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Ever since I mastered and cast this L88 hood for the 1970-72 Monte Carlo, I’ve been itching to build a “what if” Baldwin Motion Monte Carlo. I know Baldwin Motion never offered to modify the Monte Carlo when they were due. I’m hoping this will follow in the spirit of a Motion type build. The tires are from the Baldwin Motion 1971 Camaro. I cast these slotted wheels for my Baldwin Motion Phase III Corvettes. I felt that the Buick GSX deck lid spoiler fit the Monte Carlo pretty well! I’m thinking of using the GSX chin spoiler too. I look at it this way, if Baldwin Motion could get a Chevrolet Biscayne to do the quarter mile in 11 1/2 seconds, the Monte Carlo could’ve been done too. I’m going to send these pictures to Joel tonight and see what he thinks. I’m also going to ask him if there was a reason behind excluding the Monte Carlo from the line up. As always questions and comments are welcome.

Hey, everyone!, I recently had an old friend move here from Santa Cruz, California. We use to build together over a decade ago, and now he wants to start it up again! I asked him which car he wanted to build, and he chose AMT's 1970 Baldwin Motion Camaro, so that's what we're doing. I mostly build exotics, but I do have a TON of muscle car kits, this however, will be my very first GM build.....i'm pretty stoked!! The 1970 Camaro is my favorite year for that car, in fact, 1970 was the BEST year for muscle cars from ALL the manufacturers! If you are familiar with how I build, this will come as no surprise....its almost imposable for me to NOT change things. This is no exception, lol. He will build his in a more traditional Hot rod way, which I will also post here as we go. Heres a riddle for mine; what do you get when mix the following cars, and styles together?...

Everything under the skin of the new Revell 68 Chevelle is so nice, I figured I would beat Revell to the punch and use it to make a decent 1970 Chevelle. I’ve always thought the Revell snaps-tight Chevelle had a wel proportioned body, high detail door panels, and its super smooth! So out came my cut off wheel, razor saws and sanding sticks! Here is where I’m at so far. I started by checking the fit of the floor pan assembly. It fit like a glove! Then, I carefully removed the hood with the back of a #11 technique. I removed the upper cowl from the 68 and mounted it in the 70. To locate it properly, I tacked the 68 interior together with the firewall in place too. Positioned the upper cowl in line with the firewall and tacked it to the fenders. Then I swapped out in the inner fender sides to give the hood something to sit on. Satisfied with that start, I moved to the interior. I cut out the floor of the 70 first, then slowly started sanding the bottom of the rear seat until it sat in the right position. I built off the rear seat with the interior sides to the dashboard. Then after numerous test fits with the 68 floor, sanding, fitting and sanding some more.... I got it in place and in line with the firewall again! That’s where it stands right now. I have to find my L88 hood for the 70 now. I mastered and cast it for the AMT 70 Chevelle years ago and I think it will fit with a little modification. If not, it will give up it’s scoop to make a new one. Hope you like it, and maybe try this yourself! Questions and comments always welcome.

While looking for the resin 1970 L88 Motion hood I made years ago, I found this old body from around 1995. At one time it was used as a master to cast Baldwin Motion Phase III GT Corvettes. They were for me and Joel exclusively. At one time it was a finished replica of the car he bought back from a Hollywood lot. It was in all the Corvette magazines in 1992. I went to a shop in New Jersey that was doing a frame on restoration with Joel in his 5.0 Mustang convertible to check progress. Today the car is in Dan McMichael’s collection and has been on My Classic Car. An interesting story about this gold Corvette. While I was at the shop in New Jersey, Joel and the shop owner we’re looking at pictures of a phase 3 Corvette that was blue with white accents and the Shelby scoops. Joel was trying to decide whether or not it might have been a car that he built. Looking over their shoulder’s I noticed that it had two slotted taillights. Joel said it looked like something he might’ve done but never did one in that color. I said it’s probably the gold one in the magazine article that you took pictures of when it was new. It has two taillights also. It dawned on Joel that it was the same car repainted a number of times. Because flipping through the pictures he had, they were pictures of it red with white accents. That car has since been restored back to gold with black accents and was auctioned off on one of the Barrett Jackson auctions a number of years ago. This is one of Joe’s first phase 3 GT Corvettes. It was featured at the Waldorf Astoria auto show in 1969. Zora Arkus-Duntov loved this car! I resin cast a full bumper front end conversion kit for the Camaro 15 years ago. Wish I knew were that mold went! This green Camaro is the oldest, completed Motion build I still have. Built in 2000, it is my first base/clear attempt. This red Manta Ray was a curbside resin kit I was selling around 2001. This model went to Joel. These two are across the room right now and I have a third in red again, awaiting clear. Joel only built 3 Manta Rays, so I will have a replica of each! This one is the Motion Moray. I presently sits in clay to make a mold of the body! This a Motion Nova hiding on my desk. Hope you like them! Any questions or comments are welcome! Back to the 1968 Baldwin Motion Chevelle!

After finishing the Buick GSX, I was eager to start on the brand new 1968 Chevelle from Revell. Almost 20 years ago I painted a couple cars that were to replicate a pair of Baldwin Motion cars sold ordered by Roberto Schneider. The Camaro cost $9,300 and the Chevelle was over $7,000! The Chevelle was used by Mr. Schneider to flat tow the Camaro to Texas and eventually into Mexico. I’ve always wanted to build the pair in towing configuration and was well on my way when a couple problems arose with the Chevelle. #1 was the tail lights. They are very inaccurate. #2 was, the stipe I laid down was much narrower on the hood than the rest of the car. This fustration sidelined the project for a long time. After realizing that the new Revell Chevelle will probably be released as a 1969 down the road, I decided to continue to wait on this project. In the meantime, my love for Motion cars steered me towards what I think is the “prototype” Baldwin Motion Phase III Chevelle. One reason I believe it is the prototype is the hood. It’s the only one I have seen with Corvette scoop with no stinger portion on top of the Chevelle SS hood! The “production” fiberglass hoods were the full stinger on a flat Chevelle hood. I spoke with Joel Rosen a couple weeks ago but didn’t ask him about the 68. I have an email in to him to see if my suspicions are correct. In the meantime I started getting stuff together for this project. And here is where I’m at. The stinger scoop is from the 1967 Nickey Camaro, side exhaust is from the 1969 Motion Camaro and the wheels are from EBay. Any questions and comments are welcome!

I’ve built this Corvette in around 1992 to 1995. I had met Joel Rosen at that time and he suggested I try building his car. He had just bought it back and was having it restored. I may have mentioned all this in a previous post. I decided to give it a mild restoration myself. I didn’t touch the bodywork at all. It’s got a couple cracks. But I’m going to leave it alone. The striping on the side isn’t quite right, and a couple other little things. This Corvette Phase III GT represented the most expensive Phase III GT ever built. It had to be billed twice because while sitting on the lot waiting for delivery, the car next to it caught fire and burned it to the ground. So he built the second one to send to the buyer. So I will build a second one also. More to come!

Going to combine these two to make a 1974 T-Top Corvette.

I wish that I could find an accompanying article for this sad bit of news , but I have only got first-hand news from Martyn L. Schorr : Joe Oldham passed away late last week . Many of you may recognise Oldham from his (in)famous road tests and articles about Muscle Cars back in the 60's and 70's , in addition to Oldham's ties with Baldwin Motion ; he worked for the aforementioned Schorr at High Performance CARS magazine . As new info comes in , I will update this post . R.I.P. , Joe . Here's a direct-link to the article in Hemmings Motor News https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2017/10/30/joe-oldham-consummate-car-guy-and-hemmings-columnist-rip/comment-page-1/#comment-10535420