mr moto

Actually, I agree with you, Sam. There are a number of little issues that I have with it but, hey, it displays pretty good!

That is a really fabulous build for 1959 and it still looks good today!

No illusion there! The car actually had a cutaway panel!

I totally agree! Nothing against wire wheels but those wires on that car just don't look right. Now that's a very sharp and much improved model.

Nice, nice!

The Hydro Hawk is a combination of the AMT 1959 vintage speedboat kit and a Jimmy Flintstone '51 Stude resin body. It helps that I know a little bit about boatbuilding and was able to plank up the transition from one to the other pretty much like you might do in 1:1.

Thanks, everybody, and I'll try to answer the questions without actually quoting them. First, I plan to hang on to the up top for possible future use. The taillights are the customizing parts from a '53 Studebaker kit just laid down horizontally. And as Spex84 said, the rear passengers would use the steps and grab handles to just climb right in. It's kind of a rumble seat arrangement.

Based on the recent Round 2 release '50 Ford convertible. It was conceived as a tow vehicle for the "Hydro Hawk" boat that I built a while back. Engine is the stock flathead with the 2 carb manifold from the kit.

I just picked up a Surf Woody at Hobby Lobby for $7.50. I had no interest at all in the actual car and bought it because it's such a treasure chest of parts like the tube chassis, Paxton superchargers, and some very cool double stripe white wall tires. Definitely pick one up if you see it on clearance.

The Berkeley kits are an interesting bit of history but they had carved balsa bodies and that wasn't unique. It was really the "state of the art" before molded plastic came along. On the AMT '58 Edsel box, note that while the other kits are identified as "Ford Fairlane", "Pontiac Bonneville", etc. the Edsel just says Edsel and the kit itself doesn't have a model name script on the front fender. 1958 was Edsel's first year in existence and I'll bet that the kits were tooled up before FoMoCo marketing settled on all the model names. It appears to be a Pacer, I think.

I just found a picture of the instruction sheet from the original issue on the net. It identifies the boat as a Charger 183. The box says that the model is 10 1/2 inches long. If all that is correct, the scale calculates out to just a little shy of 1:21. Box scale? Nothing that I can find on the original issue says anything about a scale.

READ THE LABEL. It seems that most paints have been reformulated lately (probably due to VOC regs) and the old rules just don't apply anymore. Most paints nowadays will say to recoat within the first hour or after so many days and that will vary by brand. I've seen some that say after 7 days. So if you can't finish the job in an hour wait for as long as the label says.

I took these pictures at La Carrera Panamericana in central Mexico in 2013.

Ditto on that! Excellent diorama, Ellen.

Duplicolor makes Hot Rod Primer. I use it all the time and it seems to be a perfect match for the old Pactra product (I still have a bottle).

Great looking work! You might inspire me to tackle the Revell 1/32 Continental Mark II that's been staring at me for a few years.

I wish I had looked at this thread before I built my pair of AMT '32s. There's so much great inspiration here that I feel very humble. These are intended to represent period rods from the time (1959-1960) when the Trophy Series kits were first coming out.

Ditto on the above. You were brave to even take that one on and it came out great!

Here's a link to the sedan's Under Glass thread with a few more photos. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/125734-customized-1940-ford-sedan-more-trophy-series-fun/

That's a terrific build! You did such a smooth job with the conversion that I'm afraid a lot of people might look at it and not realize what you did. Those with a good eye will really appreciate it.

Those of you who are regulars to the Under Glass forum may have been noticing this plate on many of my builds for some time now: I wanted to explore the possibilities of the earliest AMT Trophy Series kits - the first six that all came out in 1959 and 1960. They really were the foundation of the hot rod/customizing portion of the model car hobby and introduced the ideas of multiple parts options, engine swaps and the possibility to build a kit almost anywhere along the spectrum from stock to all out race or custom. Of course, they were simple (sometimes even primitive) by today's standards but they were a revolution at the time. These were the first six kits in what I think is the correct order of release: 1932 Ford roadster (1959) 1925 Model T Ford - a double kit, builds two complete cars (1959) 1940 Ford coupe (1959) 1932 Ford coupe (1960) 1939/40 Ford sedan (1960) 1936 Ford coupe/roadster (1960) Looking over that list, I realized that those are the cars that were also the foundation of the real 1:1 hot rod world. The cars you might see being driven by the members of one of the hot rod clubs that flourished at that time. So, a project was born. I present, at last, the seven (remember the '25 T was a double kit) charter members of the Tomkats Kar Klub. And here they are one at a time. '32 Ford roadster (this one's a box art build): '25 Ford roadster: '25 Ford coupe: '40 Ford coupe: '32 Ford coupe: '40 Ford sedan: '36 Ford coupe: There may be future members added but this completes the original concept - time a to do some change of pace builds!

No, I didn't do a build thread but I'll try to dig put some photos from other builds where I used tuck 'n roll and make a little tutorial in the Tips and Tricks section.

This is a compliment that really counts! I hope that one day I can paint like you, John. Until then, it's just beginner's luck sometimes.

Gee! Thanks to everyone for all the great compliments. Maybe I like it better now.

Here's a build of AMT's '32 Coupe, one the earliest of the Trophy Series hot rod kits. It was first released in 1960. I wish I had gone a little wilder with this one but I guess it came out pretty nice for a basic street rod from back in the day.