin plastic rod painted white), but it can't be seen very well in the end. It's definitely not perfect, but maybe it's good enough to be hidden under the hood.

That's a good deal for the Lincoln! I'd be happy to build one of those as well. That reminds me, a few years ago I remember scrolling through a Finnish site where people sell all kinds of stuff. It's not often when you see someone selling models in there, but this time I noticed a '68 Impala Promo model in perfect condition. The price was $40. I called the seller immediately, and while he lived quite close to me, I jumped to the car and went to pick it up right away. He also had a '67 Pontiac GTO Convertible Promo for also $40 so I bought that too. At home I was looking at both of the promos and they are flawless, like brand new. I thought it was a good deal as I've always wanted to build a '68 Impala. I just checked on eBay quickly, saw only one '68 Impala Promo Model with the price tag of $780.

Thanks Sean! I'm happy how the interior turned out. Even though it's kind of a shame that this thing will eventually have side windows with class designations, so the interior is not seen that well from the finished model. Did a little more work with the engine. Built collectors for the headers from a correct size plastic rod. A little putty was needed to smooth out the seams between collectors and primary tubes. I noticed that Nicholson's car had oval-shaped breathers on front ends of both valve covers. I haven't seen similar ones in any kit, so I had to scratchbuild them. Breathers are mold sprue, filed to an oval shape, cut to length and on top of that I added pieces of sheet styrene as covers. After gluing the stryene on, I just filed that to a correct shape as well. And now that the sheet styrene has those grooves on bottom side, I was able to get finned covers for my breathers. They were painted chrome silver and glued to place. Engine kind of has a molded in fuel pump. The frame of the pump that attaches the engine block is there, but lower part of the fuel pump where the diaphragm is, was completely missing. That was easily built out of styrene rod as well, glued to place and painted silver.

Thanks Joe for the kind words! I agree completely, a good kit of a '78-82 Malibu would be a must have, and probably a great seller too, if you look at how popular they've become in the 1:1 world. I know at least I would need a couple of them to start with.

Wow! Had not seen this thread until now. Just read through the whole thread and I have to say that you're doing an incredible job on improving this kit! Personally, I like improving older kits up to today's standards so with that said, I'm going to watch this thread with a great interest. And, while I can appreciate the work many guys do with creating the "masters" for 3D printing certain parts on computer (because there's no way I could do that), I really enjoy someone actually scratchbuilding the parts they need. So, my hat is off for all the work you've done so far, and I'll definitely keep watching. Saw one SSK last summer when I was on a roadtrip in Germany and visited the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart. Beautiful car!

Interior work was up next. I clearcoated the dashboard with Mipa 2-part clear coat shot via airbrush. It's the same stuff that I've used for 1:1 cars when dealing with metallic colors. I had to sand mold lines off from the steering wheel before painting. I also drilled the holes deeper on the spokes. Made a big difference, like seen on the first picture. Then the steering wheel was painted with Revell Enamels, except for the silver, which is Tamiya Acryl (X-11, Chrome Silver). Some details were also added to the dashboard. Originally, there were no switches for headlights or wipers on left hand side of the steering column, so I drilled small holes to the dash and made the switches out of a correct sized styrene rod painted silver. Two different silver paints were used for the dash, cauge decals are from the kit, but speedometer decal had to be narrowed pretty much to make it fit properly. After that I added some black wash to bring out details, such as the heater adjusting levers and to the panel lines of the glovebox. Steering column was brush painted with Revell #30 red just like I did with the steering wheel. Tachometer is also from the kit, but I had to clean up some mold flash from that. So, it was re-chromed with Molotow and kit-supplied cauge decal was installed. I also added a tachometer cable even though it's almost impossible to see when this is installed on place. Interior floor was done with black flocking earlier. After that I shot a couple of light coats of flat clear on top of the flocking to keep the small bits of flocking on the floor where they should be. Seats, center console and shifter were installed and seat belts were done. Here is the finished dashboard with steering wheel and steering column installed. And then door panels and dashboard were installed on place so now I can call the interior finished.

Thanks Bob, I appreciate it! It's great to be able to spend more time on the modeling bench again! I have many cool projects on the stash that it's great to make progress on them. I had a great time with the small scale kits. Even though they're simple, they sure were quite challenging because of their small size. Even though 1/24 or 1/25 scale is the one I like the most, I think I will build some smaller scale stuff in the future as well.

Being in Finland makes it a little harder to shop on eBay. Or, at least more expensive. I have quite a big stash of vintage kits, even some really rare ones. And eventually, all of them will be built. Some of them are bought on eBay, but often the problem is that even though I found the kit with a reasonable price, it'll cost me minimum of $50 extra, because of shipping and taxes. With that said, I don't shop on eBay that much, but it's a good place for checking out what the asking prices are. Mostly I've bought my vintage kits locally. Often at a Model Car Show / Swap Meet you can find some good offers. Also, swap meets for 1:1 scale car parts are a good place to search for model kits. Many times you'll find no kits, but sometimes you do and they can sometimes be surprisingly cheap as the seller might not know the real value or then he just wants to get rid of them. But, to me, probably the biggest thing is networking, I've bought lots of kits from friends or via friends and some of them have been pretty good deals to be honest. So it's a good idea to tell your friends that you're interested in these things, and you never know what they might come up with. Of course, many of my vintage kits are glue bombs / rebuilders. It usually takes a bit more work to restore an old kit, but when you're done, you'll have a cool, rare kit on your display case with half the price of a mint condition kit. Plus, I enjoy rebuilding old built-ups. It's always a neat challenge.

Thanks Guys! I appreciate the kind words!

Thanks! And, you're correct. The no need of a basecoat makes it a little "cheaper" but it's also much more straightforward to chrome something with this stuff as it doesn't need a basecoat at all.

Looks like you had a great year! All of them are really nice, but if I had to pick a favorite it would have to be the Lincoln Futura. Beautiful car, rarely seen built but despite the kit being old and simplified, you did a fantastic job with it. Also, weathering on the Black Widow is just perfect. Great work and a Happy New Year!

Thanks for the information! Does he have a catalog about what other products he might have? I've never been in Facebook and don't have any desire to, but I think I'll need to tell a friend of mine to check it out for me.

I've used Revell Chrome Spray on a few builds. When reading threads about it in the internet, I found so many different opinions regarding the durability that I wanted to try it out myself. I've used a regular automotive spray can primer and then I just shoot the chrome on top of that, so it doesn't need any kind of basecoat. My suggestion is that let the parts dry properly before handling. After drying, let's say, for a week, it's still not very durable, but it can be handled so that you're able to install the parts. When handling the parts, I suggest wearing gloves, it helps with the durability. I've had no issues with the spray chrome myself, it's not cheap, but it gives a good chrome finish for sure. A couple of examples with Revell Chrome Spray: Front axle parts for Jo-Han '71 Pinto Funny Car. Bumpers for Monogram '79 Malibu.

Thanks for the kind comments everyone, they are highly appreciated! Also, Happy New Year to everyone! Hopefully everyone has a great year in 2025. I'd say go for it, we don't see those Plymouths done very often, especially not as Drag Race cars. It was a fun build and I'm really happy how it turned out, it looks just like what I had in mind when I started working on it. My goal was to make them look like they're painted there at the pits with white shoe polish that was pretty common way of doing them back in the day. So, I painted them by free hand with a small brush. For that I've always used Tamiya's X-2 acryl white paint, which seems to work the best for me at least. The trick is to mix the paint up some, but not completely, so that it will look kind of "semi-transparent".

Never knew this was even available as a resin kit. Glad to see an AMC station wagon built, especially when you've done a very nice job with it. Congrats on a beautiful and unique model.

For several years now I've always finished just one model in a year, but 2024 was good as I got three builds done. Hopefully I can keep up with that next year so that I'd get at least more than one finished. The year started with a Matchbox reboxing of AMT's '41 Plymouth. This was built as a Gasser for 1963 NHRA G/G class, where you could run Pre '60 Ford Flathead or inline six or eight cylinder engines, but you had to run naturally aspirated and with stock cylinder heads. That's why the engine is a 221 Cid Flathead from Revell's '40 Ford. On this model there are lots of modifications and scratchbuilt parts basically everywhere. Then in the summer I was able to finish another long stalled project, a Monogram 1/32 scale '79 Malibu. This was converted from a Police car into something that could have been sold new here in Finland. And just last week I finished this 1/43 scale Heller VW K70L which was kind of a challenge for myself if I could make a simple small scale kit into a presentable model. It's mostly box stock. Thanks for looking, let's see what the next year will bring.

Thanks Nigel and Larry! Nigel is correct, these kits seem to have some challenges, but they do build up pretty nice.

Thanks Ron! I actually think building headers is fun. I've scratchbuilt Fenderwell headers for several builds during the last ten years or so. Carburetors are painted with Revell 91 silver, and on top of that there's a light coat of Humbrol Clear Orange mixed with dirty thinner that I use to clean up my brushes with. It's kind of like dry-brushing the gold color and giving it a subtle black wash at the same time.

Yep, that's pretty much what I thought. Luckily, it's not a big deal to modify if the builder wants to make the 1960 correct. And after all, even if the builder didn't want to do those modifications, not many people are able to say at a model car show "That's incorrect!".

Haha, thanks Tom and Sean, I appreciate the kind words! This is one of the projects that I'd really like to finish. I have a soft spot for X-Frame Chevrolets and also for old Junior Stock / Super Stock cars. Next I did a little work on the interior. Old paint was stripped off from the dashboard and after some prepping I was able to airbrush some primer on it. It's Alclad's Grey Primer & Microfiller. Because of the two tone interior, steering wheel will be two-tone. It's a part that I want to paint by brush so I don't have to do tedious masking job that would be needed if painting it with an airbrush. So I had to pick a paint that I can use by brush and that can also be airbrushed on. I'm mostly using Revell and Humbrol enamels so I thought Revell's #34 red might be the best option. I airbrushed the dashboard with it after thinning it somewhere around 40-50% and it turned out great. Now I can use the same paint for steering wheel and steering column by brush so the shade of red will be the same. Then I mocked up the engine. Looks like the AMT engine fits pretty well to Lindberg engine bay. The other reason for my mock up was headers. I found one picture of the engine on 1:1 scale car and it had fenderwell headers produced by Jerry Jardine. No kit that I know of has anything similar as far as headers go, so I had to make them myself. Basically the only real challenge with them was to clear the steering shaft, which is why I wanted to do this mock up. The first step was to build header flanges from sheet styrene. The actual headers were built from Plastruct .060" round styrene rod which I heated carefully with a candle in order to do the bends. I've found out this is the easiest way to create custom headers, as I've never been able to build them succesfully from solder. The headers might not be 100% similar to the ones on real car, but they are at least pretty close. I they're not quite done yet however, I will need to fabricate collectors for them and do a bit of cleanup and smooth out a couple of glue joints before painting them. But, the basic work with the header tubes is done. And here is a test fit with engine and steering shaft on place. It's a tight fit, but everything fits on place without touching each other. Obviously, I will still need to cut pieces of inner fenders away to make them clear the headers.

On '59 Impala, spare tire was originally located at the spare tire well on right hand side of the trunk, so the chassis is correct for a '59. But in 1960, spare tire was just located in the trunk and there is no spare tire well on the trunk floor. I have a 1:1 scale '60 Impala in the garage, so I have reference material easily available. My suspicion is that Monogram released the '59 first and then probably didn't do all of the necessary changes to the molds when they released the 1960. Another thing that's wrong on the '60 Impala kit, is the power steering pump. On '59, the pump is installed to the generator, but on a '60, the power steering pump is under the generator with own brackets holding it. But, both of the kits only have power steering pump like seen on a '59.

I used to have a '74 Malibu Classic Station Wagon as a daily driver here in Finland before I updated it into a '64 Rambler American that I have had as my daily driver for a few years now. The Malibu was a pretty big car, but I never had any issues with it. Sure, it was a tight fit sometimes in parking garages, but I was always able to park and leave with no problem and with no scratches. Now during the summertime I also drive pretty much with a '60 Impala, which is also a pretty big car. But haven't had any issues with it either, even here in Europe. So, if you want a land yacht, go for it! They often have the best ride quality.

Thanks for the kind words, they are appreciated! Ulf, you're correct that this series of Heller 1/43 kits have several iconic cars, and I agree, they would be welcomed as 1/25 scale models, too. While I'm not really a fan of 1/43 scale (as I like to add extra details, this scale is a bit too tiny for my taste, plus that the models look too small in the display case compared to the regular 1/24 or 1/25 kits), this was such a fun build that I think I will be building more of these in the future.

I've used that Tamiya's Panel Line Accent Color and I've used it on top of acryls and enamels and I've never had any issues with it. So with that said, I wouldn't be that worried about it.